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One of the most terrible failures of our educational system for which we all pay a terrible price is history isn't taught anymore to any real degree. I keep reading people defining Notre Dame Cathedral as a "work of art" along with all the "art" in it.
Cathedrals, particularly Catholic as all the early ones are, are more than anything else a picture book. For centuries, nearly all Europeans were illiterate and had lives as bad or worse than slaves. While American slaves were often brutalized, there weren't torture chambers all across the Southern stated like there was in ancient Europe. For centuries, the average lifespan was less than age 30 and nearly every ordinary person grew up as an orphan.
Most ancient Europeans were born into essentially slavery and hopelessness. The church doctrine was to keep them well behaved and marketed fear (hell) and hope (heaven). Simply, the only "hope" a European serf or peasant had for a good life could come after death, ie heaven. Nothing that Catholic services were in Latin, none had a Bible nor could read it if they did - plus the Bible didn't come until later, all of what Christianity is to people was told in the images of the local Cathedral.
The pictures, statutes and stained glass all told truly uneducated ignorant people of hopeless lives the story of Jesus. The heroes and villains of the Bible stories, what angels and demons looked like, the terrible horror of perpetual torture in hell and the only hope in the wondrous heaven. This, combined with the awesomeness of the Cathedrals themselves, defines Christianity to this day in terms of perceptions and mental imagery. The power of this PR was controlling of people's lives. It was their only hope and the best purpose of their life as many saw it, preferring to slave-away serving Christianity rather than slaving-away as a field hand or otherwise essentially a slave otherwise.
Now? Cathedrals are nothing more than tourist traps. Most are abandoned and so derelict they are being torn down. Christianity is all but dead in Europe, with the growing religion (and construction) for the religion of Islam, which still largely operates the way 16th century Christianity did in most of the world today.
Personally, I think the fire mostly likely by arson - whether some crazy lone wolf type who just started a fire to start a fire, or a lone wolf Muslim (not "the Muslims") or possibly a French communist/socialist atheist. If so, we'll never be told as the French government immediately decided on the narrative they would tell - blame in on some unnamed workman.
As truly awesome as Notre Dame is - taking almost 100 years (4 to 5 generations of adults) to build - but continued to be added to for the next centuries - it burning is no real lose as the religion is was the book of is no longer of any relevancy to France. It would be impossible to rebuilt it to its original form as there aren't 25 acres of 400 year old oak trees to be had. I don't think it matters whether it is or not. What it represents no longer exists and it became just another tourist trap, nothing else.
Cathedrals, particularly Catholic as all the early ones are, are more than anything else a picture book. For centuries, nearly all Europeans were illiterate and had lives as bad or worse than slaves. While American slaves were often brutalized, there weren't torture chambers all across the Southern stated like there was in ancient Europe. For centuries, the average lifespan was less than age 30 and nearly every ordinary person grew up as an orphan.
Most ancient Europeans were born into essentially slavery and hopelessness. The church doctrine was to keep them well behaved and marketed fear (hell) and hope (heaven). Simply, the only "hope" a European serf or peasant had for a good life could come after death, ie heaven. Nothing that Catholic services were in Latin, none had a Bible nor could read it if they did - plus the Bible didn't come until later, all of what Christianity is to people was told in the images of the local Cathedral.
The pictures, statutes and stained glass all told truly uneducated ignorant people of hopeless lives the story of Jesus. The heroes and villains of the Bible stories, what angels and demons looked like, the terrible horror of perpetual torture in hell and the only hope in the wondrous heaven. This, combined with the awesomeness of the Cathedrals themselves, defines Christianity to this day in terms of perceptions and mental imagery. The power of this PR was controlling of people's lives. It was their only hope and the best purpose of their life as many saw it, preferring to slave-away serving Christianity rather than slaving-away as a field hand or otherwise essentially a slave otherwise.
Now? Cathedrals are nothing more than tourist traps. Most are abandoned and so derelict they are being torn down. Christianity is all but dead in Europe, with the growing religion (and construction) for the religion of Islam, which still largely operates the way 16th century Christianity did in most of the world today.
Personally, I think the fire mostly likely by arson - whether some crazy lone wolf type who just started a fire to start a fire, or a lone wolf Muslim (not "the Muslims") or possibly a French communist/socialist atheist. If so, we'll never be told as the French government immediately decided on the narrative they would tell - blame in on some unnamed workman.
As truly awesome as Notre Dame is - taking almost 100 years (4 to 5 generations of adults) to build - but continued to be added to for the next centuries - it burning is no real lose as the religion is was the book of is no longer of any relevancy to France. It would be impossible to rebuilt it to its original form as there aren't 25 acres of 400 year old oak trees to be had. I don't think it matters whether it is or not. What it represents no longer exists and it became just another tourist trap, nothing else.
