My irrational love of churches

you took a baboon
and made him perfect
you took a lion
and stripped him of his pride
then you took a million more varieties
a scalpel and a sartory
and you stitched up a horrible surprise
you have created an unsocial monster
and you're searched for all over the globe
and most belive that things would sure be better
if you'd come down here and tell us what you know
who is to blame for this?
someone tell me please

Bad Religion - Chimera

So I love going to old churches and basilicas. Seeing as Europe is chock-full of these (much to the chagrin of everyone I was traveling with as I attempted to drag them to church after church), I was able to bask in the exquisiteness that is Gothic architecture. I'm sure to lots of people one old church is the same as any other and they've got to be wondering what the hell my fascination is with them. Well, I guess it's hard to explain.... but that's never stopped me before.
I'm a history buff. I love the shit. For me, I need to know the history of something before I can understand ts present, and this goes for pretty much all aspects of my life. To really get a movie I feel you need to see, or at least have some background knowledge, of the director's previous films. Same thing with an author and his books or a band and their albums. And seeing these centuries old religious institutions helps me to at least try and understand the history and culture of whatever city I might be in. An elaborately decorated church compared to a more homely one can tell you a lot about a society and its values and its wealth, and ultimately I find this fascinating. And as far as consturction of these behemoth structures goes, it boggles my mind. To think that people would put so much time, energy and love into creating something for an intangible being whose existence they cannot even be sure of, it just amazes me. These buildings would be exceedingly difficult to build today, a time when technology seemingly knows no bounds. How in the name of fuck were they built three, four, five-hundred years ago??
The Sistine Chapel just absolutely blew me away. The paintings and carvings are so damned intricate, AND they're on the ceiling. Absolute ridiculousness. Just trying to picture Michaelangelo and his peers painting an entire fucking ceiling several centuries ago: 1) it tells me that they possibly had waaay to much free time and 2) there's no way this could've possibly been a fun or easy task and to say that these artists suffered for their work is likely an understatement. Being absolutely useless at drawing anything remotely artistic, the frescoes and ceiling paintings that lie within many European churches are unfathomable for me.
And I guess it's just the grandeur and beauty of these places that gets to me. I guess I'm still amazed by big things, but seeing something like Barcelona's Segreda Familia just lying in the heart of a metropolitan city is something I'll never get used too. I can only imagine what Notre Dame or St. Peter's Basilica used to be like when they were more than just tourist sites. And it's really not just these Christian places of worship that astound me. Seeing Islamic minarets, like the jaw-dropping Qutub Minar, or the gigantic lotus shaped Bahai temples that stand across the globe, it's just too much for me, especially when I stop to consider that all these engineering marvels are made in the name of God. The power religion and belief has over us is just insane, and actually kinda scary if you think about it. If people are willing to spend years and lose lives in creating these shrines for their various gods and deities, is it really any surprise that people will fight wars and sacrifice their lives in the name of religion?
Sooo maybe I haven't explained anything. Orrrr maybe I have and you think I'm nuts for paying so much regard to a bunch of carved rock from a long by-gone era. But to me, these buildings and structures are much more than that. They are the relics of civilizations that came before us. They were the religious centers of once thriving societies. That they are not only still standing but still retain all of their original glory when the original towns that surrounded them are all but gone is a testament to the love and care showed for these creations. Perhaps they are just giant eye-sores in a modern landscape, but for me, if I look past the cement and the flashes of tourists' cameras, they are much more than that.