This is part of religion I must admit I don't really 'get'. Let's just say, for argument's sake, that a god exists. Why do people need to or feel the need to worship it, devote time or even their lives to/for this god? And why would the god want to be worshipped? I'd like to hear the opinions of some of the 'believers' around hear, those who worship some kind of god and those who don't. Does it depend on what kind of character that god is or is it just purely for being what it is?
Would you not want to be if you were one of the gods? The Greeks used to say it was because the gods were cruel and they enjoy watching man kind suffer, kind of their Reality TV show.
Most religions offer something --something-- other than just plain not existing at all anymore. I'd be interested in the membership numbers for religions that do not offer an afterlife (lol, how many might that be? Surely at least a few) versus those that do. Immortality's got to be an incredible selling point for religion. Hell, if I feared death I'd be all over it myself.
I don't think it's so much that a god would want to be worshiped, because that would obviously have to be a conjecture exclusive to those whose faith leads them to believe that such is the case. But to me, worshiping is a way to express the joy of being alive and gratefulness for life itself. In that context, listening to a worship song like Handel's Hallelujah, or to the Misa Criolla, takes on a lot of relevance for me.
That's funny, i didn't know one must worship something to appreciate its time here. Just because you relate to a wonderfully written song regarding religion and faith it doesn't mean anything - it has the same relevance of listening to a song that reminds you of someone you really care about.
You haven't really answered the question in the thread which is "Why worship a God?" The thing is, even if something exists that created us all, why is it worthy of worship? Particularly the kind of slave-like adoration some religions preach? Frankly that's something that no discussion I've ever watched or had has shed light on. How does "created us" lead to "should be worshipped" particularly with all the modifiers like "unconditionally" and so on you often get.
I think we have to look at the historic context in order to understand how religion evolved the way it has. I will be generalizing in my post, but there's no way avoiding that when addressing such a big topic, so keep in mind that while I'll be using generalizing language, I'm sure there were also exceptions. But since my knowledge about religious history is mostly centered around the Levante, it should at least be relevant to the big monotheistic religions. Originally, religion was used to create a narrative that would explain nature. Today we don't have that aspect anymore (except in creationism), so we don't realize how essential that was thousands of years ago: Why does it rain? Why doesn't it rain? What are diseases? What are floods? What are stars? Why do the movements of the stars reflect what's happening on earth (the seasons)? Why does the earth shake sometimes? Why is there a drought one year and a great harvest the next? What about the moon and the sun? People had absolutely no clue about any of it, but they figured that someone must be in control of all this. On the one hand, the system was obviously designed to accommodate human beings (or so it seemed), on the other hand, they needed an explanation for all the bad things that happened (floods, droughts, plagues). So they created narratives of gods. To these people, gods were absolutely part of reality. But at the same time, they couldn't possibly be all good or there wouldn't be any suffering. This could only mean that the gods had their own agenda. They obviously created earth for mankind, but they weren't always pleased with them, so they evidently wanted mankind to do something for them, mankind was created for some purpose. AFAIK, most cultures figured that they needed to sacrifice stuff to the gods, valuable stuff, because what else could the gods want? The most valuable thing people had was of course life, represented by the blood of animals (though in many cultures it wasn't just animals that were sacrificed). So people tried to appease the gods, not out of love, but out of fear/greed. They sacrificed and held all kinds of rituals to please the gods, so that they may be spared from the next flood/drought/bad harvest/disease/etc. and instead the nasty neighbor tribe would be hit. In the Levante, people back then were henotheists, which means that each tribe worshipped only one god, but they recognized that there were also other gods, each representing one tribe. When two tribes fought a war, then this was just an earthly representation of a fight between their gods and the stronger god would win out. Remnants of that henotheism can actually be found in the Old Testament itself. In Israel, one god (Yahweh) eventually won out and the sacrifices were to be directed to him. Then came a crucial period after the return from the Babylonian exile. The jews that returned by then had a much more sophisticated view on religion, in parts due to Zoroastrian influences and they tried to