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> Most religions have attempted to build their sanctuaries on prominent heights to be visible to all the faithful. Most? Can we even count religions?

8bitsrule 4y ago
AFAIK we can't even count 'temples', a word archeologists frequently ascribe to buildings of many sizes with nary a shred of evidence that they're not community centers, beer halls, warehouses or king's palaces. A century ago it was 'obvious' that Giza was covered with gigantic 'tombs'. Among the hazards in viewing mysterious, undocumented past civilizations through culturally-conditioned eyes.
- christophilus 4y ago
  I was thinking the same thing. 4000 years from now, someone will discover the goddess “Statue of Liberty” submerged in the Atlantic: There were many tall temples built to worship her. Made of steel, concrete, and glass— presumably the glass allowed priests to gaze out at the monolithic goddess as they ascended to the tops of the towers. Some of these temples even had pools of water on the rooftops. That, plus the fact that the goddess was on her own island, makes it clear that Liberty was a water goddess.
  - JetAlone 4y ago
    It's interesting that you bring up the Statue of Liberty. In Japanese she is called "自由の女神", "Jiyuu no Megami" which can be translated as "Goddess of Freedom". So future anthropologists with a limited snapshot of Japanese culture could find a picture of the Statue of Liberty captioned in Japanese, and conclude she was explicitly considered a goddess or divine spirit of sorts. I think it's worth pointing out, too, the Statue of Liberty is one of the icons of what scholars of religious studies call the "American Civil Religion". In terms of 1700s liberalism, she carries a torch, a "sacred fire" of liberty (I get vibes of prometheus, or the raven who brought down the sun) from France where the first massive liberal revolution took place, to America, home of the second revolutionary liberal state. I think American Civil Religion is about the tradition and growth of the US "distro" of liberalism. Another major landmark, the Temple of Abraham Lincoln gives us an ascended figure from a story of how liberalism is supposed to have beaten the deeply contradictory institution of slavery that inhabited it. Mt. Rushmore immortalizes 4 founding fathers, etc.
    - 8bitsrule 4y ago
      Thanks for sharing those thoughts. Many European immigrants arriving in NY's harbor to be admitted (often to get their names changed for them by 'helpful' officers) probably got more than a bit emotional seeing this great sculpture promising them a better future. Many had made a long sea-voyage after leaving their families behind. One of them was my 16-year-old grandmother; her only companion chickened-out at the last minute. They faced an unknown future armed only with promises. Liberty's very substantial promise (different to each of them) wasn't always kept, but no doubt many of them felt better about their brave choice.
JetAlone 4y ago
I tried to remember some counterexamples etc. When I think of a deliberately subterranean sanctuary, I imagine Christian catacomb churches, something selected out of necessity and later revered for the legend of the struggle. Anchorites would often live underground in cells. Egyptian tombs were places of a intense, one-time devotion for upper-level hierarchs, I should think? Then sealed-off. Many Japanese temples are built on mountaintops, and major mountain rages around the world are usually host to monasteries as quiet places of contemplation. Oftentimes a temple not built in a high place is in some other manner auspicious. In East Asia, "Ley Lines" play an important role in where to place a temple. Very small Zoroastrian fire temples were usually placed as community hubs - they look just a little taller than surrounding buildings in some photos but I'm less certain height was such a concern? I remember seeing a documentary where a very revered fire that has been burning for hundreds or thousands of years if not, (perhaps only apocryphally), for as long as Zorastrianism has existed is in something of a pit carved into the side of a cliff. I'm going to aim as far back as we've got records, to Gobekli Tepe and give an excerpt from Wikipedia: "Göbekli Tepe is located in the Taş Tepeler ('Stone Hills'), in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains.[24] It overlooks the Harran plain and the headwaters of the Balikh River, a tributary of the Euphrates.[24] The site is a tell (artificial mound) situated on a flat limestone plateau.[25] In the north, the plateau is connected to the neighbouring mountains by a narrow promontory. In all other directions, the ridge descends steeply into slopes and steep cliffs." Caveat: This was thousands of years ago so the geology could have been somewhat different. But it was probably a high place albeit not the very highest. A local raised formation. The conclusion I feel comfortable making is, a great deal of factors go into deciding where to place a religious sanctuary. Where we put the temple, how big we build it, what we put in it is all about the meaning to us (so long as we're not driven underground, or far-afield by persecutors). But I'll unfold my "evolutionary religious studies" lawnchair/armchair to say it seems to me like surviving systems converge on the importance of height, and I think that's because what height tends to means to us (strength for a difficult climb, solitude for contemplation, vision of our surroundings, visibility from afar) are very worthy ideals that help us survive as societies and individudals. But also worth considering is; control of high places correlates to control of a large enough territory to agriculturally support heavier development up there. The dominant worldview model can eventually gain access to high places and when it does, it has the capacity to build its temples/monastic communities there.

