Christians: of what value to God is worship? [ed. title for clarity]

Great Debates
61

Not necessarily. It’s just that, I’m told, God wants all humans to love him. Because I (and a few other heathens) are thwarting his desire, that means he’s not getting something he wants. It’s the incompletion, the lack of fulfillment of desire that makes him imperfect, not the “amount” of people. It has nothing to do with needing fewer people.

Try it this way – if God said, “I want a million people to love and worship me, that’s it,” I’d accept he could be perfect. If instead he said, “I want a dozen people to love and worship me, that’s it,” that doesn’t make him less perfect because there are fewer people. It makes him just as perfect, because in either case, he’s getting what he wants.

It’s the concept that there could be something that God wants but doesn’t get – i.e., my love – that makes him imperfect.

62

A perfect being would see that we are of a type of lower being that gets pleasure from social interaction, much like a lizard getting the pleasure center of its brain twanged when it eats a big juicy fly in the sun. It wouldn’t feel any sense of loss, just like most people don’t feel any sense of loss because they don’t enjoy playing with their shit like a monkey.

63

  1. Plenty of atheists are not hate-filled. I can only think of two Doper atheists offhand who may qualify- one of them being the banned person I addressed in the controversial post.

  2. a.) The rich man wasn’t in Gehenna/the Lake of Fire. He was in Hades (Luke 16) aka Sheol, a temporary holding pen until the Last Judgement (Revelation 20).
    b.)If the Hades fire is also the same Divine Fire as the Gehenna Fire, I might suggest it was doing its punitive work at the time, not its redemptive purifying work. Also, what is water symbolic of? The Life-Giving Refreshing Presence of God.
    c.)Finally, he was asking someone who wasn’t able to cross over to give him relief.
    However, since then, Jesus has crossed over & may well have brought salvation
    (Living Water) to the rich man (those symbolized by him).

3.) Thanks.

64

Well, my main point didn’t have to do with the number of people I was vulnerable to, but whether I was vulnerable to any at all. I was addressing your definition of perfection by thinking about what would move someone nearer to or farther away from your ideal.

This is a good point. I wouldn’t be surprised if it has been extensively addressed by theologians, but I don’t know of an authoritative answer, so I’ll give my own thoughts.

One response would be to claim that God will, eventually, get your love, and everyone else’s, if not now then sometime in eternity. It is God’s will that everyone come to know and love him, and that will cannot and will not be ultimately thwarted. There are people who believe this, though it’s a minority view, in my understanding.

Another approach would be to claim that your idea of perfection is a logical impossibility, and therefore nonsense and inapplicable to God. It’s the same sort of dilemma as the popular one about God’s omnipotence: If God can do anything, can he do mutually contradictory or logically impossible things, like making a rock so heavy he can’t lift it or a burrito so hot he can’t eat it? If God can get anything he wants, can he satisfy wants that are mutually contradictory?

Specifically, what if God wants everyone’s freely given love (or faith, or devotion, or worship, or whatever)? He can’t force everyone to love him, because that wouldn’t be freely given love. But if he lets people choose, there has to be a possibility that they will choose not to love him.

(And some people try to reconcile these two perspectives, and say that somehow, someway, everyone will ultimately choose to love God. I’d like for this to be true, but it’s hard to imagine how it could be.)

Another thought: I wonder whether the adjective “perfect” can even have a definite meaning unconnected to the noun that it’s modyifying. A geometric figure could be a perfect square, or it could be a perfect circle, but it couldn’t be both of these things at the same time (at least in standard Euclidean geometry). Having corners would prevent something from being a perfect circle, but not from being a perfect square. Would having unfulfilled desires prevent a Supreme Being from being a perfect God? That depends on, not just what “perfect” means, but on what being a “perfect God” means.

I’m not sure how much (if any) light this sheds on the question at hand, though.

65

A number of passages offer a different take on God’s desire to be worshipped:

Exodus 34
Then the LORD said: "I am making a covenant with you. Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the LORD, will do for you…Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles. Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.

Deuteronomy 5
You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Whenever I read the Old Testament, I have a hard time not picturing a mean, neurotic, emotionally unstable God. This is not a God you worship out of love and gratitude. This is a guy you worship because he’ll set your face on fire and turn your children into dung beetles if you don’t.

66

In the OT things that Satan did is attributed to God, and yes Satan’s power does come from God. But as God allows us free will, He also apparently allows Satan that free will also, but within limits God has set. IMHO God is saying to us we have a choice, but if you chose to worship other gods those gods don’t have your best interest in mind.

