Please help me decide what to put in my shrine.

I am going to create a shrine for my home. My shrine will be dedicated to: Science, The Scientific Method, Mother Nature, Rational Thought...

It will be similar to a Buddhist shrine:
http://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Simple-Buddhist-Shrine

a Hindu shrine:
http://www.waupun.k12.wi.us/Policy/other/dickhut/religions/48%20Hindu%20Family%20Shrine.htm

a Christian shrine: 
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Christian-Home-Shrine-Kit/1755432?id=1755432&slug=Christian-Home-Shrine-Kit

or a shrine in any other of the world's belief systems:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrine

Please help me decide what to put in my shrine.

Good for you. Having a shrine is therapeutic. I have a few hidden "shrines" in my house, that no one else notices. My main "Truth and beauty" shrine is one of my book cases. I recycled all my Deseret books and Mormon scriptures and manuals, and unpacked some of my old university textbooks and outside reading books, and gathered and purchased newer books about philosophy, psychology, geology, astronomy, etc. plus many favorite novels and poetry collections. In this shrine are all my nature field guides and biology books, and Darwin, of course. There are a few artistic treasures on the shelves. In that corner of the house, any time I want, I can sit in my grandfather's chair and tune into some of the greatest, clearest thinkers who ever lived. I'm replacing the brainwashing lies with Truth.

I like the Hindu shrine. I have something similar in my yard, where I feed the birds, squirrels, and deer year-round. Our dog is a Christian and eats in the kitchen. I guess our coffee-maker and scented candle warmer count as a Christian shrine.

Books are a great idea, representing knowledge and human creativity. How about a small bowl of organic tea leaves, representing mother nature, and how we can find things there to enjoy, and take care of our bodies.

# gravity
# atoms (and some fundamental particles)
# electromagnetic waves - including the ever-popular 'light'

If you want traditional you can't go wrong with something that represents your favorite sex organs without actually being a sex organ. Large columns, a donut.

from PAPO or Schleich?

Great ideas!

I thought I must include some of sciences holy books:
Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan,
The Origin of species by Charles Darwin,
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.

Perhaps some portraits of some of sciences simple, beautiful truths:
DNA,
The periodic table of the elements,
The ascent of man,
e=mc2,
Photos taken by the Hubble space telescope.

How about some models of some of sciences crowning achievements:
The Apollo Lunar lander,
The Hubble space telescope,
The mars rovers,
The Large Hadron Collider.

Maybe some busts of science's greatest minds:
Isacc Newton
Albert Einstein
Charles Darwin.

Perhaps some votive candles, or better yet, a laser beam.

Maybe some dried and mounted beetles, since they are mother nature's favorite (most numerous) species.    

Gee, it sounds kind of tacky and nerdy now that I write it up, since I don't actually "worship" any of these things...other than the scientific method itself.

But, it would be a way of expressing myself and letting people know, as soon as they enter my house, were I stand.

Some ideas:

Print out some of your favorite quotes from rational thinkers and frame them.
An illustration of DNA.
Something to symbolise the elements of nature.
A small plant.

Good luck!

What would a "Life of Pi" shrine look like? ...With elements of Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity...

He's asleep, after a long night of debauchery, so I will chime in what my boyfriend tells me.

Who is the onc scientist/inventor that we can thank above all others for the wonderful world we live in? By wonderful, I point to all these 'gadgets' we use daily like computers, lights, central heat/air. Our darkness is now turned into light. Well?

Edison was important as he perfected the incandescent light bulb. Edison also gave us moving pictures and sound recording. Unfortunately, no one, including Edison, thought about joining the two technologies until the late 1920's. Morse, he envisioned communication by wire (the telegraph). Bell, who took communication via hard wire one step further and added voice into the mix. Marconi, he envisioned 'wireless' communication; which gave rise to the radio, television and wireless networks.

When you come right down to it, Nikola Tesla envisioned and perfected Alternating Current which made transmission of electric current efficient over long distances. Tesla was a 'futurist' and tried to invent ways to make wireless electrical transmission possible. One of his first attempts was his invention of the Tesla Coil.

My boyfriend is not a physicist, he does teach math and electronics. Halloween at his house is the mad scientists laboratory as he fires up Tesla Coils, Jacob's ladders and brings a halloween store Frankenstein to life. Around the house, he has synched thunder sounds to lights. He even gives demonstrations by putting a regular old light bulb near the coil (it is four feet tall) and getting it to light. Tesla coils are dangerous; don't do that one unless you know what you are doing. I wish the heck we could post pictures on these forums, maybe a FB picture link would be o.k. Last Halloween, I got to play the vixen lab assistant.

Christmas is even better as he incorporates the Tesla Coil into a plastic nativity scene. He also has a 64 channel light system he built using a very old computer motherboard, synched to Christmas music. Last Christmas, we had hundreds of people drive by, some actually stopped to enjoy the show.

My boyfriend has a picture of Tesla in his garage laboratory the dining room and in the front room. His shrine, so to speak, is the Halloween and Christmas light shows. The boyfriend always go on and on about how Tesla changed the world.

My recommendation: TESLA.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2013 10:13AM by karriew.

A pic of Christopher Hitchens. Hitch made a better argument for rationality and reason over mythology than anyone.

Artwork depicting all the gods no one believes in anymore, alongside some of the ones people still do.

Wow! These are great! Keep them coming. Karriew, it must be interesting dating the "mad scientist". I love nerds and geeks! They do such cool things.

Post Bertrand Russell's 10 Rules in a frame or on a scroll.

I have a mirror framed with handmade tiles I made. The tiles have names of various gods. The idea is that when you look in the mirror, you see the creator of gods- or the god is within.

I think I should make a shrine too. What a great idea.

I would include a small model or picture of a telescope or maybe pictures from the Hubble. I would include a small model or picture of a microscope and maybe pictures taken of viruses taken from an electron microscope.

This is a great idea. I hope you do it. :-)

My favorite: "No deity will save us, we must therefore save ourselves."

I'm not an atheist but I love the argument they present. They believed that waiting for God to provide solutions to human problems is irresponsible and lazy. They believed that it was humanity's highest obligation to ensure the best quality of life for humanity, and that required the skills and talents of all people.

If you were sitting in a church pew asking God for food instead of hunting, farming, or developing new agricultural methods, you were not being ethical. I respect this philosophy.