Be Jewish

You got the better end of it. I can't speak for Christians, but synagogue services are just an elderly Orthodox guy standing in the front switching between English and Hebrew for two hours, telling you to stand and sit every few minutes, and droning on and on about nothing. As a kid, I would tell my parents I needed to go to the restroom and just hung out in there for thirty minutes to avoid going back in. This was before cell phones were a thing, too, so I was literally just fucking around there or walking the hallways outside and reading the names of donors to the synagogue, which were emblazoned on gigantic columns of plaques. If you donated a lot of money, you got a bigger plaque.

You're just jealous because your temple still hasn't been rebuilt

>>Temple of Solomon is a byword for decadent opulence
Really? New to the thread, but I can't ever think of a time someone has used the Temple of Solomon as an example of decadent opulence.

Usually you get comparisons to Rome and Babylon when you want to go that route for places of worship.

Protestant raised here. This looks much more decorative than any modern Protestant church I've ever been to. Even a number of newer Catholic churches are very function over form. It's just an old school thing from older, more religious times to make pretty churches. I personally hate that Christians don't make beautiful churches anymore

>I personally hate that Christians don't make beautiful churches anymore

hebrews and jewish converst are two different beings
pic related

It was filled up with Gold, by the standards of medieval churches it wasn't much but for a backwards bronze age kingdom it was a huge expense.

Really? So do you just have some rows of pews and a podium at the front? Are there any like crucifixes as decoration anywhere?

Many of the oldest churches are distinctly unfancy.

youtube.com/watch?v=U06gfP8Si9s

I don't dispute that it must have been expensive to build. But I've never heard of anyone using the Temple of Solomon as an example of waste and decadence.

More or less, yeah. Most have a bit of decoration up around the stage, a cross here and there, but otherwise it's basically a wide carpeted auditorium. It's comfy and smells like coffee and whatever, but there is zero or borderline zero opulence

That's neat, thank you. I thought that was just Lutherans, who I know hate decoration.

You needed big, solid buildings with shitload of sparkly and colourful ornaments, if you wanted to impress peasants who lived their whole live in wooden shacks in middle of a forest.

Modern man can't really comprehend how it felt, since we are surrounded by huge buildings and colourful ads all around now.

Not true.

Catholic here
As far as I remember, the decorations in the church I went to when younger were a set of murals in the walls depicting the last days of Christ and the resurrection but I can't find any pictures of them and are now wondering if I'm remembering wrong.
Pic related is the church

Are you dumb intentionally?

okay, here is a list of exceptions
1. protestant churches, and generally any religion that is all about being poor and shit
2. in some places, like northern norway for example, church just didn't have enough money to build hundred meter tall cathedrals
3. as i said, modern man isn't really impressed by the scale and colours, so modern churches aren't build like that anymore as well

And the outside

The city's metropolitan cathedral is much grander

>Ages ago, go visiting Italy.
>See the synagogue in Florence
>The one that the architects went "What's a synagogue? I think it's like a Jewish cathedral."
>So they built it exactly like a cathedral, including a pipe organ to the left of the Bimah.
>Jews don't play music on holidays barring the blowing of the shofar.
>That organ has sat there for almost 150 years.
>At least when I took the tour (almost a decade ago, damn), the guy there mentioned that periodically they've tried to get rid of it, but it's too expensive and heavy to get it out for less than a bundle, so it's easier to just leave it there and throw a sheet over it so nobody plays it by accident.

It was kind of surreal.

The images in the old catholic churches had an informative function, the average peasant could not read so to make him understand the stories better they used images

>a Jew accusing other religious groups of liking ridiculous opulence

Oh, the irony

That's hilarious.

but that bronze age kingdom were more civilized than any medieval kingdom

They tried. Last time we ever try to be tolerant. I guess we'll stick to expulsion

>like northern norway for example,
I know you specified northern Norway but holy fuck I love stave churches

Despite whatever 100% correct account of law and doctrine your rabbi might have given you, Jewish communities have historically been very divided on organs and there are many synagogues which do have them (though they are in the minority).

There's a nice few bits on that controversy in this article:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburg_Temple_disputes

On the other hand, it's paid for with charity, not subscriptions.

Is this also because a lot of non-pragmatic endeavours up until the industrial revolution were linked to religion in some way? Like Universities for example.

+1

luigis mansion

>Catholicism
>non-Semitic

...

American architecture su-

Eastern Orthodox is like that too

Really, not even for weddings or funerals? My parents are agnostic, but even I've been in churches before.

Catholics are good honest pagans, not disgusting monotheist Jewwes.

Wrong game

Kill yourself edgelord faggot

you've never seen a fucking cathedral before?

Cathedrals were located in cities pretty much by rule, it wasn't rural peasants who attented serviced there. Faggot.

I second his notion. The Jews are probably the one shilling for brutalism and abstract art too.

user, i did that exact same thing at my church when i was growing up. Something that inalways found amusing to do was write poetry on the doors of the stall. Also i remember the holes in the urinal were shaped like a cross, and i always found that kinda funny.

Hey i like epcot too

who is epcot

>Also i remember the holes in the urinal were shaped like a cross
That's the funniest church-related thing I've ever heard.

Being built out of historic materials like stone or adobe or being carved into a cave would these days probably be more impressive than your average modern construction. The rusticness would add a vibe of authenticity to it and it's the type of stuff that lots of people crave in contemporary often traditionless societies.

