Animal Representations

I think that going about these various animal representations in a religious way makes sense in a religious studies course. And well of course these representations of animals could have been for religious purposes, however we have no idea what was going on at that time. These various animal representations could have no relationship to anything religious at all. I think that as a religious course we are looking for the religious connections in everything, but everything doesn't need to be religious. And there may well be things that we look closer at that are indeed not religious at all whether we know it to be or not. I think that not everything has to be religious at all.
These representations of animals whether they are mounds, paintings, or names of sports clubs may have nothing religious about them at all. True they are symbols of some sort so according to Geertz, this is religion. I do believe that these animal representations "established powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations," however, symbols are things that represent other things. However, what they represent may or may not be religious. These activities in the past, the mounds and the paintings, could have been just for the fun of it with no religious intentions at all. These days we have so much technologies to occupy our time with so perhaps this was their way of passing time in the past since they had no such devices as we do now.
The animal representations in sports clubs today are indeed symbols, but I see these symbols representing nothing religious at all. I see the example of the Chicago Bears as an excellent one. I believe that the bear for the Chicago Bears is a symbol that represents strength which is nothing religious at all. The bear is a big animal, so this sports team being the bears says that they, the players, are big as well which is true and has no relation to being religious at all. I think that there may not be any religious significance in the representations of animals because what they are used for to represent are mainly the specific traits and characteristics that the particular animal represents.