I’m going to engage in some mild “whatabout”ism regarding our (my?) reaction to the fire in Paris.
Dropping canisters of high explosive onto other people’s holy spots and cultural artifacts is “business as usual” for homo sapiens. Can I say “at least what happened in Paris was an accident?”
A little research tells me that Raqqa, which the US and its allies pretty much bombed flat, had around 60 mosques that were damaged or destroyed, including the Al Quadim (great mosque) and a bunch of churches. There was another famous mosque in Mosul, the Al Nouri, which was also blown up.
(reuters)
It seems, in other words, that these holy places are not loved by the gods. Or, too often, they are hated by other believers.
According to Wikipedia, there are 190+ churches in Paris, and doubtless a few mosques as well. Well, at least they’re not as bad a waste of space as golf.
That looks like a heck of a lot of unpleasant hard work. It appears that they’re rebuilding the dome out of steel-reinforced concrete, which is probably a good idea given the amount of high explosive that gets aimed at mosques in the middle east nowadays. It occurs to me that rebuilding your mosque or temple or church from battle-damage is probably the other characteristic thing one does with one’s temple aside from weddings and the occasional ceremony. As someone pointed out, Notre Dame was under construction or some form of repair for 800 years. That stacks up at par with the Hagia Sophia or Acropolis.
Upon review, I realize that I did not make the connection adequately clear: France’s reaction to the terror attack in Paris of Nov, 2015, was to bomb Raqqa [nyt] – a city full of civilians, just like Paris. I don’t know if the French air strikes hit any mosques; I’m sure the French would claim they were precision strikes that only hit military targets, amirite? As of this morning over $1bn in reconstruction aid has been pledged for Notre Dame, I have no idea how much has been raised to repair the mosques in Mosul and Raqqa.
I hope this does not trigger shouts of “TOO SOON!” but this caption gave me a well-needed laugh yesterday. Maybe my sense of humor needs renovation, too. This is from The Guardian:
That Guardian headline certainly isn’t inaccurate. Notre Dame is a Ship of Theseus anyway, as are most European cathedrals.
It seems like a surprisingly small amount of irreplaceable art was lost, and some contractors will get a steady income while they rebuild the roof. It’s hardly the worst tragedy that’s happened this year, and in the grand scheme the fire will be an entirely forgettable footnote.
I’ll admit I laughed at that caption too.
Actually I do think that churches are a waste of real estate to some extent.
Sure, all art is precious and valuable, but I like some artworks better than others. If artists really wanted to create religious art, they could at least do it Greek-style. Scantily clad Aphrodite or a naked Heracles? Hell yeah, I’ll look at that. In comparison, Christian art fails to impress. Even when Virgin Mary is portrayed as a hot chick, she still has too many clothes on, and that screaming bundle of stinky bodily excretions in her hands is disturbing. And Jesus, well, he’s usually depicted as dead, and I’m not a necrophiliac. Instead of spending their time creating art that promotes a harmful cult, artists could make images that depict non-religious topics.
And then there are the churches themselves. Sure, they are beautiful, but I still feel that they are wasted real estate. Instead of building beautiful churches, architects and builders could make beautiful secular buildings that actually serve a useful purpose for the community. As for the existing churches, those could be repurposed for other uses. The latter is actually already happening in some secular places. As the number of believers plummets and churches become empty, people convert those old buildings to serve various other purposes.
I won’t say that religious art and architecture is entirely wasted effort, because, after all, I still like beautiful things, but I do think that the effort, time, and money that gets spent on churches and religious art could be used for other better purposes instead.
Not ALL religious images are harmful, though. I especially enjoy the images of how us sinners are going to be punished by an ever-loving Gawd. Useful sources of inspiration for lovers of black metal and horror movies!
The scariest album in a very, very “scary” music collection, by misanthropic one man band FUNERAL MIST doesn’t feature some antisocial Norwegian teenager growling. Nope. It’s just a dark metal background to an American preacher looking forward to our punishment.
bmiller @#3
Alright, I’ll agree about this point.
It’s interesting how religious paintings that depict heaven tend to be really boring. It’s just people motionlessly sitting next to God and looking bored. The depictions of hell, on the other hand, are the interesting ones.
Andreas Avester@#2:
Actually I do think that churches are a waste of real estate to some extent.
I was attempting to damn them with faint praises by comparing them to golf.
As far as I am concerned, if they are “priceless cultural artifacts” they ought to be turned into museums or – if the religions insist on maintaining them as places where people imagine they are propitiating the imaginary gods, they can pay taxes on the value of the real estate. Which is a problem, given “priceless.” But that’s not my problem. “Cultural” means playing a part in the culture more than taking up space with something pretty.