A great example of this is 1Cronicalies 21:1 says Satan moved David to take a census and 2 Samual 24:1 says that the Lord incited David to take the census. This is the same census and shows how Satan is involved in such evil use of God’s power.

Another one is Job 1:11 (Satan speaking to God) “stretch out Your hand and strike (Job)”, which is it clear that Satan is given the power to actually do the striking (Lord to Satan)’ Very well, then everything he has is in your hands…’ (Job 1:12).

67

I’m not really seeing how this answer the quoted passages where God, not a satan, is demanding exclusive tribute like a jealous tribal volcano god.

(And it’s true, one man’s obvious biblical contradiction is another man’s creative biblical justification.)

68

If I keep this up, I might run for Pope! :smiley:

I happen to be one of the foaming-at-the-mouth atheists on SDMB, but in fact I think I shocked the little cotton socks off people last week when I came out with an anaology-cum-argument as to why an omnipotent being might not have revealed itself to us in a clear manner. You will find my posting in another thread here.

To sum it up in few words. I cannot explain to my cats why I sometimes impose suffering on them (visits to the vet, refusal of food to obese cats) because the gulf between their intelligence and mine is too great. But they and I can be joined by a bond of love despite that intellectual gap.

Not everyone agreed with me, but I think it hints that such an arrangement is plausible re: limited humans and an omniscient being.

Now, here is another analogy/argument. Why would an omnipotent being need to be worshiped? After all, you would assume that the all-perfect creator of the universe would be pretty secure in the ego department and would not need to have his ass kissed, right?

But now think of the analogy of WHY people raise children. The kid does not make you richer. There is no guarantee he or she will not be a big disappointment. Parents do not gain anything obvious from having children.

And before you answer that it is a desire to reproduce our genes, why do childless couples so often adopt? No genes transfered there.

The answer would seem to be that something in our minds makes us want to have little, dependent, inferior beings that we can love AND THAT WILL LOVE US BACK.

When you get right down to it, that is all any parent really wants or needs from their kids.

So is it plausible that even though a being is omnipotent, eternal and omniscient, that being somehow needs something that even such a being lacks? Namely, to have beings that he can love, but who also possess enough intelligence to guess at his existence, and enough consciousness to love him back?

Now, there is one thing that you must admit about love. By its very nature, it must be freely given by the being who loves, or it cannot exist at all. I could put a gun to your head and demand that you say you love me, or offer you a million dollars to say that you love me, and my guess is that most people would say it in either circumstance. But we are not fooling anyone. Both of us would know that it cannot be real love the minute you said it.

So I think we can agree that love can exist only when it is 100% freely given.

So that is the possibility. A perfect being who loves all his creation (rocks, animals, plants) but needs just one thing to be truly happy and complete. To be loved back by at least part of that creation. Kind of scary that such a being needs that from you and I, but there you have it.

By the way I am NOT a creationist. I am just using it in the sense of “ultimate cause of the existence of the universe”. I am 100% evolutionist. And I am still an atheist because, like Richard Dawkins, I still belive God **probably ** does not exist.

69

I’m proposing the concept that God has provided His people immunity from harm from Satan if they follow certain rules (within certain limits). If they do not Satan is permitted access to them to do as he sees fit.

70

You quoted from the post this was in:

Emphasis mine. There is no ambiguity here: God is jealous and will himself lay the smack down on those who are merely related to those who “hate” him (which “hate” is determined by worshipping anything other than him). It does not say, “I will stand aside and it’s not my fault if the devil wanders by while I’m off doing something else”, or even “I will send my lapdog the devil to punish”; it says “I am a jealous God, punishing”.

You can believe what you want, I suppose, but if you’re going to cherrypick and/or gratuitously reinterpret the bible, you shouldn’t criticize others for doing the exact same thing.
And Valeron, minor nitpick: I don’t agree that there is no such thing as conditional love. Other than that, though, you’ve presented a reasonably sensible justification for why a benevolent creator God would desire love. It doesn’t justify worship, of course, but still, what you’ve got there’s not bad.

(From where I stand, I’d say that the explanation that seems most consistent with Christianity anyway is the “volcano god wanting tribute” explanation, but clearly YMMV.)

71

I´m glad you’re amused; makes me feel like my posts aren’t entirely wasted.
AFAIK, in order to call yourself a Catholic you are required to believe in the Chatechism. Your own post says

QUOTE:Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.336

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.337 UNQUOTE. Do you disagree?

Yours amusingly, I hope: M

72

Of course, not. However, as I have explained on several occasions over the years, the RCC does not use a literalist definition regarding knowing of God or the teachings of the church.

