Reply #34: Well I don't believe in any gods but I'll try

[dmallind]

Of course the word sacred has meaning to me. As do the words "lycanthrope" or "vampiric". People of all belief systems can and do understand thousands of words related to things they personally believe to be imaginary. So we all I hope know full well what sacred means - something revered as being important to a religious belief (or in the common vernacular any passionately held belief such as Yankee Stadium being "sacred ground"). That feeling, obviously only speaking for me, does not manifest itself in my life in teh religious sense, and only at a minor level in the latter common meaning. I'm an opera nut. La Scala is important to the history of, and current, opera scene. I have been there and was thrilled to see it. I would be upset if it were blown up, moreso than if say a grocery store were, but I realize that is my personal attachment and sentiment rather than any real or immanent special status of the building. Some people of course may be more or less affected, but that is the meaning of sacred that is non-divine.