zlacker

>>arbesm+(OP)
Author of the post here - happy to discuss and get feedback from HN readers. The examples I gave here are all using GPT-3.5 but Claude now seems to work at least as well using the same prompts.

>>benbre+jl
Fascinating.

One surface level comment. As a non-religious person, I have always found the distinction between buildings for different types of religions as being somewhat artificial. Sure, they have different architectural styles, but they all have a similar purpose in my mind.

So a mosque is a church is a temple, on some level.

>>ilaksh+En
There are many differences. When you look at the typology of most temples, they were viewed as the architectural embodiment of the cosmic hill or mountain. For example, the Egyptians view of creation was a vast sea and some land rose up out of the water and the gods (Osiris, Isis, and their son Horus) came down and dwelled in a hut on the land. Well, all Egyptian temples after that were viewed as having been built on the very ground that first came up out of the water (this was symbolic, they knew that all the temples could not really be built upon that one spot). If you looked at an egyptian temple you will see that in the hypostyle hall you have reed columns which represented the waters around the hill/mountain. As you progressed inwards to the holy of holies you would go up steps and the rooms would get smaller and smaller, just as when you go up a mountain you progress upwards and the circumference of the mountain gets smaller an smaller. Etc.

Churches/synagogues/mosques, on the other hand, are more like community gathering places. Whereas temples are viewed as being sacred and cut off from the profane world and required higher and higher levels of worthiness the closer you got to the innermost parts, churches/synagogues/mosques are more open to anyone who wants to come in and join the services. They are places where there might be activities, sports, clubs, etc. - more community oriented things, things you would never find in a temple.

Churches/synagogues/mosques themselves have different architectural features, but those have more to do with supporting the different ways of worshipping. For example, in Mosques the men and women worship separately. And a mosque needs an area where people can wash and do other ablutions before they enter.

And not all churches are the same. A catholic church will be much different than a protestant or an LDS or a Jehovah Witness church.