The RCC considers one’s life experiences that may interfere with the acceptance as true of its teachings–even those that are explained–as being one category of “Through no fault of one’s own.”
Note that paragraph 847 does not say “know about” (i.e. have information regarding), Christ and His Church, but simply “know”–as in having personal knowledge of. The church would recognize that there are many possible barriers to coming to a full knowledge of God or the Church: e.g., being raised in a separate faith tradition; having a life experience that appears to contradict the teachings of the Church. So, from the RCC perspective, the issue is not one of simply “hearing” the Word of God, but of being able to accept it.

73

All power is God’s, including Satan’s, so yes when Satan smacks down it is the same as God doing it. For that matter when you are slapped down by another person it is the same as God doing it. So yea there is no ambiguity here. My post # 66 is a biblical cite along with:

  • NIV

Clearly shows the flow of power and it is correct to express any use of power as coming from God.

74

Valteron: I guess I am an unusual parent because what I want from my children is that they live a good productive life,and treat others with love and respect. I did not have children so they would love me. It is important to me that I love them and the word love to me means wishing and wanting what is best for another.

Monavis

75

Sure, if God is guilty of a greater sin. :dubious:

No seriously. Jesus is clearly not talking about God as being the one who handed him over, because he would not describe God as sinning. Your powers of selective reading and imaginative mental reinterpretation are impressive, but that doesn’t change the fact that the text you’re quoting doesn’t support your point.

Not that you need to try that hard to convince me; your god sounds like a terrible evil bastard, and while that is conceptually much closer to the old testament than a lot of christian religions’ presentation of God, I’m afraid my morals and scruples prevent me from even considering allying myself with such a monster. So don’t work too hard towards that end.

76

The way I read this one is that Satan is the one guilty of the greater sin, a misuse of God’s power, that he hands over to Pilot. Note the blindness Pilot expresses in his action when he asked Jesus “what is truth”, and Jesus request/prayer on the cross, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do”.

77

Given that Jesus had just made a cryptic comment about “truth”, you can hardly blame the guy for asking. There seems no reason to read extra meaning into it; it’s not like Pilate is inspired to layer his words with double meaning.

(And “Father forgive them” simply seems to imply that Jesus thinks there a possibility that God might be driven by passion to exact vengeance against the soldiers and other humans in a 3000 mile radius. Given the OT, Jesus has valid reason to be concerned about this.)

So I’m still not seeing a scriptural argument here, but then again, I have already conceded and bowed to your impressive powers of creative reinterpretation.

And sure, sure, I see where you’re generally going. For all functional purposes, there is no satan. There is one God, and it does both good and evil deeds pretty freely. The good deeds you attribute to this entity called “satan” so you can continue to pretend that your God is Good. (Satan’s just God’s poor helpless innocent scapegoat, if he exists at all.) A standard reaction to the problem of evil, although one of the flimsier ones, especially the way you’re playing it, since when the dust settles, God is still directly at fault for the evil! All that satan gets to do is put in the work order for it; God still is fully in control of what evil actually gets done.

Like I said, if that’s your god, you can keep 'im.

78

Errr, I meant the evil deeds you attribute to satan, of course. (Though the other way 'round would be a nice change of scenery, one supposes.) Ah, well, don’t mind me.

79

Disclaimer: I’m an agnostic, former xian, and don’t believe it anymore.

However, within the xian construct, I think there’s at least 2 possible answers: one, worship has absolutely no value to god. That is, he doesn’t need it. (Under this theory, the point would be for the worshiper only. It feels good to love/dedicate oneself to something and it can be emotionally focusing and clarifying; sorry if that’s off topic.)

The other answer, depending on how much of ‘traditional’ xianity you subscribe to – teachings not literally found in the bible necessarily but subscribed to by vast number of xians as the narrative/backstory – is that god needs it to win his fight against the devil. (That’s based on the notion of god making humans, the devil rebelling against the idea of being subservient to the humans and deciding to make it his life’s goal to fuck up the humans at all costs and get them not to worship god anymore.)

So, by that theory, if you do worship god your allegiance to his side helps his feud.

80

I went to a Jesuit high school. One of the Jesuits who had previously taught at the school was the rector of a downtown Houston church across the street from the Jail (or police station?). He’d been one of my cousin’s teachers, and when I met him, he says this to me:

“Oh! You’re X’s cousin? Well you know, we keep a couple of hundred dollar bills in the rectory under the clock for bail. You just give me a call if you end up across the street, and I’ll come bail you out. I know how you young guys get a little crazy from time to time.”

Good old Jesuits- hardly the “holier than thou” sort of clergy, that’s for sure!