{"id":10800,"date":"2012-02-03T17:49:11","date_gmt":"2012-02-03T22:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=10800"},"modified":"2012-02-03T17:49:11","modified_gmt":"2012-02-03T22:49:11","slug":"building-a-temple-to-atheism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2012\/02\/building-a-temple-to-atheism","title":{"rendered":"Building a Temple to Atheism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Temple<\/a>When I say temple, you think religious place of worship right?\u00a0 When I say atheist, you think one that believes there is no God.\u00a0 Stay with me now, when I say religion, don\u2019t you think about the worship of God?\u00a0 Before this blog becomes a full blown say what you are thinking game, let me get to my point and then you can decide what to think!<\/p>\n

For thousands of years people of all religious backgrounds have built temples to God providing dwelling places for those of like beliefs to gather to worship and pray.\u00a0 For writer and architecture patron, Alain De Botton, it is now time for atheists to start building temples of their own.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s right; Botton believes that religious people shouldn\u2019t be the only ones with beautiful buildings. He thinks atheists should also have their own versions of cathedrals and churches.\u00a0\u00a0 With that thought in mind he has recently announced his plans to erect a network of temples for atheists around the UK.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To get around the notion that he would be building temples to God for people who don\u2019t believe in God, Botton has argued that a temple can be built to anything that\u2019s positive and good; a temple to love, friendship, calm or perspective.<\/p>\n

The Temple to Anything Positive and Good is the first proposed temple that will rise 150 feet over central London.\u00a0 According to architect Tom Greenall, the concrete tower would be built slowly over a period of years with 1 centimeter for every million years of the earth\u2019s existence.\u00a0 A gold band of less than a millimeter would be inscribed in the interior of the tower one meter from the ground to represent the short extent of human life on earth.\u00a0 Greenhall said that everything below the band is the future.<\/p>\n

So what do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I say temple, you think religious place of worship right?\u00a0 When I say atheist, you think one that believes there is no God.\u00a0 Stay with me now, when I say religion, don\u2019t you think about the worship of God?\u00a0 Before this blog becomes a full blown say what you are thinking game, let me…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":462,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[674],"tags":[987,1974,879],"class_list":["post-10800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheist","tag-atheists","tag-place-of-worship","tag-temple"],"yoast_head":"\nBuilding a Temple to Atheism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2012\/02\/building-a-temple-to-atheism\" 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