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Somebody believed.
Right here, somebody decided. We will clear this land and level it. We will bring in wood-cutters and carpenters to make a frame, we will bring in quarrymen to cut stone and carters with oxen to drag the stone here. We will bring in masons and builders to lay the stone around the frame, and glass-makers to make windows. We will bring in artisans to shape and carve the stone, to color the glass and tile the floor. We will have the farmers plant more wheat and raise more sheep. We will bring in more bakers to bake bread and cooks to prepare food for the workers. And we will all band together and we will raise a building for our God.
Right here in Ghent Christians raised a cathedral, and here in Byzantium and here in Winchester. Right here in Baghdad Muslims raised a mosque for Allah, and here in Marrakesh and here in Cairo. Right here in Heidelberg, and here in Granada, and here in Zagreb Jews raised synagogues—and Christians and Muslims destroyed them.
The power of belief is both awesome and awful. We mustn’t blind ourselves to its awful aspects—that denigrates the existence of belief itself. But neither should we allow the fact that belief can reveal itself in horrible ways to diminish the beauty that can come from belief. You don’t have to believe in any particular god to respect and admire the power that brought together so many people and bound them into a single community acting in the service of a beautiful purpose.
Somebody believed, and got others to believe, and because of that shared belief, something wonderful happened.
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