At a very minimum the churches should be open for a variety of ceremonies (or subject to taxation) – this nonsense about being able to charge for weddings and stuff, that’s just bullshit; they’re serving as a banquet hall that only allows banquets held by people that share their odd beliefs. A fucking bowling alley is a bigger boon to civilization than a church. Hey, that big long aisle would make a pretty amazing mega-bowling lane…
The problem is how extremely violent churchgoers get when you disrespect their churches. It interrupts them when they are dropping high explosive on other peoples’ churches, I suppose. If you step back and look at it, churches seem like some kind of bizzare online capture the flag game: knock down the enemy’s churches while building your own, winner has the most churches and no functioning economy when it’s over.
Edit: I attended a performance of Mozart’s Requiem at Notre Dame in the late 1980s. Kathleen Battle from the Met Opera did some of the vocals and I believe Jessye Norman did, too. It was fucking sublime. The problem is – as they always were and always were intended to be – churches are a place for the elite. Napoleon Bonaparte can get married in Notre Dame but not some nobodies from nowhere, especially not if they’re gay. If churches aren’t paying taxes and are hammering on the “culture” dodge they should be a public resource. Because they are they’re just excluding most of the public.
You can, but there are plenty of RWNJs falling over each other to bring that into question, sure it must have been the work of those dastardly Muslims that France let into their country.
Andreas Avester@#5:
It’s interesting how religious paintings that depict heaven tend to be really boring.
Even jesus manages to look bored while he stars in his own snuff movie.
I used to occasionally get fucked up on nitrous oxide or burgundy and wander around deviantart flagging all the jesus art as “sadomasochistic abuse” 18+ required. Actually, under US law it’s a serious crime to show a crucifix to a kid. The christians just don’t respect that law because it applies to them. Piss Christ is another matter.
Excellent caption.
Something like this – many of them really are beautiful and impressive and the acoustics – with the right style of music (giant organ, hello!), mm so good. But definitely I would say no more official rituals (personal prayer – okay, if you’re off in the corner not disturbing anyone), and the museum part should be heavy on the historical atrocities of the Church as a whole.
I’m not disagreeing, but am pointing out the cult in question has already weaseled its way out of that one here in France: By law, all(?†) cathedrals are owned by the state. Those still used for “celebrating” torturing an imaginary man to death and raping children are, in perpetuity, available to the cult for free, who is at least responsible for some of the expenses (i.e., they didn’t manage to stick the taxpayer with all the costs) — and they cannot charge for admission (which is why Notre Dame, except for the iconic bell towers, was free).
Locally, whilst I don’t think any of the three big stone churches qualifies as a “cathedral”, only two are used by the cult. The third, obviously operated by the local authorities (and presumably owned by them — or at least not by the cult) is used for exhibitions (touring art & historical artifacts, &tc — typically(? always?) free). Guess which one of the three is the only one I’ve ever bothered to visit.
† Some reports have implied this only applies to those in Paris, but I believe that is just sloppily-phrased reporting.
blf@#10:
By law, all(?†) cathedrals are owned by the state
I believe that dates to the revolution. The churches were boarded up and empty, then. The baby rapers didn’t even put up a fight. The arrangement that allows state ownership of the buildings is probably a weird hack to reverse their having been nationalized in the name of the people once, already.
Now I have to do some research; I have a great deal of French history under my belt but conspicuously avoided learning much about the history of the faith because – I know from Voltaire – it is despicable infamy.
Ah: Wikipedia says:
In 1793, during the French Revolution, the cathedral was rededicated to the Cult of Reason, and then to the Cult of the Supreme Being. During this time, many of the treasures of the cathedral were either destroyed or plundered. The twenty-eight statues of biblical kings located at the west façade, mistaken for statues of French kings, were beheaded. Many of the heads were found during a 1977 excavation nearby, and are on display at the Musée de Cluny. For a time the Goddess of Liberty replaced the Virgin Mary on several altars. The cathedral’s great bells escaped being melted down. All of the other large statues on the facade, with the exception of the statue of the Virgin Mary on the portal of the cloister, were destroyed.The cathedral came to be used as a warehouse for the storage of food and other non-religious purposes.
The bit about the stone statues being beheaded during the revolution made me briefly wonder if the sans-culottes figured out why their guillotine blade was so dull.
It was Napoleon Bonaparte, naturally, Making France Great Again, who resurrected the temple.
I agree with what numerous other people have said in the comment section here—churches would make excellent museums and banquet halls.
