Having read their book a couple of times, I’m not sure their own God would enjoy their architecture very much. Considering we still have a lot of poor people and other issues that they could have been fixing all of these years with their money and time, rather than actively crusading against many of them.
I used to work in churches quite a bit and it's truly fascinating. The one where i live was build in 1810. It's pretty impressive, just to think that this is one of the first things they build back then, and how much labour and dangerous work and money and resurces went into it and how much better it could've been spend. I know it was a different time and having a clock tower and a place to meet people was probably important.
Going in there now is just odd.
30 years ago i didn't know a single person who went to church for their beliefs and as for right now, not a single person goes to church, and hasn't for maybe 10 or 15 years. Even as a 8 year old, i found it hard to believe that people really do believe all that, and going in there now, in the year 2024 it's insane. They have all these elaborate paintings with these different saints who have all these very specific super powers. A guy is there to find lost sheeps for example. How can you look at it and don't realise that these were just the first pretty lame avengers.
I agree with you. It is uswful to note church architecture back in its functional roots. It was an institution of knowledge and for some villages the only place to really learn, so it helped stave off fear but also provided a literal safe building before cannons tore down stone walls. It was a symbol and inspired. We have so much art and TV shows and music and games, we are full cups but back than they needed something to inspire and make cohesion in the group. I totally get it both ways, arranging stones in a precise manner might seem like wealth but it's just people being precise and being well trained in their skilled field. They worked slowly and could take decades. In native American tribes on Mississippi they created a 300foot mound with temples, in Athens they built monuments up high.
I honestly think it's odd us humans ARENT trying to be limitless in our inspirational architecture and have left it to capitalism to build . But to your point I think it would be best if we built amazing homeless shelters to inspire rather than amazing churches!
I'm afraid "fake Christians" is a no true Scotsman fallacy. If all the Christians who were not Christlike throughout the last 2000 years were excluded, there would be virtually no Christians. You cannot separate a religion from the atrocities it is responsible for even if those atrocities contradict some of (not all of- read the Old Testament) the teachings contained within their holy text.
I'm gonna say "don't be Dick" is all God is asking of us and leadership seems to enable it. Which is what drove we away from Christianity as a whole. If leadership fails It should die out.
The louder the scream and rant toxic incoherences, the more they drive people away.
The more they drive people away, the louder they scream and rant.
They are long past the point of reason and empathy on either side of the chasm they have mindlessly created. As in: they don't have any, they don't deserve any.
They are the opposite of wisdom, in every single respect.
While wildly optimistic, but that'd be okay by me.
More likely in my mind is that we see a bit of a resurgence in theist structures based in apocalyptic messaging after this downswing as climate change comes along and starts messing with people's lives in a negative way. People will be desperate to attribute some meaning to why their community has no water and wildfires burned their house down.
Don't lump me in with them. I'm a boomer and I hate religion and always have, and I am very glad to see attendance dropping as people wake up to the true horrors of such filth.
This is the best thing I've experienced since I was born into the world 65 years ago. Seeing church attendance going down as people slowly emerge from the dark ages of capitalistic imperialism to the progressive light of the 21st century.
In my hallway are two very important and sacred paintings; one showing the Basilica of St. Peters burning to the ground, and the other showing the pope being set afire with straw stuffed in his mouth and naked asshole.
Religion has and always will be the bane of human society. Worse that any disease, worse than AIDS, worse that the crawling filth that calls itself trump, religion is the true enemy of humanity in every possible way.