All religions, including the ancient Greek, Roman, Babylonian, Egyptian, etc., and Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, used catastrophes to bring the nation closer to the deity.
Felix Fournier, the Bishop of Nantes, was no exception. He proposed building the church of Sacre Coeur as a penance to the Lord for the sins the French People committed.
The basilica on the Butte of Monmarte was built to remind Parisiens of the punishment for moral decline, which resulted in France's defeat and Napoleon III's capture at the Battle of Sedan in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.
Was France's capital city in the 19th century the scene of non-stop gaiety and debauchery? Did the people of Paris contravene every conceivable sin in the Catholic book of transgressions? Did the deity exact retribution on the Parisians?
Debauchery and immorality are bad, deserving fierce punishment. But the Bible uses expressions like: "His anger was kindled" (Numbers 1:11) and "the wrath of God came upon them" (Psalms 78:31) only when the nation worships idols, replacing Him as the only supreme power to be worshipped.
For example: "For they provoked Him to fury with their high places and moved Him to jealousy with their carved images. “God causes catastrophes because He's angry, but The Scriptures, don’t order the building of temples, monuments, or statues to appease Him.
Jews must build a temple, but only one such structure, not many on every hill, as the Canaanites and other nations did, each time that they felt the need to placate God's anger they built a temple or erected a statue or a monument.
Today, we build synagogues as places of prayer rather than as a means of atonement for sins. It is not the Lord who needs to be appeased; humanity must correct its way of life.
As far as I've seen, in Judaism, there is no instance where someone erects an edifice or some other monument as a penance for sin.
Penance is an act that an individual carries out to repair his soul and make it more beautiful. It is not a material object like a temple, church, or statue.
We have an example of Moses doing penance for wickedness of worshipping the Golden Calf, that the nation of Israel enacted (Duet 9:18: "Then I lay prostrate before the Lord for forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water because of all the sin you had committed in implementing what was evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to rage.")
Judaism memorializes catastrophes because it believes, like other religions, that disasters are punishments for wrongdoings. Jews come to the Western Wall to rejoice, not to appease God.
We come here because it reminds us of the disaster brought on us for straying from His word. We rejoice because we trust that in His Mercy He will forgive us.
Sacre Coeur brings peace to a Christian's heart because it indicates that God's anger is placated. This magnificent construction was constructed as a banner declaring that a kind and tranquil God ruled them. It shows that the French People have remorse for their immoral behaviour, which caused their defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.
One can't find any building or monument throughout Israel that will bring them a feeling of tranquillity that God has been modified. Synagogues don't memorialize victory or appease. They are places where Jews come to plead for mercy. Man's task isn't to soothe God but to feel that he has done his best to mend his ways and walk in the path of the righteous.
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