There are many interpretations of the act of worship, and I don’t take a position on whether God exists or religion is good and bad. But let me give you my understanding of how others feel about this topic.
It is my understanding in mainstream monotheism that worshiping God directly improves your soul. The act of worship is less about God being egotistical than God being altruistic. You are literally inviting God into your soul. The act of worship is also an act of ultimate humility and piety, which again directly improves your soul and therefore your character. Not only that, congregated worship is an essential part of many religious communities. Nobody denies the powerful positive effect of belonging to a community, and congregated worship lays the groundwork for a religious community.
God has emotions that we can change? This doesn’t seem to correspond with the idea of a being that is the source of all emotions. I have as much trouble thinking we can make such a being happier as I do with the idea that we can somehow disappoint a being that already knows our every secret thought and action, from birth to death.
The sense I have gotten over many years is that the nature and attributes of God require worship. Not that He demands it, but that He must be worshiped because of what He is.
I was under the impression that many gods, including the god of the Bible, are pretty humanlike in their moods and behaviors.
Based on the way the bible typically characterizes his interactions with people, one gets the distinct impression that he considers it a respect thing - the same way that your boss at work expects you to let him speak first, without interrupting him, and preceding your queries to him with animal sacrifices.
The main reason that a reasonable person might want respect would be to keep order.
The god of the bible struck me as a bit less reasonable than that, so my guess, as an outside observer, would be that it had more to do with ego/insecurity.
The god of the bible is definitely written as an entity that has emotions. It’s also very explicit that human behavior can effect his moods. Usually by pissing him off, but he’s been stated as being pleased about things people do too.
It would also fall outside most Protestant belief. Protestant doctrine generally feels that nothing people can do can have an effect on God. Granted, they usually express this as saying people cannot save themselves from damnation by their own actions but the principle’s the same.
Worship does nothing to God, and he doesn’t need it. It’s purely for the sake of the worshipper himself. The worshipper benefits by cultivating his own love and devotion and spirituality.
And by getting something back from the Deity in return for worship, in intangible and tangible (if you believe some of the more blatant media preachers) ways.
Back when I was a Christian, I probably rationalized the whole “we must worship” thing (which did make me uncomfortable) with the idea that worship activity distracts people from doing bad things. If you’re worshipping, you aren’t gossipping, fighting, stealing, coverting, or killing. And worship makes you feel good so that you will keep coming back to church. The worship part of the service, which always involved really good music, was the only thing I liked about church as a kid. Take that away and church really would have been hell for me.
First, omit from consideration the notion of God as a personality who “wants” or “needs” anything. Quit psychoanalyzing God for a moment and shift the focus to yourself (or to me) as potential worshiper.
What are the attitudes and emotions of a dedicated driven attorney towards Justice? The attorney in question may be fully familiar with anthropomorphized images of justice blindfolded and holding the scales, but is actually relating to Justice as more of an abstraction, but (on the other hand) does not think of justice as "a cultural and social construct that doesn’t exist except in the sense of ‘whatever people have been encultured to think justice is’ ". Nope, this individual is a true believer, someone who thinks there really is a divine principle of what is fair, what is true, whether our puny courts and fallible officers thereof can approximate it or not.
That emotional and cognitive embrace of that abstract principle, around which the attorney has arrayed an entire lifetime and made a career, is worship.
Now, yes, I know you’re thinking there’s a massive difference between Justice and God. That people who believe in God don’t think of God as an abstract principle, they pray to God and anticipate answers and stuff, they think God is conscious! Well, the attorney may spend some time trying to set aside the nuts and bolts of casework and make an effort to get in touch with that sense of justice and what is right, as a method of clarifying and getting in touch with purpose and so on. Tuning into it. That process is prayer. You actually don’t need to fold your hands into a certain shape and address God (or Justice) as if you were composing an email or something and conceptualize the message’s recipient as a blindfolded woman holding a scale (or a bearded sky God or whatever) in order for the process to be useful and meaningful.
(You may also think I’ve got a ludicrously idealistic notion of the typical attorney’s relationship to ideals of justice. I don’t, actually. Nor do I have any illusions about the typical religious believer’s relationship to God. Neither of these things mean that there aren’t that kind of idealistic dedicated people who really are true believers, not in the mindless-puppet sense but in the inspired-and-driven sense. And no, you, any of you who state that you do not believe in God, don’t get to tell people that identify as theistic that they don’t believe in God the way you mean when you wish to discuss beliefs in God)
If justice can be considered divine, then it seems as though you are arguing for polytheism. Actually I’m fine with that; there could be an infinite number of gods for all I care. But which of them is worthy of worship? All? None? I don’t think I could give all the infinite gods enough reverence, so I’ll settle for not giving it to any of them. They won’t miss it; they don’t need it.