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Let us suppose the human found a way to fabricate an entire new universe, replete with the resources it needs.
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Why worship?
- Thread starter Wiccan_Child
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Let's say... aliens. Who themselves arose by chemical abiogenesis.
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Natural and unguided processes. The details are unimportant - suffice to say, they were natural and unguided.
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What does natural mean? Where did what is "natural" come from? The details are extremely important.
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oi_antz
Opposed to Untruth.
After all these 7 pages, you've only had "because you should". But what is this thing you call worship? If you were to understand it, then you would see why you should do it. Can you define what worship is? You did touch on it here:
worship in the sense of building temples
singing and praising its name
So, do you think that if someone doesn't build a temple or sing and praise His name, that they are not worshipping Him? Also, if they do build a temple, sing and praise His name, are they worshipping Him? What is worship? What good does worship do? What harm comes from not worshipping Him? What harm comes from worshipping someone other than Him? I would like to understand these things too, someone please help us!
worship in the sense of building temples
singing and praising its name
So, do you think that if someone doesn't build a temple or sing and praise His name, that they are not worshipping Him? Also, if they do build a temple, sing and praise His name, are they worshipping Him? What is worship? What good does worship do? What harm comes from not worshipping Him? What harm comes from worshipping someone other than Him? I would like to understand these things too, someone please help us!
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Pretty much. I'll accept that there are activities equivalent to building temples or singing praises, but to me that sort of thing is what worship is.
It seems like needless hand-wringing when people start defining these terms to mean anything and everything. I was talking to a Christian friend just yesterday, and he said he believed that everyone had a god - except he was defining 'god' to mean 'the thing you hold highest'. To me, that's not at all what the word 'god' means. Gods are fundamentally concious, external, spirit-based beings, typically of unimaginable power and knowledge. That is what I think of when I hear the word 'god', and I'd wager that's what everyone else in the Anglophonic world thinks (or even a specific instance of such a being - Yahweh, Allah, etc).
So it also seems like hand-wringing to define 'worship' to mean 'holding something as highest'. Because then, under these broad definitions, we end up saying things like "I worship God, inasmuch as photography is the main thing in my life". To me, the two are completely different.
So ultimately this thread is about what I consider to be worship. It never occurred to me that people might consider 'worship' so broadly (and, therefore, rob it of all utility). You're free to do so, of course, but it renders conversation moot.
Usually. The scientist in me says "Ah, but what if they're doing it to, say, scam money or gain social clout?", in which case no, I don't think they would be worshipping God. So perhaps it's all about intent - they build temples and sing praises with the intent that this would be worship.
Indeed!
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Take a look at the exchange I had been having with Steeno7. I didn't answer the question because Steeno7 was evading mine - namely, would he worship something that met all his criteria for 'worthy of worship', but that wasn't God. We went around the houses on this one, specifying and clarifying pointless details. But semantics is boring, so I dusted my hands and let the conversation die.
In future, please don't be so rude as to presume you know me or my intentions.
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Only Christians, and the non-Christian OP, can post in EC threads.
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Alien444, you are not allowed to post in this thread, least of all to join in with mockery.
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Like I said, and which you apparently still cannot fathom is that a creature that has all of the attributes of God, would be God. It is you who are evading that obvious logical conclusion.
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And my driving point is that the creature doesn't have all the attributes of God.
The creature a) made you, b) sustains you, and c) offers you eternal life. Grand properties, to be sure, but the creature cannot make universes, answer prayers, read thoughts, etc. It's not omniscience, omnipotent, etc. It could even be a horribly wicked being, and you are perhaps an experiment or hobby.
The point is it's easy to imagine a being that has the three properties you describe, but isn't God. After all, what if such a being existed in a universe where the real God was actually around, doing whatever it is God does?
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All attributes of God and of God alone. God is Creator. God alone has life in Himself. God alone is the Sustainer of what He has created. You are describing God, whether you want to acknowledge it or not.
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If two things have the same properties, they are not necessarily the same entity. You and I share a carbon-based biochemistry - are we one being? No. Likewise, why can there be only one being with underlings who he's made, sustained, and offered eternal life to?
Consider my hypothetical being. If there's one, there can be two. Two beings, each with underlings they've made, sustained, and offered eternal life to. Do we now have a duotheism?
Indeed, what of a being who you only thought met those properties, but in reality was a charlatan? Would you worship it then?
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