"Religion consists of those actions, purposes, and experiences which are humanly significant" - Humanist Manifesto I
Humanism is perhaps the single most pervasive thought of Western Culture at present. The motions and passions of life in the Western world are decidedly humanistic, in as much as they follow this tennant of the humanist religion: Religious Humanism considers the complete realization of human personality to be the end of man's life. Or put more practically: the end of all being is the hapiness of man.
If religous humanism is the prevailing thought of Western life, then it may be that tattoos, or marking one's flesh with needles and ink, is it's sacred art.
The human body is yet the temple of the humanist diety, but the god inside has been there since birth.
Since, as the humanist manifesto put it: Religion consists of what is humanly significant, and human beings, left without God to define significance and reality for them must define it each one for themselves, it easily follows that the personal and unique expressions of marking flesh with ink in art, is the self-worshiping act of devotion and sacred creativity as popular as it is today.
Marking flesh, paying homage, to the god inside the body - the lowly, but exalted human diety.
Mankind can never rise above what it worships.
Psalm 115:1-8.
upfromthedust.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/the-art-of-humanism