ThatFanficGuy and I were talking the other day about doing another one of these threads. I don't want to type up too much in advance, because I kind of want to see what statements come out of this naturally from other Hubski users.
In the past three or four months, I've had probably half a dozen various discussions with people in terms of religions and, for lack of a better term, conspicuous consumption (if someone has a better term, please throw it my way cause that one has a ton of baggage). It ranged from everything from comparing worshiping in a church/mosque/temple etc. versus praying in someone's living room, from simple no frills garbs to colorful and elaborate clothing, and on and on. It was interesting to see what people were comfortable with, what people were uncomfortable with, and why they thought the way they thought about certain things.
So Hubski, your thoughts?
This concept is actually what pushed me very far from religion. I visited Spain and France for two weeks in the summer years back for some religious thing. I visited some of the "sacred" places in the Roman Catholic belief, and it was pretty much then I knew it. You had massive cathedral in poor towns, and while the people struggled here stood these monuments to earthly things. After that I began to question why the church was so dead set on building monuments for God. God is a god, and I can't imagine there being a physical way in existence to laud him that would be sufficient. I took to the simpler forms of faith that there was prayer in good deeds, prayer in loving/respect one another (even when its tougher to do so). Community, meditation, and all of those other things have their place, but I believe there is a lot more to it. I'm a firm believer that expressions of positive emotions in our daily lives is among the strongest ways to worship God.