{"id":1800,"date":"2010-10-07T08:53:04","date_gmt":"2010-10-07T13:53:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=1800"},"modified":"2010-10-07T08:53:04","modified_gmt":"2010-10-07T13:53:04","slug":"if-god-is-everywhere-why-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=1800","title":{"rendered":"If God is Everywhere, Why Church?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I never really understood the idea of a Church\u2026 at least not from a theological point of view. If God is supposed to be everywhere, then what is the point of having a house of God? Now of course there are other reasons for have Christians to build Churches.<\/p>\n<p>From a historical stand point, it seems like churches were built because our culture at the time was used to building temples to the various Gods. So it made sense to just change the name of those temples to a different God and then build more. It was much easier than tearing down the temple and building something useful like a school, hospital, or a strip mall.<\/p>\n<p>Then there is the fact that when you get down to it, religion is a business and businesses need to make money. Having people come to a fancy building every week really helps to sell the God thing. You have the beautiful stained glass, the shiny gold trim, and masterful works of art all of which are designed to make people feel in awe. Church goers are so dazzled by all the shiny objects that they ride an emotional high which the Church takes advantage of to elicit more devotion and to get people to donate more to the Church.<\/p>\n<p>Having everyone chant in unison also helps to create a stronger bond with the \u201cin group\u201d and with the Church leadership. When the collection plate gets passed around, people a are more willing to give.<\/p>\n<p>But none of this has anything to do with their imaginary God. God is supposed to be everywhere (except Hell of course). So again what would the theological reason be for building a house to God? When Christian fundamentalists say that \u201cthe holy spirit is present in this room,\u201d isn\u2019t that a given? So much for omnipresent.<br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button BEGIN --><br \/>\n<a onclick=\"return addthis_sendto()\" onmouseover=\"return addthis_open(this, '', '[URL]', '[TITLE]')\" onmouseout=\"addthis_close()\" href=\"http:\/\/www.addthis.com\/bookmark.php?v=250&amp;pub=dangeroustalk\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0;\" src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/static\/btn\/lg-share-en.gif\" alt=\"Bookmark and Share\" width=\"125\" height=\"16\" \/><\/a><script src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/js\/250\/addthis_widget.js?pub=dangeroustalk\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><br \/>\n <!-- AddThis Button END --><\/p>\n<h6 class=\"zemanta-related-title\" style=\"font-size: 1em;\">Related articles by Zemanta<\/h6>\n<ul class=\"zemanta-article-ul\">\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/new.exchristian.net\/2010\/10\/i-took-red-pill.html\">I took the red pill<\/a> (new.exchristian.net)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"border: medium none; float: right;\" src=\"http:\/\/img.zemanta.com\/zemified_e.png?x-id=c8e76389-3fa7-47ce-8ca8-2c93094b4306\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" \/><\/a><span class=\"zem-script more-related pretty-attribution\"><script src=\"http:\/\/static.zemanta.com\/readside\/loader.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=1800\"><\/div><script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I never really understood the idea of a Church\u2026 at least not from a theological point of view. If God is supposed to be everywhere, then what is the point of having a house of God? Now of course there are other reasons for have Christians to build Churches. From a historical stand point, it [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n<script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[310,1393,1192,702],"tags":[2215,37,11,1394,1343,2216,242,1264],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1800"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1800"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1801,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1800\/revisions\/1801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}