Response to Armstrong Chapters (8-9)

Reading these chapters I found it interesting that when the earthly temple is lost that they seek God through other means. The destruction of the temple reiterated this theme as the Jewish people found the salvation of God and holiness through the Torah. I find it ironic that the idea of God being everywhere is often abandoned with the fixation of an earthly sacred place. This is a theme reverberated through Roman, Jewish, and Christian faiths. It seems that this ideal is a substituted for the loss of the holy area as happened with the Babylonian exile and the destruction of the temple by the Romans. Instead of seeing salvation through the reinstatement of the holy land Christian's try to recreate the presence of God with the establishment of churches and other religious pieces. There seems to be a connection with establishing the presence of God through the earthly vehicles which correlates with the claim to the land. Through these chapters it is evident that religion is tied to the claim of land through the establishment of religious relics.