Places of Worship for Different Major Religions - Essay Example

Places of Worship There are multifarious religions in the world and every religion has its own peculiar and special place of worship where the believers of that religion come regularly or either with specific intervals to seek guidance, inspiration and to obey their lord. Every religion has made it compulsory for its believers to come to the specific worship places in order to maintain unity and faith in the religion and among themselves. In this paper we analyze and study worship places for different major religions and also the activitiescarried out these places. Church Christians have worship place known as church in which the Christians come and obey their lord. Church is the scared place for the Christians where Christians come and pray in order to get internal satisfaction and inspiration. Churches are built in the shape of a Cross on which Christians believe that Jesus Christ was given punishments and then he died. There are different parts of a church for example the aisle and stairs are designed to give the shape of the stairs towards the heavens. The heavens are given the shape of the junction. Churches are present in every corner of the world. There is a need to inculcate the importance of churches because of the fact that Christianity is the fastest growing religion in the world. Cathedrals are some important types of churches. The role of pastors or bishops is really interesting and of colossal importance in church. The bishop is the one who leads theprayers, conducts all theceremonies and prayers in a church. No official activity can take place without the presence of the pastor or bishop. Many Christians visit the churches often in their routine; some of them visit the churches on Sunday because there arespecial prayers on Sundays. The marriage ceremonies of the Christians also take place in churches because Christians think that if they consummate their marriages in churches, it will bringpeace, pleasure and harmony in their lives. The Masjids Worship place for the Muslims is known as Mosque or Masjid. Muslims are supposed to come in the mosque five times a day for prayers. The prayer timings are set according to the movement of sun. There are three prayers in the day timings and two prayers after that among which, one is on the sunset and the other one is at night known as “Isha Prayer”. During the player, the Muslims stand from shoulder to shoulder in order to inculcate and depict the unity among them. The worship place is packed with people on Friday prayers. Friday prayers are specially obligated on Muslims and during the Friday prayers, all kinds of business activities are forbidden. Worship place of Muslims known as masjid has also a separate place for ablution in which the Muslims clean themselves from water by washing their hands, face, mouth, toes and hair because purification is the first and foremost pre-requisite of the prayer of the Muslims. Muslims are also directed to stand and face one direction known as “Kaabah”. The Kaabah is the place situated in Saudi Arabia and Muslims are supposed to face its direction in order to give a depiction of unity and oneness. Eid prayer is also one of the most important prayers in the Muslims worship place. Eid days are scheduled two time in a year in which Muslims from all over the world celebrate these events with great enthusiasm and zeal. The masjid is also situated in many main places of the Muslims communities. The masjid is a sacred place for the Muslims and even non also come from different places to see the historical mosques around the world for example Turkey has some of the best and historical mosques where many people come and visit to see the glimpse of the historical places. The Mandirs The sacred worshipping place for the Hindus is known as Tempe or “Mandir” which is a word of Sanskrit language and it means “gladdening”. Like other worshipping places, there is always a need for the leading personality to be present in the worship place to complete the official prayers and ceremonies. The Hindus come and worship their god which is known as “Bhagwan” (Garg, 218). There are different statues which are placed inside the temple and there are different gods of Hindus for example if someone wants to acquire peace and satisfaction, he will pray in front of different god whereas if someone is looking for money, he will pray in front of the god known as Lakshmi. Similarly, there are different places for worship in a temple and unlike the other religions such as Islam, there is no need to stand quietly and pray giving a feel and look of the unification. Every Hindu is required to come daily to the temples for the prayers. Synagogues The worshipping place for Jews is called synagogue, which means assembly of prayers. The synagogues are built as a large hall and there are many separate places for reading, praying privately and other activities like marriage and much more. In synagogues people can come and pray on their own but there are some of the special communal prayers that can only be done in the presence of Minyan, a personality just like pastor of cleric in other religions which as the sole responsibility of leading the prayers and guiding people about the religion and if someone has any question regarding the religion then the minyan has the responsibility to answer them. The most important element of a synagogue includes the torah ark, a cabinet in which the sacred scriptures of the holy book “Torah” are kept. , Bima which is the table like furniture item used for placing the torah book on it and people recite it. There is a lantern in the synagogue which is always lit and it is known as “nertamid “which is in the memory of Prophet Elijah and who sat upon during the ceremony of Brit milah. The lantern is to show the people that the hope is always there and the mercy of god is persistent. Synagogues are present mostly in the areas where Jews are in abundance (Wouk, 25). References Top of Form Garg, Ganga R. Encyclopaedia of the Hindu World: Vol. 1. New Delhi: Concept. Publ. Co, 1992. Print. Bottom of Form Top of Form Wouk, Herman. This Is My God: The Jewish Way of Life. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co, 1987. Internet resource. Bottom of Form Read More