church in U.K.

When I took this photo there were a group of youths sneaking some beers in a doorway of this church. Prodigal sons.

I've read about some different origin stories about the formation of permanent, human settlements. Conventional wisdom holds that agriculture, with its land intensive requirements was the main driver of people settling down and building cities. More sophisticated researchers are pointing out how spiritual customs and religious rituals were a major organizing force. People started to build cities and architecture as a tribute to gods.

The architectural record supports this story. Groups of humans have spent incredible resources to build a home for their gods, or for a dead king, at the apparent expense of higher quality shelter for themselves. I'll advance the idea that people's devotion to lavishing a disproportionate share of labor and materials on spiritual architecture was the simplest thing to do at the time. The needs and desires of a deity are unknowable and infinite. The needs of humans can be more easily be satisfied, and in the context of societies that hadn't yet designed the distractions that we now regard as so important (like blogs), these needs had a natural limit. Consequently, a huge temple was a good idea because it justified exhaustive resources and absorbed surplus labor and materials in a society.