I often wonder what kind of mental damage
- I'm assuming mental damage as a given here, never met anyone who got off scot-free, whether they know it or not - I'd still be working through if I'd been more heavily exposed to religion than the occasional brush with Sunday school when I was little. I'd hate to think what would have happened to me if I'd actually had people trying to convince me at an impressionable age that all this stuff was true, rather than the focus on papercrafts and biscuits that I got from my CofS Sunday mornings.
It occurred to me fairly recently that I'd never actually believed that anything I was told about the Bible was supposed to be more than just stories, but then I didn't have it jammed down my throat with fervent conviction 24/7.
As a result, ardent atheist though I am, I feel my freedom is somewhat lightly-won. More importantly, this doesn't stop me thinking that churches, temples and cathedrals are gorgeous, wonderful, amazing places.

I don't go to church (obviously) as a rule, but I always go for the carol services at Christmas to bolster the feeling of happiness. Some of my favourite memories from childhood are of wandering around the ruins of famous cathedrals up and down Britain, admiring the architecture (what remains of it) plotting what must have been the outline of the building, gazing at the workmanship and trying to connect with what people must have felt there when the stones still stood on one another.
I've been to the burial mounds in Orkney, and, even though I know it must be entirely imagined, revelled in the connection these people had with their pre-Christian gods in such a place; run my hands over cases full of beautiful beautiful workmanship constructed solely for the dead.
And even the one time I was dragged to Catholic Mass by a girlfriend, one of the most embarrassing mornings of my entire life due to being completely at odds with the ritualistic machine composed of those who actually knew what they were doing and who, I have no doubt, were judging the everloving shit out of the tousled, unshowered heathen who was always slightly out of synch with the standing and sitting and boring, boring hymns - even then I couldn't help feeling like the decades of holy feeling had layered themselves into the walls of the gorgeously ornamented church, and that perhaps I could partake in a little of it while I was there.
So yeah; while intellectually I know that everything they're founded on is utter rubbish, there's a solemnity and a dignity to these places that it's hard to completely ignore.
I'm sure that's what they're designed for, painstakingly perfected to induce such feelings; I'm aware that it's just my cultural societal background kicking in and telling me how I'm supposed to feel; but in-the-moment there's a lot of peace and beauty to be found in places of worship, no matter what you think of the whole idea in the abstract.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Fri 2 Sep 2011, 9:34, 2 replies)

So true
I'm glad that there is someone out there who is sufficently eloquent to express in words exactly what I feel about churches and places of collective worship.

Religion is total bunkum but it has produced the world's finest structures.
(penrose your dog's got tits, Fri 2 Sep 2011, 12:21, closed)

It is quite frightening.
I do enjoy the architecture of churches, and when visiting my other half I had to see to see a Stave Kjirke and, whe over here, we appreciated York Minster.
I've a friend who's as militantly atheist as me also, and we both appreciate religious architecture.
Art is art, whether you like the creator and reasons or not -- I love G'n'R, but I still think Axl's an embittered old man who needs more medication, for example.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Fri 2 Sep 2011, 21:13, closed)