centralize worship and sacrifice in Jerusalem. We know from the Elephantine papyri that even in the 4th century BC, there were other temples where Jews sacrificed to Yahweh and also that they still believed that other gods existed (making them henotheists). But eventually there was only the temple in Jerusalem left. The next turning point was the destruction of the temple. All of a sudden the entire sacrificial system was gone and Jews (and Christians) had to turn to other forms of worship if they wanted to keep their religion alive (and if we have learned one thing, then it's that religions tend to stick around, even in the face of dramatic change). But we also have to keep in mind that at that point, god was still first and foremost an explanation for natural phenomena. So worshipping god did not necessarily directly follow from his perfect nature or anything like that, but rather in order to make him help the believers. With the advent of Christianity, there was another major change. Before, it was mostly about rituals. The ancient gods (and also Yahweh) expected people to follow the rituals and do the sacrifices. See for example Numbers 15: "1And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 2Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land of your habitations, which I give unto you, 3And will make an offering by fire unto the LORD, a burnt offering, or a sacrifice in performing a vow, or in a freewill offering, or in your solemn feasts, to make a sweet savour unto the LORD, of the herd or of the flock: 4Then shall he that offereth his offering unto the LORD bring a meat offering of a tenth deal of flour mingled with the fourth part of an hin of oil." With Christianity, a second aspect came into the picture. All of a sudden belief was at least equally important. The Yahweh of the Old Testament wouldn't have cared very much whether or not people believed in him, all he wanted his Israelites to do was to follow his commands. So what we had was a general movement away from sacrifice in the Roman Empire and towards other forms of worship, centered around belief. Simultaneously, people realized that the apocalyptic beliefs of early Christianity didn't materialize, so the purpose of worship changed. It morphed from bringing about god's kingdom on earth to assuring that you'd enter god's kingdom in heaven after you died. The last important development was of course our gains in knowledge. With every natural phenomenon we could explain, the sphere of influence for god shrank. We now know that he's not opening the valves in the canopy of heaven to make it rain and he's not hurling down thunder and lightning. The fact that even churches put lightning rods on their roofs shows that by now they've realized that worshipping god won't have any influence on the material world. At the same time, community worship is perceived to be a great thing, people don't like to give it up. I guess there are several reasons why this is the case. On the one hand, it gives tremendous power to the churches who are of course reluctant to give it up. On the other hand it is great for community building and for integrating individual believers into the whole. So new justifications were needed. To sum everything up, one might say that worship did not come about because people believed in an absolutely perfect and good deity whose very existence warrants worship. Rather the other way round. Worship came first and justification came later.
Yeah, it's hilarious. Now, mr. rolleyes, can you explain how you made the logical jump from "takes on a lot of relevance for me" to "one must worship something to appreciate its time here"? Show me where exactly in my post you found the modifier "must". Or did you reach your conclusion based on what we might call "a leap of faith"? Here is my full post, for your reference: Are you stating that it doesn't mean anything to you, or are you trying to assert that it doesn't mean anything to me? I can fully understand and accept the former, but I don't see how you can possibly assert the latter. Well, if you're looking for a logical thoughtful answer based on a look back at human history, I doubt anybody can do better than the one benztown posted right above. If that doesn't satisfy, I don't know what will. But I took the question asked in the thread title - "Why worship God" - at face value, and gave a simple answer based on why I might consider worship myself, and why I might find worship songs relevant. I stated that to me it's "a way to express the joy of being alive and gratefulness for life itself." I think it's a valid answer, and I'm not sure why you would argue that I haven't answered the question. Not sure what you were looking for, but it's a simple question and I gave a simple answer based on my own personal experience, on what it means for me. I guess I can explore it further, based on what I see in the experiences of people i know. Looking beyond my own experience, I think that based on talking to other people I know, who are more religious than I am but not the religious "hard core" types, they might agree with me that worshiping is a form of being thankful for life, but they might also add other aspects of