Word battle: Temple VS church

Temple is where Knights go, monastery for monks/nuns, and church is for lay people?
Just kidding, I tend to just think church is the catchall definition for the organization and its property/services, while temple is a special type of structure within that church.

So it translates across to ones practise in terms of 'liturgical framework of self' where one can engender 'view' (awareness) as 'temple', which is why I tend to call it jediism, ie religious devotion to my Jedi path, and it works as an abbreviation for jedi realism too IMO, all IMO #derail

Edan wrote: I think for me the difference comes because church was where I was bored stiff on Sundays, where I was 'told' but not 'taught'.

That was one thing I did like about the LDS - Yes. You followed a set standard of belief - But from a young age you did so in a school like setting. Sunday school was really fun. Id put my girls in Sunday school if there was a LDS church closer by. We played games, read stories, did group play acting of our favorite parables, sang lots of kid like church songs, it was really great. I love it. Even young womens where all the teen females went to learn about the bible and passing the word on to people in there homes was fun. They made it into a learning experience. It was only the church service part that sucked haha listening to testimonies and lecture...uggggg!!! lol

These things were all done inside our community church on sundays

But once a month my grandma would drive far to attend Temple Service where she worked on Temple Records and Baptized the Dead. It was a very serious and obligated duty. There was no "Oh im sick or tired" excuse. You went and you did Temple Service. Period. Weddings were held at Temples. I THINK it is also where live baptisms are...I was too little to remember where mine was done

Church = Learning

Temple = Duty

Trisskar wrote:

Edan wrote: I think for me the difference comes because church was where I was bored stiff on Sundays, where I was 'told' but not 'taught'.

That was one thing I did like about the LDS - Yes. You followed a set standard of belief - But from a young age you did so in a school like setting. Sunday school was really fun. Id put my girls in Sunday school if there was a LDS church closer by. We played games, read stories, did group play acting of our favorite parables, sang lots of kid like church songs, it was really great. I love it. Even young womens where all the teen females went to learn about the bible and passing the word on to people in there homes was fun. They made it into a learning experience. It was only the church service part that sucked haha listening to testimonies and lecture...uggggg!!! lol

These things were all done inside our community church on sundays

But once a month my grandma would drive far to attend Temple Service where she worked on Temple Records and Baptized the Dead. It was a very serious and obligated duty. There was no "Oh im sick or tired" excuse. You went and you did Temple Service. Period. Weddings were held at Temples. I THINK it is also where live baptisms are...I was too little to remember where mine was done

Church = Learning

Temple = Duty

You were probably baptized at your local LDS church, to my knowledge, no baptisms take place in the temple unless it's for the dead. I do like that little bit at the end though, the church being were you to learn and the temple were you do your duty, but if you look at eastern religions, they tend to do everything at Temples, to my understanding.

I think the reason (and this is just me, I may be 100% wrong) this place has to be called "church" may be for the legal reasons that were presented. But if temple qualifies as the same title as "church" why not make it "Jedi Temple"?

Just my two cents, and if that has been answered, I apologize! I did read through all of it!

I'm going to take a slightly different approach to this. A temple (or Cathedral if you want) is definitely a building meant to generally worship something. Churches can mean a building, the organization as a whole that uses the building (i.e. "Catholic Church"), or the individual people of that organization. While in conversational English a church is a building that's really synonymous with "temple" (unless you're a member of a congregation that has both churches and temples), it was translated from the Greek word for assembly - the group of people.

The changing semantics of words like this underlie the ideas that our culture has *cough* emphasizing having a building *cough* and it seems like TOTJO's choice of using the word temple seems like an oxymoron. I like that since it separates us from common religious and cultural expectations. Anywhom, that's my 2¢

I'm sure that if some of our primarily non English-speakers chimed in that they'd have interesting opinions on this :laugh:

Well in regards to this temple in particular it makes sense regardless of word definition and practice.

Despite all the hooplah of "Getting away from the fiction" In the fiction the Jedi's place of practice was a "Temple" So I mean, hey. Whatever. It works. It's just Jediism/Jedi Im really not going to get all hung up over the use of Temple vs Church wordage.

Its only when things become attached to "Legal" sources that i tend to go "Eeeeeh...." My fathers friend was a lawyer who had many other lawyer friends and would all hold meetings at my parents house....I learned alot about how highly important "Words" become in the sense of Law.

Otherwise. Meh! Do what the 'spirit' calls out. Even if it does lean a little sideways from the traditional definition. Such things changes every so generation so whatever lol

Me personally. I like to keep the two seperate simply because where I learn and where I worship are two different "Spirits" for me. Personally

It seems as though both terms to various people have contexts and therefore different feelings/energies when the words are heard. Perhaps, in this case, it would be prudent to entertain finding a term that works for us. Maybe a new name altogether? Or, maybe learn to use a term in a new way? We could try learning a new energy for the temple. For me, church has so much negative baggage, but I could learn if I had to.

My first experience with the word "Temple", and thus my association for every time I hear or read it....




I've just discovered that the building that was a Church when I was a lad and my doting parents sent me to learn of Christ's works every sunday, is now a Gloria Jean's coffee shop.


So... D&D and Coffee.

I can think of worse things for our International Group of Pals to be associated with

JamesSand wrote: I've just discovered that the building that was a Church when I was a lad and my doting parents sent me to learn of Christ's works every sunday, is now a Gloria Jean's coffee shop.

Makes perfect sense. In my line of work, often coffee is my religion.

Here's the thing:







Etc...

Well...I want to add something to this discussion, but I don't know what I can add.

We have a lot of carryover from Christianity here at the Temple. Just look at the clergy. I am the Pastor of the Temple of the Jedi Order. There have been various discussions about changing that and some of the other names associated with the Clerical vocation.

I think one of the biggest questions we can ask ourselves is "what would we be missing out on if we were to drop the word "church" and what would we be gaining?

Personally I associate the word temple with a more eastern religious philosophy, for whatever reason (perhaps lack of exposure to Western philosophies that use the same word for their religious buildings.