Sure thing - here we go.
I think I have the same questions as you, then. Because I can understand the “love” part (e.g., even secure parents could be hurt, if their kids didn’t love them), but I’m not too sure about the “worship” part. I had never really thought much about that part, so I’m really interested in hearing others’ views on this.
LilShieste
I don’t know if you’re aware, but DCMS grossly misrepresented my beliefs there, hopefully mistakenly rather than maliciously.
It was best described to me when your spouse asks why do you love me. If you answer it’s because of your beauty, mind, or whatever, that is a conditional love, a love can end if something takes away that beauty, mind, etc. The correct answer is that I love you because I do. It’s something that can never be taken away - this is the love of God, he loves us just because, nothing else really needs to be said.
To answer the OP (and for a wonder kanicbird and I are surprisingly close on this one):
It’s not out of any value to God that one is expected to worship Him – it’s because of the value to the person himself. As in, you may have noticed that people tend to be egotistical, to consider the world revolves around them. (Cf. Any random selection of Pit threads for evidence thereto) Accepting that one is a creature of a Creator and that everything anyone has is in the last analysis His gift (even if earned or made by one’s own efforts, one’s health and non-handicappedness are the results of His grace).
Psalm 50 is instructive in this regard:
I keep reading this sort of thing from theists, and they invariably leave out the most important part of (especially) the RCC´s tippytoeing around the subject: you can be saved IF YOU NEVER HEARD OF JC AND COMPANY. Period. Since there are probably about three atheists in the Western world who meet that requirement, that leaves the rest of us SOL.
Not as I understand it. My UCC minister explains it thusly:
Imagine that you’re, say, a Native American whose first encounter with Christianity was the conquistadors who razed your villain, raped your daughters, and did unspeakable things to you. Much later you meet a much nicer missionary whom you, nevertheless, don’t find all that credible. But you continue to behave as morally and honorably as you can, by the teachings of persons you have met who retain credibility. God counts that as service to him, as your distrust of Christians is a long way from being your fault.
That would be an extreme example, of course. But a modern atheist who honestly disbelieves in the Deity, as opposed to disbelieving out of ego or a desire to sin, and who actively searches for ways to live as moral and kind and loving a life as possible, is likely to get into the afterlife in a way that, say, Fred Phelps is not.
Of course I don’t believe in the afterlife, and I’m ambivalent about God existing at all at thsi point in my life, so I’m just quoting.
I came in here to post something similar. Except I’ll go one step farther: Because God is defined as perfect, He cannot possible give two shits about our love or worship.
I suppose this statement depends on the definition of the word “perfect,” so here’s my take. A perfect being is one without faults who does not, cannot lack for anything. If God is perfect except He wants a turkey sandwich that He currently does not have, He is not perfect – he’s almost perfect, and a little hungry. That’s no longer perfect.
Now, if God is perfect by this definition, He cannot possibly care if I love him/worship him or not. If He did care, if He does want me to love/worship Him, I must disappoint Him, because I don’t love/worship/believe in Him. If He is disappointed, if He is lacking my freely given love (as opposed to my coerced, “I’m God and I can control your mind” love), then He is no longer perfect. He’s almost perfect, and a little disappointed.
So I’m thinking one of three things is going on here:
(1) He’s not perfect, merely “almost perfect,” which I think would be hard for most (all?) Christians to reconcile;
(2) He’s perfect, and He’s not disappointed that I don’t love/worship him, because it’s not something He wants (in which case we’re cool with each other, AFAICT)
(3) There’s a definition of the word “perfect” that solves that conundrum (some variant of “We can’t possibly understand; He’s God and we’re mortal, but somehow, He can be bummed that you don’t love Him and yet still be perfect.”
My conclusion is that there is no God, and so all this theological dithering is merely mental masturbation. But just before I became an apostate, I think I drifted towards (2), and then decided it’d be easier to just admit that I sort of went along with the whole “God” thing out of peer pressure.
I don’t like your definition of perfection. By your definition, the fewer people I love or care about—the fewer people have any power to delight or disappoint me—the nearer perfection I am.
I am always amused by people who feel the need to tell other people what they MUST believe, particularly when their opinions are based on interpretations of texts.
The OP is not about loving God, but why he requires acts of worship. Just because you love your spouse doesn’t mean you worship him. In any case spouses are equals whereas humans and God are not.
I decry this kind of answer (which I almost invariably get) when I query various aspects of God’s character and actions; arguing by analogy with how humans would behave. I thought humans were supposed to aspire to emulate God’s behaviour, not vice versa?
Would that include all missionaries?
You do, I hope, recognize the difference between a person who attempts to change one’s beliefs and a person who attempts to tell another person that they don’t really believe what they profess to believe, right?
As I studied religions most of my life I find that it was a human (or humans) that decided God wanted worship. Each person decides at one time or the other to believe or change thier beliefs. We do not know what God wants, only what another human said God wanted, that is a big difference. Most humans know it is good to treat others and the earth with kindness knowing that Good will produce good.
Monavis
OK extending this to worship. God is so so so above humans that it elevates us to worship and serve Him to a level that we can’t achieve on our own. So on our end it is to our benefit to do so. On God’s level, I’m not sure, but he takes great delight in us, and it is ‘right’ for us to do so.
I certainly do, but that clarification was not evident in this statement:
Maybe if you had said “…what they do(or really) believe…” I wouldn’t have misunderstood you. Sorry.
Um, you do know what the initials “S.J.” stand for, right? “Society of Jesus,” as in the JESUITS! :eek: The same monsters who started the American Civil War, killed Lincoln, and invented Communism, Mormonism, and the Council on Foreign Relations. For more I’ll refer you to the important publications by Jack Chick.
Really, though, I suspect the intersection of Baptist and Jesuit theologies is, though not a null set, really, really dinky.
Always liked the Jesuits. You can always bum a smoke off one. Considered joining when I was a boy.
Thank you!
Let’s look at what I said.
"FriarTed
Originally Posted by badchad
So basically, you don’t think we should take Jesus’ word for it.
If this were true, you’d be threatening us all with hell then, wouldn’t you. Christ did live as that, did he not?
I find anyone that worships such an selfish, anti-social, genocidal god a bit reprehensible, so I guess that makes us even.
My response-
You know, there comes a time when even Hopeful Universalist C’tians such as myself who hope & believe that the Lake of Fire is the Purifying Presence of God
do relish the thought that some hate-filled unbelievers will be peeing all over themselves & crying like little girls with skinned knees as they stand before Yahweh/Jesus for their Judgement."
And now let’s look at what you said-
"Don’t Call Me Shirley
Aw, come on LilShieste, are you gonna deprive FriarTed of the delight of watching atheists thrown into the lake of fire? He is SO looking forward to that, you know."
See any differences?
1.) I do not speak of looking forward to “atheists” arriving at their Judgement, but to “some hate-filled unbelievers”, which I think many Dopers would agree Mr. BC did qualify as.
2.) I identify myself as a Hopeful Universalist who regards the Lake of Fire as the Purifying Presence of God.
3.) Later in that thread, and some other discussions, I elaborate that I hope the end result of that encounter with Yahweh/Jesus to be reconciliatory and redemptive, and I also admit that how I expressed myself was rather unseemly.
Thanks for the opportunity to clarify.
You were right; you didn’t live it down. 
I think that “atheists” is a good enough paraphrase of “hate-filled unbeliever.” You did say “some” while I may have implied “all” but that’s the only difference I see.
Why would the purifying presence of god make one so thristy? Cause, you know, the rich man was in the “purifying presence of god,” and he was begging for Lazarus to give him some water.
Good for you for admitting that.