worship beyond what I brought up. They might say that worshiping God brings them joy, peace, unity, or that it makes them feel closer to God, stuff like that. All valid answers from their perspective, although I'm sure they most likely won't mean much to you either. I guess now we're getting more into "hard core" religious people, somebody who believes by faith without a doubt in a benevolent creator who is active in their personal lives, and lets that belief have a serious effect in his life. I do know some of those people as well, and without claiming to speak for anybody specific, I think I know some of them well enough to speculate about it. I would say that these people might choose to worship their creator for the same reasons that as kids we might have worshiped our mother. Because they are thankful for what they feel the creator has done for them, bringing them life and caring for them, and because they see that creator as a larger than life figure that they love and they need and they depend on. Such a creator for them would be worthy of worship, just like as kids for us our mother was worthy of worship. (Or at least she was in the culture in which I grew up. I'm not sure if that applies to every culture.) On the last part, I know a lot of people who worship, but I don't know anybody who worships slave-like, and frankly I don't understand that type of worship either, anymore than you do. I get it from a historical perspective in the way that benztown brought up, but I don't get why anybody would worship in that manner in this day and age. So, I'll let somebody else respond to that last part, if there's any poster here who feels that they should worship God in that particular manner.
No much like my believer brethren that think their salvation is somehow tied to converting everyone to their beliefs, most of the people who have asked me why I believe what I believe have seemed to need to try and change my mind based on their their concern for me (mentally), or that if their friends found out, it would be awkward for them to explain having a friend who is a believer or out of a need to mock me into disbelieving. Very few around here, mostly in the academic field or workplace. Every belief system has it's fragile evangelicals.
From what i took out of your post is that you made it seem like someone cant understand or appreciate ones life if you don't have faith in god, Which is a common question from theists regarding morality.
I agree I think this is what people grow up with, especially if you belong to the Abrahimic Religions and then became an atheist; you do not lose that sense of evangelizing. I wonder if former Hindu or Buddhist atheists are as pushy as me or other former Christians/Muslims. I do think a lot of us atheist love to play stump the dummy when the conversation turns to religion.
Well in any case, if you believe in a talking snake and disregard evolution - Then I think your perception needs a lot of work.
if you understand God (although our understanding is limited by our human nature - i.e. the finite trying to understand the infinite), the only possible response is worship. of course, this implies that you believe in God. you cannot understand what you don't believe in. but believing doesn't necessarily imply understanding either. in other words: When you truly get a glimpse of God as He is, the only possible response is worship.
... That's not so, and your statement chillingly implies that nonbelievers/questioners "don't get it". I'm sure you didn't mean it this way, but that sort of response is the sort of thing people throw at you in desperation when they have nothing concrete that everyone in the room can agree is concrete. Its one thing to believe what you wish, even in the absence of evidence. It's quite another to suggest that those who simply want to check facts and who require evidence before believing are "incapable of understanding". This is true.
to me, spirituality is a personal thing. I cannot explain to you why I believe. well, I suppose I can tell you of my personal experiences, and how that lead me to a belief in God (I believe because I experienced what I think is God in my life). but the proof is personal, and you might conclude that it was just a bunch of coincidences. God has proven his existence, his reality to me in a personal way. I understand that I cannot use that as proof with others for God's existence, and I don't try. it is true that non-believers don't get it - they don't get what I believe and why I believe it. even other believers don't get it, because their experiences, and the reasons they believe are probably different than mine. I don't think anyone can truly believe and understand until they experience God in a personal way. and when they do, they will not argue over it. after all, who can argue with a person's own experiences?
A lot of the "Non-believers" I know personally, and ones i dont all share a similar background in being brought up to be religious. Me personally, I was raised to be devout Catholic, so I do get it. - It wasn't until 5 years ago i started questioning these fairytales and doing my own research. Eventually, i came with a realization of my beliefs today.