Beautiful Evil.

Why are churches, synagogues, mosques and temples, etc always such beautiful pieces of architecture? It seems such a waste.

Given that organised religion's main purpose is to accumulate power and money for its leaders it seems that they wouldn't particularly want to waste money on building beautiful places of worship, especially as the bible gives Christians an out: God says 'Nothing you build on earth can do me justice because I am so much way cooler than you freaks'.

That's not a direct quote because I can't be bothered looking up chapter and verse. Why don't you just pretend I'm a religious leader and so believe everything I say unconditionally? That would make things a lot easier, none of this 'proof' stuff to complicate matters.

Sadly, that's not likely to happen. It seems only the unbelievable can be believed by the religious types out there. Such a pity.

Where was I?

So, the religious leaders take the tithe which is ostensibly given to help the poor and is certainly collected to help the collectors' but somehow it gets spent on something that seemingly benefits neither- the place of worship.

A conundrum indeed.

My theory is that its like paying for advertising. Given that the religion can't actually perform miracles or such the only way to show their coolness is to build a huge hulking piece of beauty and permanence.

Further, its something of a sleight-of-hand as the beauty of the building serves to distract from the evil it represents.

No one would join a religion if it were in a hut because that's not sexy enough, nor would they join if the place looked evil and otherwise representative of the actuall goings-on. So the whole thing is addressed by the facade of beauty. More people join: more money and power is accumulated.

I can't wait for the day when religion is replaced by science and spirituality and the beautiful buildings heretofore dedicated to such immoral decrepitude can be put to more befitting uses like brothels and such.

I am free to dream.