>I personally hate that Christians don't make beautiful churches anymore
>t. Actually a Catholic

hey that's my school

America doesn't have a lot of 1000 year old Christian monasteries carved into bedrock

Best Church coming through.

>Those chairs
Could you be a little more stereotypically cheap please, I think the blind people in the back might have missed it.

That's a fairly modern church, very post-enlightenment and well past the superstitious medieval peasant phase user was talking about.

>That organ has sat there for almost 150 years.
>At least when I took the tour (almost a decade ago, damn), the guy there mentioned that periodically they've tried to get rid of it, but it's too expensive and heavy to get it out for less than a bundle, so it's easier to just leave it there and throw a sheet over it so nobody plays it by accident.

Thanks, that's exactly what I was asking for before, now even the blind people in the back can see too.

>protestant buildings are more humble

You must not live in the States. There are Baptist churches that are bigger than football fields and have game rooms and pools inside.

In Britain Catholic churches tend to have bits by the altar that look like marble and usually some gold text engraved from my experience. Might not be real but its supposed to appear impressive. Church of England churches tend to be much more austere on the inside (lots of wood, but some stained glass windows) but are still quite fancy on the outside (due to architecture). pic is a Church in my city that i always felt looked a little Italian and out of place

The Mormons are probably the most similar to the Catholics in that regard, at least in the states.

The protestants do have mega-churchs, but those are more akin to sports stadiums; built more for mass consumption than for aesthetic value or long-term significance.

>i don't want my place of worship to look pretty and distinctive
when I was young my favorite part of church was the nice stained glass and the wonderful architecture. high ceilings and architecture made me feel like it was the middle ages
>jew
>asking about ridiculous opulence
Are you just asking for memes

lol what the fuck is that

Certainly looks quite different from any church I've ever been to

Just catholics.

>lol what the fuck is that
Kike shit. Unironically it's a church belonging to a Jew named Joel Osteen who pretends to be Christian, and his gospel is literally "pray to Jesus so he makes you rich".

>he tries to celebrate God with profane Earthly vanity

>proteshits can't understand humanism

Humans would be much better off if they didn't waste resources on your paganesque vulgarities, my guy

>grew up buddhist, not really religious
>visit cathedral for school project
>one of the most beautiful haunting experiences in my life

Tridentine Mass

They can be impressive without being tacky

Humans would be much better off if they didn't have to waste resources dealing with uppity autistic pr*testants and their iconoclasm chimpouts

The priests in my country are fucking plebs when it comes to art and it pisses me off. New churches are fucking ugly, last one I went to had paintings around the altar that looked like a highschooler made them. They don't even have that charm of good naive art, they were just shit. An another one, also recently built, looks like the worst imaginable brutalist block of concrete. And they fuck up the older churches too. Recently one priest covered priceless ancient floor mosaics with a big red carpet. An old church I went to for some concerts is fairly small but they have a massive crucifix behind the altar and like two other sculptures so the whole space feels awkward and overcrowded. And the last time I was there next to one sculpture there was a big candle with the colours of our flag. It's tasteless, it's despiritualized and fuck am I mad.

I think we spent enough centuries worshipping in literal sewers and catacombs to justify a few fancy buildings.

Furthermore what is the point of intentionally uglifying your entire aesthetic like prots do? I understand having limited resources but many protestants take pride in their ugly buildings as if it were intentional, just seems stupid when you could try to at least resemble something transcendent and heavenly, considering the importance of worship in general, shouldn't we do our best to make our buildings pleasant?

There's nothing more depressing than a church built to be only functional and affordable. It's simply a treason, the contrary of what it should be. You HAVE to put all your efforts in its construction, this is an act of faith. Even in the small villages the church was always the bigger and most beautiful building, because that's the fucking point, this is the house of God, the house of everyone. If your house looks better than your church there's something wrong.
There is a total absence of faith in these simple rooms with few plastic chairs.
(and I say it as someone who's not interested in religion)

Brazilian?

...

Nah, a Slav

Former mormon here. You're conflating the temples with the meeting houses. The regular old chapels are the single most white-bread soul-crushing spaces ever worshipped in

Everyone should watch this

vimeo.com/103665136

...

(an explanation: this is Roger Scruton on "Why Beauty Matters", it deals with architecture too)

The temples, on the other hand, can only be accessed if you're fanatical about the faith. Inside you do all the crazy masonic rituals that are supposed to get you into heaven and shit. They take ten percent of the income every single member to pay for this shit. What's hilarious is that the Book of Mormon castigates the "great and spacious buildings" of the unfaithful, and mormons use that to shit on mega churches, not realizing the irony

Looks pretty similar to the Lutheran churches I went to growing up, except less carved wood and more gold.

Also, it was common to have these felt wall hangings that looked like they were made by children.

>what is westminster abbey

>golden calves

Fucking jews. They never learn

Kinda looks like a smaller scale of my local church but without the tinted windows, pic related.

Yankee protestantism is somethibg wholeheartedly different from regular protestantism.

How are you supposed to get any spiritual feeling
inside that monstrosity?

Give yourself over to the will of the crowd, you get to feel oneness and unity and part of something bigger then yourself, because you are now part of the crowd.

Now that just looks like it's still unfinished. Should paint the carvings and leave the rest white.

It's a basilica, not a cathedral.

>Average protestant service

So it's basically going to a music concert but without the good tunes?