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• (January 12, 2023, 01:18:11 AM)

[12AX7]

  Right; but the point of the article isn't about Muslims; its about expensive, fucked up priorities in our government; in this case, NASA. 

[ivan]

Muslims would have a heck of a hard time with space travel, what with space being curved and all. And what if (going scifi for a sec here) we drop into another dimension or something to get where were going? where would they pray to?

The Muslims I've worked with have been pretty practical about that and other issues. There was some leeway in the praying direction thing -- you don't get punished for getting it wrong, you just try to get it as close as you can. So the answer in space would be: wherever your best guess as to where Earth is.

Aren't many Christians in the same fix, though? Which way is God when there is no "up"?

[Wunderkind]

God isn't up. At least not Biblicaly speaking. That's a misunderstanding born of teh dumb.

Besides, Christians pray down, with their heads bowed in any direction.

[Joe Sixpack]

You just find your way to the center of a gravity well, then every direction is up.

[ivan]

God isn't up. At least not Biblicaly speaking. That's a misunderstanding born of teh dumb.

Well, yeah, but it's still in the vernacular. Heaven is somewhere up there, hell is down. There are still plenty of people who believe that quite literally. Maybe none of them are in the space program, but you never know.

[Wunderkind]

Well if heaven's supposed to be up, why do they pray down?

... are they all hell-worshippers?

[ivan]

Well if heaven's supposed to be up, why do they pray down?

... are they all hell-worshippers?

Nah, it's a posture of submission.

But we have thought, historically, you see, of the world as something made, and the idea of being--trees, for example-- constructions, just as tables and houses are constructions. And so there is for that reason a fundamental difference between the made and the maker. And this image ... originated in cultures where the form of government was monarchial, and where, therefore, the maker of the universe was conceived also at the same time in the image of the king of the universe. 'King of kings, lords of lords, the only ruler of princes, who thus from thy throne behold all dwellers upon Earth.' I'm quoting the Book of Common Prayer. And so, all those people who are oriented to the universe in that way feel related to basic reality as a subject to a king. And so they are on very, very humble terms in relation to whatever it is that works all this thing. I find it odd, in the United States, that people who are citizens of a republic have a monarchial theory of the universe. That you can talk about the president of the United States as LBJ, or Ike, or Harry, but you can't talk about the lord of the universe in such familiar terms. Because we are carrying over from very ancient near-Eastern cultures the notion that the lord of the universe must be respected in a certain way. People kneel, people bow, people prostrate themselves, and you know what the reason for that is: that nobody is more frightened of anybody else than a tyrant. He sits with his back to the wall, and his guards on either side of him, and he has you face downwards on the ground because you can't use weapons that way. When you come into his presence, you don't stand up and face him, because you might attack, and he has reason to fear that you might because he's ruling you all. And the man who rules you all is the biggest crook in the bunch. Because he's the one who succeeded in crime. The other people are pushed aside because they--the criminals, the people we lock up in jail--are simply the people who didn't make it.

So naturally, the real boss sits with his back to the wall and his henchmen on either side of him. And so when you design a church, what does it look like? Catholic church, with the alter where it used to be--it's changing now, because the Catholic religion is changing. But the Catholic church has the alter with its back to the wall at the east end of the church. And the alter is the throne and the priest is the chief vizier of the court, and he is making abeyance to the throne, but there is the throne of God, the alter. And all the people are facing it, and kneeling down. And a great Catholic cathedral is called a basilica, from the Greek 'basilikos,' which means 'king.' So a basilica is the house of a king, and the ritual of the church is based on the court rituals of Byzantium.

A Protestant church is a little different. Basically the same. The furniture of a Protestant church is based on a judicial courthouse. The pulpit, the judge in an American court wears a black robe, he wears exactly the same dress as a Protestant minister. And everybody sits in these boxes, there's a box for the jury, there's a box for the judge, there's a box for this, there's a box for that, and those are the pews in an ordinary colonial- type Protestant church. So both these kinds of churches which have an autocratic view of the nature of the universe decorate themselves, are architecturally constructed in accordance with political images of the universe. One is the king, and the other is the judge. Your honor. There's sense in this. When in court, you have to refer to the judge as 'your honor.' It stops the people engaged in litigation from losing their tempers and getting rude. There's a certain sense to that.

(Alan Watts)

[Wunderkind]

No wonder Christian churches creep me out so much.

[xolik]

Nah, it's a posture of submission.

Mosque or Gay church?