There are many different temples, or places of worship, all over the world. In class we merely went over Five of some of the most well know ones. All of which, if you didn't notice, are HUGE!
Starting with the Brihadisvara Temple. This is a Hindu temple that is Dedicated to Shiva. The main section of this temple is 63 meters high, that is somewhere around 189+ feet. It has 16 stories, all of which are very easily seen. This temple is supposed to be hollow and no one is allowed inside.
The next to look at is the Temple of Karnak. IT is 5400 feet long and it is the largest ancient religious site in the world says wikipedia. It is about 200 acres and there are several temples within this massive space. The main section is a temple dedicated to the Got Amun-Re
The Ka'aba is a Islamic Mosque. It is 43 feet tall and its sides are 36 feet by 42 feet. It is almost like a giant cube. It is the most holy site in all of Islam and it is like the Brihadisvara where that it is basically hollow and people are rarely in it.
The Christians have very many sacred spaces. One of the largest is the Chartres Cathedral. It has two tall spires, one that measure about 349 feet and the other is about 377 feet. The church itself takes up 117,060 square feet of space.
Then there is the Parthenon. The Parthenon is a Greek building that was once very sacred. It is 98 feet wide and 226 feet long. It was the largest out of all the other temples that surrounded it. This temple was dedicated to the Greek God Athena.
All of these places are massive. Has anyone ever just asked why? Why are all these places so big? I think that it is for several reasons. These religions and the people of them want to draw people in. They don't want to have some dinky little places. If their sacred places are large then it will draw people in. If they are beautiful, with etching on all the walls and columns like Karnak, or if they have enchanting stained glass windows like the Chartres then people will want to go there, and not just go there, but they will want to be a part of that religion.
Another thought be this: when you think of your God, what do you think of? For Christans it might a giant man in the sky with a long white beard. For the Muslims it might be something similar. For the Egptians their God Amun-Re what huge, they made giant statues of him. For the Greek all their Gods where supposed to be HUGE! Their true form was so great that if a mortal laid eyes on them while in this state they would be vaporized.
Is the size of these temples supposed to be compensating for the actual lack of size of these Gods, or are they so big to compensate for the LACK of any God at all?
Robert Green Ingersoll said, "The hands that help are better far than lips that pray. Nothing could be more idiotic and absurd than the doctrine of the trinity."
I think that if the world had worried more about helping each other there would be less filth and less poverty and such if instead of building these almost entirely useless buildings the peoples just did something constructive.
In short, I feel that these large areas are compensating for the lakc of size of a god, lack of power, or just plain lack of even existing.
It's very interesting that you posted this, because the point of mankind being attracted to "big" things has always been a dominant belief in society. I believe that these temples were made large by their creators not just to draw people in, but to create a landmark for which other societies might be jealous. Maybe people thought the more grand their temples became, the more the gods might favor them.
ReplyDeleteHmmm, I do think you bring up good points, but I have to question if people are actually trying to compensate for anything. I agree with Holly's point, to be honest. These temples, churches, et cetra are made large not to over compensate, but to draw attention to them, to act as landmarks, and to attract believers. Temples have been built to please the Gods. If we were to, say, build a small church, decorate it with nothing, ensure that it was never seen by people, who that please a God? Gods of the past are known to be egotistical. Would any of them have been pleased with what I have described? They would want something as grand as they were.
ReplyDeleteIt's intriguing to think that places of worship have historically been compromised by appealing to human greed. While none of the builders of these temples were hanging about thinking verbatim, "You know, we might have to compensate our lack of gods by building this a bit higher," I think it's a natural assumption that somewhere along the line, especially because only the Greeks were pagans, there was a notion to build bigger and better to gain belief. Personally, I have a visceral response to my synagogue whenever I gaze upon it, and for a moment I forget that I'm an atheist because there's something divine in beauty like nothing else.
ReplyDeleteAnd then I remember that the Old Testament is only 5771 years old in contrast to the 4.567 billion years projected by scientists, and I realize my appreciation of the big tent of Jacob in Keene is compensation for feeling like a hypocrite. Humans create manifestos, governments, political parties, conspiracies, religion, and sacred spaces in order to compensate for the fact that Man, shepherd of all the world, dies all the same as the beetles and the birds. We compensate in all aspects of life, so why is a place of worship any different?