8bitsrule 4y ago

AFAIK we can't even count 'temples', a word archeologists frequently ascribe to buildings of many sizes with nary a shred of evidence that they're not community centers, beer halls, warehouses or king's palaces. A century ago it was 'obvious' that Giza was covered with gigantic 'tombs'. Among the hazards in viewing mysterious, undocumented past civilizations through culturally-conditioned eyes.

christophilus 4y ago
I was thinking the same thing. 4000 years from now, someone will discover the goddess “Statue of Liberty” submerged in the Atlantic: There were many tall temples built to worship her. Made of steel, concrete, and glass— presumably the glass allowed priests to gaze out at the monolithic goddess as they ascended to the tops of the towers. Some of these temples even had pools of water on the rooftops. That, plus the fact that the goddess was on her own island, makes it clear that Liberty was a water goddess.
- JetAlone 4y ago
  It's interesting that you bring up the Statue of Liberty. In Japanese she is called "自由の女神", "Jiyuu no Megami" which can be translated as "Goddess of Freedom". So future anthropologists with a limited snapshot of Japanese culture could find a picture of the Statue of Liberty captioned in Japanese, and conclude she was explicitly considered a goddess or divine spirit of sorts. I think it's worth pointing out, too, the Statue of Liberty is one of the icons of what scholars of religious studies call the "American Civil Religion". In terms of 1700s liberalism, she carries a torch, a "sacred fire" of liberty (I get vibes of prometheus, or the raven who brought down the sun) from France where the first massive liberal revolution took place, to America, home of the second revolutionary liberal state. I think American Civil Religion is about the tradition and growth of the US "distro" of liberalism. Another major landmark, the Temple of Abraham Lincoln gives us an ascended figure from a story of how liberalism is supposed to have beaten the deeply contradictory institution of slavery that inhabited it. Mt. Rushmore immortalizes 4 founding fathers, etc.
  - 8bitsrule 4y ago
    Thanks for sharing those thoughts. Many European immigrants arriving in NY's harbor to be admitted (often to get their names changed for them by 'helpful' officers) probably got more than a bit emotional seeing this great sculpture promising them a better future. Many had made a long sea-voyage after leaving their families behind. One of them was my 16-year-old grandmother; her only companion chickened-out at the last minute. They faced an unknown future armed only with promises. Liberty's very substantial promise (different to each of them) wasn't always kept, but no doubt many of them felt better about their brave choice.

JetAlone 4y ago

I tried to remember some counterexamples etc. When I think of a deliberately subterranean sanctuary, I imagine Christian catacomb churches, something selected out of necessity and later revered for the legend of the struggle. Anchorites would often live underground in cells. Egyptian tombs were places of a intense, one-time devotion for upper-level hierarchs, I should think? Then sealed-off. Many Japanese temples are built on mountaintops, and major mountain rages around the world are usually host to monasteries as quiet places of contemplation. Oftentimes a temple not built in a high place is in some other manner auspicious. In East Asia, "Ley Lines" play an important role in where to place a temple. Very small Zoroastrian fire temples were usually placed as community hubs - they look just a little taller than surrounding buildings in some photos but I'm less certain height was such a concern? I remember seeing a documentary where a very revered fire that has been burning for hundreds or thousands of years if not, (perhaps only apocryphally), for as long as Zorastrianism has existed is in something of a pit carved into the side of a cliff. I'm going to aim as far back as we've got records, to Gobekli Tepe and give an excerpt from Wikipedia: "Göbekli Tepe is located in the Taş Tepeler ('Stone Hills'), in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains.[24] It overlooks the Harran plain and the headwaters of the Balikh River, a tributary of the Euphrates.[24] The site is a tell (artificial mound) situated on a flat limestone plateau.[25] In the north, the plateau is connected to the neighbouring mountains by a narrow promontory. In all other directions, the ridge descends steeply into slopes and steep cliffs." Caveat: This was thousands of years ago so the geology could have been somewhat different. But it was probably a high place albeit not the very highest. A local raised formation. The conclusion I feel comfortable making is, a great deal of factors go into deciding where to place a religious sanctuary. Where we put the temple, how big we build it, what we put in it is all about the meaning to us (so long as we're not driven underground, or far-afield by persecutors). But I'll unfold my "evolutionary religious studies" lawnchair/armchair to say it seems to me like surviving systems converge on the importance of height, and I think that's because what height tends to means to us (strength for a difficult climb, solitude for contemplation, vision of our surroundings, visibility from afar) are very worthy ideals that help us survive as societies and individudals. But also worth considering is; control of high places correlates to control of a large enough territory to agriculturally support heavier development up there. The dominant worldview model can eventually gain access to high places and when it does, it has the capacity to build its temples/monastic communities there.