Niaid: Why aren’t we trying to get some help on it? Sometimes we might want to sleep late or we might be busy at sunset.
Me: Proselytising and zeal are consequences of an erosion of faith. Nobody needs to shout from the rooftops, “Hey everyone! The sun’s going down this evening. The sun’s about to come up!” Nobody on earth does that because they have faith it’s going to happen.
Niaid: So why do we do it then?
Me: Of respect. A demonstration of our faith, tipping the figurative hat to Truth. We don’t need to recruit anyone to the cause because we know it’s already taken care of.
Niaid: Then why do they do it on other matters they have faith in?
Me: I said it before. Erosion of faith. Think about it. The ancient Jews were never evangelical. They didn’t need to be. They had complete confidence in their God. But when Christianity came along, the situation for Christians became an entirely different problem with a different solution. They were the new kids on the block. They were mostly Jews. They’d spent their entire lives being indoctrinated to the Jewish faith. They needed numbers. Groups of other people believing the same as they did to help boost their own confidence what they believed was actually true.
Niaid: All zealotry is from an erosion of faith?
Me: Every time.
Niaid: Patriotic zeal?
Me: Think about it. Before the Civil War they weren’t posturing and flag waving. They knew what they were and mistrusted the people running things, but they never doubted what they believed themselves to be. But after the Civil War the whole question about what this nation is took on new meaning. It needed bolstering. Parades. Shouting from rooftops. Fireworks.
Niaid: Needed it why?
Me: They needed it to take the minds of the defeated half of the country that they’d been forced at gunpoint to be a part of something they fought hard to separate themselves from. After the Civil War the country never again had faith in itself because everyone in it knew the premise the nation was founded on was violated. Dead.
Niaid: So the reason we pray Old Sol up and down is our way of saying we know it’s going to come up and go down?
Me: Yep. And we know damned well it doesn’t need any extra votes to force it to do it. We know it will come up the same, whatever Christians, Jews, Muslems, and anyone else might do in their praying trying to stop it. We’ve got right on our side.
Old Jules
So Far From Heaven 
