I feel obliged to preface this post by saying that I’ve been in the midst of a crisis of faith for some time. Various persons on this board have called me more deist than Christian; right now I’m torn in various directions.
Anywhistle: of what value to an infinite and omnipotent Deity can the adoration and offerings of mortals be? Why would God care?
(To our more strident atheists: do you mind letting believers chime in before posting remarks like, “God is entirely imaginary and can’t care or not care” or “Any being who wants to be worshipped doesn’t merit the appellation ‘God’ ?” Thanks.
I’m interested in seeing what others think about the worship part, as well. As for the adoration/love/etc.: I’ve always seen it as similar to the adoration/love/etc. shown between a person and their family. That is, you don’t necessarily need it, but it’s something that’s really nice to have.
Incidentally, my view on this had also shaped my beliefs around why we were given free will to begin with. Basically, it’s a lot nicer hearing “I Love You” from someone who genuinely means it, than it is from your marionette.
LilShieste
I’ve edited the title from “Christians: of what value is worship to God?” to reduce the off-topic reponses answering the question What is the value to the believer in worshipping God?
Though I’m a Christian, I am unable to believe that God sends otherwise decent human beings to Hell, just because they don’t believe in Him. I realize this puts me at odds with a lot of (most?) other Christians, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take.
LilShieste
The OP was not about believing in him or not, but what he gets out of worship. Are you saying you also do not believe that God requires to be worshiped, on pain of eternal torment? I think you must have some interesting conversations with your Christian fellows then
The view that God requires worship under pain of damnation is probably a minority postion among Chrsitians, today (although it is a majority position in a few regions of the U.S.).
I mean I understand that many christians do not believe that formal sunday worship in a church is required but they all require recognition that jesus was the savior that he was the son of god and that you are damned to everlasting fire if you fail to recognize this. So of what value to god is belief in christ the savior son of god?
How is it counter factual? Such minor institutions as the Catholic church, the Orthodox church, the Anglican communion, several Lutheran synods, and any number of other Christian denominations simply do not hold that one needs to believe in the Christian view of God to be saved.
I would not say that this is a traditional belief, but it is the current belief expressed by those faiths.
While I keep an open mind to the ultimate workings of the universe, it’s been a loooong time since I was on close terms with christian catechism. Having said that, I don’t remember any quota of worship, no quantifiers or qualifiers that would get you into heaven. He who believed and was baptized shall be saved.
The only value in worship to god that I can believe in is the bennefit to man. If worship helps us focus on others, practice humility and rise above our selfish nature then that might be all the profit god sought. Much like a coach doesn’t dirently bennefit from the training regimen he puts his team through.
IANA believer in the sense the OP states
IANAChristian, so this is entirely guessing. Perhaps it’s more a question of recognition, rather than the worship exactly. God is, to the believer, very much worthy of that worship. Maybe veneration of God isn’t good because God wants admiration, per se (though I wouldn’t blame him); it’s an indication that the Christian understands the world and sees the truth of things. Plus it’s a recommitment to the ideals of the religion they follow, just a way of saying “Hey up there, i’m still on your side, big guy”.
Getting away from the hijack and back to this question (please!), the answers I know of boil down to the following:
(1) God gets a sense of satisfaction from people’s love and worship analogous to the sense that we get when our own children/grandchildren/spouses/friends/SO’s/pets/etc. express their love or adoration or appreciation of us to us.
(2) God derives some sort of aesthetic pleasure from our acts of worship. If I compose a beautiful prayer or piece of music or perform a religious ritual to the glory of God, God somehow enjoys the performance.
(3) God wants us to worship him because it is good for us to do so. (For various reasons, such as, for example, that while we’re worshipping God, we can’t be worshipping something else, like money or sex or power or some charismatic leader or our own selves.)
The various churches have different ways of expressing the idea, but most follow the path of the Orthodox in simply saying that it is God’s decision and we are not to presume to know. In some circles, (including the RCC), this is known as a Baptism of Desire: the person wished to know God perfectly, “desired Baptism,” but was prevented by some human interference, either physical or of understanding.
The RCC (in its typical fashion) gets into some extended logic as I
[quoted here]
(http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6079331&postcount=2). (Note that despite my flip comment at the end of that post, Pope Benedict has actually taken steps to make doctrine more formally open, such as makinmg it official that Limbo is not recognized as doctrine.)
In the linked page, the references in paragraphs 846 and 847 to “not knowing” are generally recognized as meaning any person who cannot reconcile Catholic teaching with his or her own beliefs, not merely a person who may not have heard Catholic preaching.
Southern Baptists hold pretty firmly to a literal interpretation of Scripture as expressed in the Religious Tolerance link I provided and would not be among those groups who have expressed a more open-ended view of salvation. They are not, however, a majority of Christians–although there are regions of the U.S. where they or Missouri or Wisconsin Synod Lutherans or similar groups are a local majority.
This is pretty much off-topic for this thread, however.
I was raised Catholic (I got better), and the whole worshipping god thing always bugged me. In school, I sat in a huge church with hundreds of other kids being led by a priest to recite prayers that we were told to recite, while teachers watched us. None of us wanted to be there, we did these things cuz we were told to. Same thing on Sundays. I saw families dragged to Church and made to sit there while worshipping god. A large chunk of them didn’t want to be there, and probably wouldn’t have shown up if they hadn’t been told that they had to. It didn’t make much sense to me, and I couldn’t figure out why it happened.
This is actually the most frequent response I get from Christians when they find out that I am an athiest. Usually right after some kind of ‘No way, that’s just stupid’ remark.
