In a society that cares little about the notion of a pure inner life, a clean body must do. And there's no higher ideal in America right now than the athletic body, muscled, toned, hard. The Olympics are nothing if not a pagan celebration of the body, as close to the original Greek nude version as possible. PNS editor Richard Rodriguez, author of "Days of Obligation," is a regular essayist for PBS's The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.

Paganism is everywhere on the rise in America. But even pantheistic environmentalists must be humbled by the pagan excess of the Olympics.

For months before our modern Greek festival of abs and pecs opened in Atlanta, we had to endure the progress of the "eternal flame." There it went, from city to city. Local mayors and high school track stars were only too happy to parade through the streets carrying that damn torch.

No one has ever explained to me what is so "eternal" about the eternal flame.

Two years ago, at the Winter Olympics, Tonya Harding taught America some valuable lessons about the reality of international athletic competition. We hated Tonya, of course. But she was a truer descendant of the Greek games than we would like to believe.

Historians will tell you that the ancient Greeks were not the idealistic athletes that we like to imagine. The ancient games were not so much a simple celebration of amateurism and sportsmanship as they were a celebration of male nudity. Even the barbarians were scandalized by Greek nakedness.

More importantly, the Greek festivals that began in the eighth century B.C. deepened the animosity between city states, were often characterized by cheating athletes, and there was no glory ever that attached to the loser -- you got the gold or you got nothing but shame.

Increasing numbers of Americans seem not believe in anything remotely like the soul anymore. There is only the body. Matter. So the highest ideal must be the athletic body, muscled, toned, hard. For weeks we have been seeing various swimmers and track stars in magazines with not much more on their beautiful bodies than a Speedo.

Mark my words: Once the gold gets distributed, the winners' beautiful sweating bodies will be plastered on billboards, courtesy of Evian Water. In a society that cares little about the notion of a pure inner life, a clean body must do.

Even while that eternal flame was wending its tiresome way toward Atlanta, athletes were already being disqualified for steroids. A U.S. coach was on television the other night complaining about the Chinese athletes' use of "performance-enhancing" drugs.

When I was a kid, I remember the local newspaper used to put the number of Soviet medals versus the number of U.S. medals in a box on the front page. That's what the Olympics came down to -- the Cold War as a basketball game.

Now, of course, it's million dollar basketball players impersonating "amateur athletes" and monstrous prepubescent gymnasts with pitiless eyes competing to be the new Nadia.

Who will be the new Nadia?

There are agents all over Atlanta waiting to see. Become a winner (only the gold standard matters) and you'll get some sort of contract from Nike or Coke -- the gods of commerce.

It's all a human business. Nothing very noble about any of it. Yet the Olympics gets clothed in fake pagan ideals, courtesy of Delta Airlines, the official carrier.

Torches; white pigeons flying over black Atlanta; Gloria Estefan singing this year's official Olympic song ...

"Let the games begin!" Please, God, let's get it all over with.

One of these years, somebody's going to get the idea of nude competitions. After all, if it was good enough for those pagan Greeks, it should be good enough for us.