people need rituals and ceremonies. If they didn't exist people would make them eventually.

I personally believe that people need rituals, ceremonies, and all cultural traditions because these are parts of our social Identity and help us keep intact our social integrity and confidence.

Human race is inherently social and sociable. Living in large groups, there should be a glue to adhere the isolated members of each group to one another in a meaningful fashion. No doubt, a group of people that act as a unity is composed of a variety of individuals and the average behavior of its members is equal to the overall average behaviors of that society.

Traditions have their roots in people's primary and basic need of identity. Although rituals can bring people close together and improve their social contacts, they primarily also have a symbolic meaning for all who are involved in.

From the very beginning, humans tried to answer their basic questions mostly via myths and symbols. These questions asked about their identity; "who am I?", "where I am from?", and "what is my destination?" Therefore, tracing back the history of rituals and ceremonies, the symbolic roots of them will be seen originated from the common perception of people, common questions, and common answers.

Besides the symbolic role of traditional events, one of the prominent functions of them is making people close around a generally understood core issue. In this way, people feel how united and similar they are. Having a common interpretation of the symbolized event, they all have relatively same perception of the so-called event and can communicate about it.

To sum it up, rituals or ceremonies are necessities of a human society. They try to symbolize the answers to human being's original questions about their identity and characteristics while help them to find themselves as a unity. Thus, these traditions make up the cultural identity of a specific society.