A place of worship or house of worship is an establishment or other location where a group of people (a congregation) comes to perform acts of religious study, honor, or devotion. The form and function of religious architecture has evolved over thousands of years for both changing beliefs and architectural style. The term temple is often used as a general term for any house of worship; but churches and mosques are not generally called temples.
Under International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Conventions, religious buildings are offered special protection, similar to the protection guaranteed hospitals displaying the Red Cross. These international laws of war bar firing upon or from a religious building.
Famous quotes containing the words place and/or worship:
“I wish so much of crime didn’t take place after dark. It’s most unnerving.”
—Ketti Frings (1915–1981)
“Rationalists are admirable beings, rationalism is a hideous monster when it claims for itself omnipotence. Attribution of omnipotence to reason is as bad a piece of idolatry as is worship of stock and stone believing it to be God. I plead not for the suppression of reason, but for a due recognition of that in us which sanctifies reason.”
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948)