Sacred Soil? Sentimental bollocks

Yesterday the papers carried stories of "Sacred Soil" being carried from Belgium to the UK.
This has come from the World War 1 battlefields

There was lots of saluting and pageantry, but I cannot see the point, nor can I find any point of reference of this stuff to any system of belief.

Is here a religion that sees soil as sacred? Animism, perhaps, but none of the major religions. Is there a service in the C of E reference books for making soil sacred?

Everywhere I go these days I the UK I see little shrines erected, flowers tied to trees, football shirts, teddy bears etc, commemorating where some unfortunate teenager took a bend too quickly.

Is there a religion in existence that thinks that the site of death has some significance? I can't think of one.

I'd love to know who theses people are erecting the shrines. Has some sociologist done any research?

I wonder if they are a misunderstanding of the roadside shrines seen in Greece, which mark a lucky escape, rather than a death, and serve to give thanks to the saint deemed to have performed the miracle.

Do the people who set up the shrines think the soul of the deceased is hanging around the place of their demise? Have they thought it through at all, I wonder.

Throughout history Leaders, Kings, Queens and dictators have organized ceremonies with the intent of binding the people to the state, or of performing some religious purpose beneficial to the state or ruler.

These ceremonies were generally drawn from the religion underpinning the culture, and they usually made sense. So when the emperor Augustus was deified, the people really believed he had become a god, and there were previous examples in their religion.

Now the UK has no real religion people are just making things up as they go along.
The state shouldn't be paying for "Sacred Soil" it's just some weird PR exercise so David Cameron can demonstrate his "emotional intelligence".

What fascinates me is that these made up ceremonies are increasingly pagan, as if some ancestral memory is stirring. Given enough time will we revert to the religion of our forebears, to Druidism and Norse gods?