Religion and Religious Places

En and I went to Barnes and Noble today just to browse with a cup of coffee.I ran into a book:I've written a lot about my own person experiences with religion. I'm generally quite opposed to it in my own life.But I feel internal conflict about the places religions hold sacred.While I myself find the notion of religious devotion quite foreign, I also think that the amount of effort people put into making places of worship is astonishing.Now, for the most part, I'm not talking about the modern churches of today. I'm far more inspired by the churches of the past. I can certainly see why churches were so ornate -- they are inspirational.A father of friend of mine worked on one of the churches mentioned in the book: St. Emeric (or Szent Imre in Hungarian). The devotion that the men and women who really believed in what they were doing was the right thing leaves me awe-struck in a very good way.It's a shame that much of that architecture is being left to rot. That the work of so many people who, quite literally, put their souls into it is being left to rot.