I caught an episode of Star Trek the other night. There was a question asked in it, “What do you treat as sacred?”. That got me thinking, what do I think of as sacred.
I looked up several definitions. One aspect of being sacred is something set aside for worship. The other aspect seems to be something that is worthy of respect or veneration.
There are a lot of sacred places and items in our society. Churches (mosques and synagogues etc), statues, crosses, symbols are commonly looked on as sacred.
As I thought about it I realised that I probably don’t see anything as sacred according to the definition. There are a lot of things I find helpful, but nothing I consider as worthy of respect or veneration as far a physical objects go. That isn’t to say I don’t find some objects or places spiritual.
I find it hard to see a difference between Stonehenge and a church building. I find it hard to see some of the ideas about buildings and places as more than something like ghost stories.
I even go further – I see the idea of objects and places being venerated as a religion of the object, and worshiping objects is a foreign religion to me.