Okay, but you’ll miss tea and cake.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but your statement about the subject of the thread was basically, “I dunno, I think maybe God doesn’t want to be worshiped at all.” Which is nice and all, but it’s hard not to talk past a shrug.
What if people benefit from the mere act of worshiping God, due to some arcane and extremely specific universal law that only works when worshiping God specifically? And that such a system is set up for the express purpose of letting humans keep their free will?
~Max
That is certainly…an idea, I guess.
How would such a system help people keep their free will? Does getting God’s help rob people of their free will somehow? Note that if a person doesn’t have the ability to stop god from helping them that doesn’t reduce the person’s free will any more than it reduces your free will if you can’t stop me from slipping money into your pocket.
The goal of worshiping God is not to retain free will per se but to better the human soul. Sure, God could swoop in and forcibly manipulate a human’s soul - but to do so destroys the human’s free will, and it must be asked if doing so in fact improves the soul at all. To use the father-son analogy, a father does not improve his son’s character by knocking out the child and, by the force of his own hands, making the child perform moral acts.
~Max
How does constant veneration/worship of the father improve the soul of the son?
I can posit a mechanism. Maybe worshipping God on a regular basis keeps God (and his laws) in our consciousness so that our souls stay pure. Kind of like how regular exercise keeps our muscles toned and strong. Maybe without regular worship, it is easier to lose faith and succumb to temptations.
Isn’t that akin to brainwashing?
We have evidence for brains . . . souls, not so much.
CMC fnord!
I always study when I have to take a test. I read over my lecture notes and work different problem sets until the material fully saturates my brain. I do this so that I’ll master the test. Or, at the very least, I won’t be intimidated by the test.
If you think that’s brainwashing, OK.
Should be easy to test; compare the crime rates in countries that do a lot of worshipping against those that don’t. I wonder what the result might be.
I don’t think that is brainwashing. Are you saying that studying and worshiping are the same thing?
I don’t think doing one thing (worship) to keep some other thing else (God and his laws) in ones consciousness is brainwashing. Just like I don’t think studying for a test is brainwashing or chanting affirmations is brainwashing.
Are you honestly confused? Or are you just humoring yourself?
Just keeping things straight, which of these scenarios are you positing:
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Worshiping god acts as a summoning spell which brings God into your soul and allows him to bust out the dustbuster and windex and clean your soul out.
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Worshiping god doesn’t mean worshiping him, but instead studying up on him, bringing thoughts about his existence and laws in your mind which then causes you to behave more nicely because you remember what the laws are and that he exists enough to disapprove of you breaking them.
I’m not saying this.
I’m not saying this either, at least not exactly.
Worship is akin to studying in that both activities keep information (whether that be God, his promises, his instructions, his love, his wonderful afterlife) in a person’s awareness. If you sing along to gospel music* right before you go to bed, let’s say, then you will have God on your brain at a moment when your thoughts might otherwise turn dark (“There is no God”) or salacious (“Ooh, sexy times with myself!”) And thus you will be able to wake up the next day with a soul that’s heavenbound. Just like if you work calculus problems right before you go to bed, you will have conic functions on your brain when you wake up rather than the usual stupid programming, such as the theme song to Scooby Doo. You will be able to wake up with a mind that’s bound to master the big final exam.
I’m not sure what ya’ll are specifically confused about, but I guess I’ll keep playing along.
*I personally recommend Aretha Franklin’s “Amazing Grace” album. It’s almost good enough to make a heathen like me backslide right back into Christianity.
I’m not a theologian and I am not a Catholic, but I have had the pleasure of speaking to a Catholic minister about this and will do my best to represent that faith.
During a Catholic mass the worshiper ingests consecrated bread and wine, which has the effect of literally inviting Jesus into your soul. This is not based on scientific evidence, but on longstanding papal authority which in turn interprets the Eucharist as related by the Bible (Matthew 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:17-20; I Corinthians 11:23-25; John 6:47-67).
Unfortunately for agnostics, the physical mechanism behind transubstantiation (if one exists) remains elusive.
~Max
So, if we’re presuming that God is the one mandating the worship, it’s actually more like “Hey all you guys, keep in mind that I’m going to mercilessly rip into you for all your unapproved actions and/or thoughts at some point, and if you keep the approved literature in your heads as much as possible it’s less likely that the thought police will drag you to barbecue town when the Great Grilling commences. Consider this advice/order a warning/order.”?
The rabbis I have listened to taught that any righteous act (mitzvah) is an act of worship, or avodat hashem. Prayers (tefilah) are a special kind of mitzvah, and the purpose of prayer like any other act of worship is to transform one’s self. Apparently there is some disagreement as to how this works. One conservative rabbi years ago explained prayers as a form of communication. Another rabbi explained that prayers literally shape the universe (this Jewish theology is known as Kabalah). What rabbis seem to agree on is that it is the intent of the prayer that counts, not the specific sounds or words or tone.
~Max
I’m not sure what “narcissism” would mean when applied to a deity, at least a Supreme Being like the God of Jews, Christians, or Muslims.
That he “thinks he’s God”? Well, duh: He is.
That he has an exaggerated sense of self-importance? But he is important. Narcissism is a disorder in human beings because, hey, you’re not the only person in this world. Why should you think you’re more special than anybody else? But God is more special than anybody else.
That he has an excessive need for admiration? Now we’re sort of begging the question: Why does he want/need people to worship him?
This may work for gods in polytheistic or henotheistic settings, but it doesn’t make sense for the Almighty as conceived of by most monotheists, who doesn’t have such limitations.
- Sort of the opposite of this: God knows that people have a built-in tendency to worship something, and so he wants them to worship him rather than something more dangerous like a human being, an institution (like the State), or the Almighty Dollar.
Probably several other possibilities, such as my #6 above, or my suggestion earlier in the thread that maybe worship makes God “feel good” or get something analogous to emotional pleasure from it.
But maybe all of these suggested reasons are too transactional. They’re all based on the supposition that God derives some benefit as a result of being worshiped, or that the worshipers do. But maybe that’s the wrong way to look at it, or at least not the full picture. Maybe worship is an end in itself, rather than a means to an end. Maybe worship (whether by humans or by angels) happens because it’s somehow right or fitting or aesthetically pleasing.