In Latvia only people who belong to some Christian confession are allowed to marry in the corresponding church. Non-theists aren’t allowed. People who belong to other religious denominations or entirely different faiths aren’t allowed either. If one person belongs to some religious group but their partner belongs to another one (for example, Catholics and Lutherans), then they must ask for the pastor’s permission to marry in a church. If one person is a member of the church, but their partner doesn’t belong to any Christian church at all, then this person is forced to attend Sunday school for several months and get themselves baptized. If an atheist couple wanted to marry in a church, both of them would have to attend Sunday school, get themselves baptized, and fake believing in God. Of course, pastors are always allowed to refuse any couple they deem unfit to marry in their church for any reason. Oh, and on top of that, couples also have to pay for the privilege of marrying in a church. Theoretically there is no invoice with fixed prices, but “voluntary” donations are pretty much mandatory. The good news is that in Latvia it is possible to marry in one of the many beautiful ancient castles, so non-theists don’t lose that much, they also can get pretty wedding photos with a gorgeous location.
Personally, I have no intentions of ever getting married (I prefer being a free man), so this problem doesn’t concern me, but I still strongly dislike this kind of discrimination and the fact that religious authorities are legally allowed to discriminate their clients. There are laws that prevent any other business from refusing some goods or services to clients they dislike for personal reasons, yet churches can get away with this.
Marcus @#8
I just love these lines that separate art suitable for children from one that must be censored. They are so much fun to mock. This reminds me, you once told me how DeviantArt censored your photo where a model was sucking the handle of a screwdriver because of the ban for depictions of sex toys. This gave me another idea: a model licking what looks like an ice cream cone, albeit one that’s subtly shaped to look like a penis. That ought to blur the line even further. Now I just need to learn how to make mashed potatoes that look like ice cream (sometimes I wish my cooking skills didn’t such so much), and then I might actually get such a photo done.
@#10 and 11
Sounds like France is doing quite well. In Latvia religious organizations own not only church buildings, but also plenty of valuable land. And then there’s Germany where the state gives to churches tax money and directly funds them.
Marcus Ranum@11, The law I’m referring to only dates to 1905 and, apparently applies to all cathedrals and churches built before then. But I do like your guess that 1905 law is ultimately part of “a weird hack to reverse their having been nationalized in the name of the people once, already.”
Isn’t worshiping the “Cult of Reason” as…irrational…as Christianity given how little “reason” plays in human culture and functioning? (I kid)
Churches usually have fantastic acoustics for choral singing. I used to be in a socialist choir that did all of it’s recordings in a deconcecrated church. It was owned by a circus school – lots of height for ariel work of all kinds.
I’m astounded by how quickly a billion dollars was raised and it makes me a little sick to think it’s for the roof of a church. I know, I know, it’s a magnificent cathedral, but the money could be used for so many other necessary things like housing, food, medicine, education. The chequebooks of the wealthy are pretty tightly shut when it comes to human need. Of course, giving to the poor doesn’t come with a nice brass plaque on an iconic building that’s sure to outlive the donor by a few generations.
Yeah. Nothing similar happened when Grenfell Tower burned down, but there was no priceless art in there, just plebs.
Cathedrals are interesting as cultural artifacts that demonstrate what a cross-section of people at a particular time value; in that they are willing to sink time and resources into it.
Cynical-me says they represent vehicles for thought control and pretty things for rich people. So, not too different from now, really.
In Brisbane (Australia) there is a lovely big church/small cathedral (not sure what’s the difference) that the church didn’t want any more. It’s one of the oldest buildings in Brisbane and you can enjoy checking it out while partaking of a wonderful meal cooked by the International House of Pancakes who rent it off the city. The stained glass windows are beautiful if you are there around sunset.
Yes, but a proper taxation systems taxes on the value of the land, not the value of the structures upon it.
The structures do influence the land value, but not so much the value of the land they’re on (a skyscraper out in the middle of nowhere changes the land value little) but the value of the land generally in that area (a parking lot in downtown Manhattan is immensely valuable and, IIRC, gets taxed at a rather high rate despite not even having a building on it). There is actually, also IIRC, a good case to be made for a state getting the majority of its revenue from taxing land.
So in a reasonable system the taxes on a religious building and its land should be little different from what they would be if any other building were on the same land.
And, yeah, definitely tax them. I may be a socialist, but government subsidies for hobbies is going a bit far for my taste.
Georgist Tax Systems ARE interesting and in some ways the most rational “fair” as they tax ownership of the common heritage of us all (the earth) rather than primarily structures erected by private human effort.
If you’re after another example, down here in Australia we’re demolishing sacred Aboriginal places to make way for more roads :\
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/2019/04/21/djab-wurrung-trees/