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The World Trade Center: A Sacred Place?


I'm working with a team and the assignment consists of the below parameters:

Write a paper on a secular organization of your choice-- such as a town, a nation, or a corporation-in which you explain how one to three of its locations functions as a sacred place. As you do so, explain what elements mythic sacred places have in common and how they function in their cultures. Illustrate your analysis of your chosen contemporary secular place by comparing it to at least one other sacred place taken from a traditional myth.

My part is to make the comparison to traditional myth with a similar sacred place. I have chosen as my sacred place, that is a site for ceremony and mourning, the World Trade Center, post 9-11. I must also provide an example of a traditional sacred place associated/similar to World Trade Center, post 9-11

If someone could provide ideas to get me started that would be helpful.

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Dear Student,
Hello, the solution below is also attached as a word & text file (SacredPlacesDiscussion.doc) and is print ready. For expansion, do utilize the references listed. Thank you for using Brainmass. Goodluck!

OTA 105878/Xenia Jones


Myth and Sacred Places

Myths, while imagined, have their own explanations of the divine, that to the faithful and those who take the myth on 'faith', see as true, sacred and unquestioned. For those who do not see myths as religion and the lore and stories in it mere 'stories', events and elements in it are curiously close to the beliefs and persuasive elements of the philosophies or religion the person follows. Take for example current world religions - elements of god, evil, goodness, light, dark, motherhood, piety, divine appointment, determinism - they are all part of the Pantheon. Remember, that back in the period when the stories and tales we now know as myths were the standard, they were seen and treated by the civilization or culture that followed them as the 'truth', the established knowledge and explanation of their world, their reality and their role and place in it. Each myth, each pantheon of gods had their own 'sacred places'. Like dwellings to humans, these sacred places were either their abodes or locations that held great significance to them due to events and roles that played out in it or were played.

Some sacred places are a site for mourning. Let us, for the purpose of discussion, consider religion as an evolution/expression of established myths. The Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and the Golgotha, the hill and site where Jesus Christ was crucified, is a place of mourning but at the same time a ...

Solution Summary

The solution provides guidance and viewpoints on the topic of Sacred Places and secular organizations - particularly the development of a sacred place or places given great, almost divine import in a secular organization like a city, a company or a town. The post 9-11 World Trade Center is presented as a modern-day sacred place (for New Yorkers & the American people) and is compared to key mythical places in its emergence as a place of sanctity and divine reflection. A word version of the solution is attached for easy printing. The solution is written following the APA-format, references are provided for expansion.