Do We Still Need Religion?

In 2018, archaeologists moving bodies for reburial from a 19th-century cemetery in Birmingham to make way for the new HS2 station were puzzled to find several that had plates on their laps. Then someone remembered a curious custom from the nearby Welsh Marches -- that of the village "sin-eater". A plate of bread and salt would be placed on the deceased's lap while they were lying in repose. Just before the coffin was closed and the funeral cortege set off for the church, the village sin-eater arrived, ate the bread and was given some coins and a glass of ale for their trouble. The belief was that the deceased's sins were absorbed by the salt and transferred into the bread, and then into the sin-eater.