What is a temple to you?

[Bishka]

It doesn't have to be a specific religions temple, but there are a few questions we could discuss.

• What is a temple to you?
• What does it signify?
• If you believe in them, why are they important to you?

Oh, and please let's keep in civil and courteous.

 

[Katzpur]

It doesn't have to be a specific religions temple, but there are a few questions we could discuss.

• What is a temple to you?
• What does it signify?
• If you believe in them, why are they important to you?

Oh, and please let's keep in civil and courteous.

This is a debate, Becky? Okay...

To me a temple is the House of the Lord. It's the place where I make sacred covenants with Him.

 

[Bishka]

This is a debate, Becky? Okay...

To me a temple is the House of the Lord. It's the place where I make sacred covenants with Him.

Whoops! Could a mod so kindly put this in discussion, to be honest, I'm not even sure why it is in debates!

 

[Djamila]

It a cultural sense, it's an anchor for the community. It's like the "Welcome to Home" sign you see every day, and all that implies.

In a religious sense, my mosque is... many things. It's like a assembly line for ritual. All of the ritualistic things you need to do are easily accomodated, more so than at home. It makes it easier because everyone is moving along. It's also a place where the atmosphere, the spirit, is one of faith. You can't pray in a crowded airport and at a mosque and compare the two. It's just not the same.

The building itself is much more important to me culturally than religiously, but it's sacred to both.

 

[eudaimonia]

What is a temple to you?

A temple is a building dedicated to a sacred value. A sacred value is an end-in-itself that ought to be cherished, defended, and never given up for another value. And so a temple is a way of experiencing and honoring that sacred value, and asserting its importance in the world and in one's life.

If you believe in them, why are they important to you?

I personally would love to have a temple dedicated for some eudaimonistic value. The reason is based on what I wrote above. I wish to be reminded of my sacred values, and building a temple is like an act of self-assertion in the world.

Here is an example of an as-yet unbuilt temple that would do excellently as one of my temples. It is Frederick Clifford Gibson's The Temple of Triumph.

eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[cardero]

“This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.”
– H.H. the Dalai Lama

 

[eudaimonia]

“This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.”
– H.H. the Dalai Lama

I agree with the Dalai Lama, if he is referring to the way that people can become overly dependent on temples, assigning them an importance beyond that which they deserve. However, I disagree with him that there is no need for them. Of course there is a need -- or else no one would build them. They satisfy a psychological need. But the lack of them does not prevent a good life, of course.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[RevOxley_501]

i believe we are our own temples---much like the Dalai Lama--churches and temples are yet another force of religion that ruin the world.

 

[cardero]

They satisfy a psychological need.

In some cases a very costly psychological need.

 

[Scuba Pete]

I am a temple.

I Corinthians 6:19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. NIV

 

[Mike182]

• What is a temple to you? any place i feel safe, warm and loved. home, in the arms of a friend or a lover, in prayer with my Gods.
• What does it signify? that through all the pain in this world, there is a goodness to it all.
• If you believe in them, why are they important to you? because i like feeling safe, warm and loved

 

[Kay]

It doesn't have to be a specific religions temple, but there are a few questions we could discuss.

• What is a temple to you?
• What does it signify?
• If you believe in them, why are they important to you?

Oh, and please let's keep in civil and courteous.

I think of my body, the world, the entire cosmos as a temple. In particular though, if I really want to "get serious" and connect with Divinity, I just drive up the road into the Rocky Mountains.

 

[eudaimonia]

In some cases a very costly psychological need.

So? Everyone must decide how much their temples are worth to them, just as they decide how much libraries, schools, etc, are worth to them.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[cardero]

So? Everyone must decide how much their temples are worth to them, just as they decide how much libraries, schools, etc, are worth to them.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Compared to the worth of human life I do not see how this decision can be so difficult to make. Schools will also be contemplating this decision in the ensuing years.

 

[eudaimonia]

Compared to the worth of human life I do not see how this decision can be so difficult to make.

Sacred values are what makes human life worth living. And so the decision is not as easy as you might think.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Guitar's Cry]

There's a forest out back of my childhood home where I used to go to growing up. It was a sanctuary in every sense of the word; there, I could be alone, and feel close to the divinity of Nature. It was pure, untouched, wild spirit to me. If I had to choose a sacred spot, that would be it. It's still the place where I feel most safe, and my preferred spot for meditation (when I can get there).

 

[cardero]

Sacred values are what makes human life worth living. And so the decision is not as easy as you might think.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Yes but you cannot practice sacred values if you are dead. To me anyone who places a $40 million dollar value on a mosque, temple, cathedral, church, hall while others bodily temples are homeless, starving, or in sickness doesn’t fully understand the meaning of the word sacred.

 

[eudaimonia]

Yes but you cannot practice sacred values if you are dead. To me anyone who places a $40 million dollar value on a mosque, temple, cathedral, church, hall while others bodily temples are homeless, starving, or in sickness doesn’t fully understand the meaning of the word sacred.

So, no one should donate money to building projects until there is no more starvation or homelessness in the world? I find that this sort of objection degenerates into an absurd egalitarianism if taken the whole way. Do you have a home computer? Go out to restaurants at all? Have a television? Are you evil because you didn't give the money you used to buy such things to charity instead?

Besides, buildings may help keep people inspired and involved in the religion and raise more money for charity in the long run, if that is your focus.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[kiwimac]

A former Prime Minister of NZ, David Lange, was attending a dinner function here in NZ. Sitting beside him was the well-known (In NZ anyway) cartoonist and raconteur Tom Scott. At the end of the dinner the post-prandial (had to get it in somewhere ) chocolates were being handed round.

When the waiter came to Scott, he waved them off saying " No more for me, my body is a temple." to which David Lange said " pass them here, mine's a warehouse!"

This is, of course, a view I can ascribe to! :yes:

Mazdayasnans have 'Fire Temples' in which the flame reminds us of Mazda Ahura's purity and warmth, here rituals are performed but they can equally be performed in the believers own home so it is not where they are done that is so much important as that they are done.

A temple then for us is good and useful but not overwhelmingly important. IMO

 

[lunamoth]

I am a temple.

I Corinthians 6:19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. NIV

This is what I was going to say. Furbals NetDoc.

Church buildings are not temples and the only temples in Christianity are as Pete says, our bodies. Church buildings can be beautiful and inspiring but on the whole I think too much is spent on them. In some cases they are really albatrosses, dwindling congregations spending so much money to keep a lovely gothic building in repair.

I heard an interesting talk today about an outreach project in Haiti to build a school. It is being done through a couple of Episcopal churches hre in CO. The focus was on building the school and providing hot lunches for the students in a (very) rural part of Haiti. To me that school is a kind of temple...an expression of love.

luna