Worship

[brightlights]

Some people claim to be asexual. I confess I don't understand it, myself, but I have no reason not to take people's word for their own experience.

We generally view asexuality as a deficiency. I would say that those who are not sexual are missing something in terms of what it means to be human. Still, though, even those who call themselves asexual are still sexual beings. They possess sexual organs and have the ability to procreate.

I'm also afraid my experience tells me that many people are *not* creative or rational. I'll spot you biological as a universal trait of humanity, but most of these are subject to personal choices, and religion is no different.

All humans are rational in that they have the ability to perceive and understand the world to some extent. Those who no longer possess this ability we would classify as dead, brain dead, or insane. In any case we would consider it to be a deficiency. Those who lack rationality are, in some sense, less human than they should be.

I would argue that the same is true with creativity. All people are creative. Some express it through art but others express it through engineering, personality, problem solving, etc... Others still make little use of their creative faculties, but we would consider this to be a deficiency also.

It seems strange to me that your take on the matter is to declare that religion is universal, and that anyone who disagrees must be a totally different sort of being, rather than just admitting that religiosity is not, in fact, universal.

I don't think that those who disagree are totally different beings, I just think that they're mistaken. I simply think that humans are essentially the same. I believe you and I both worship, we just worship different things.

 

[brightlights]

It sounds good to me. But I don't think it is God that is the safe thing to worship, but rather Goodness.

If you concept of God is wrong, then it could seriously mess you (and the people you love) up. For example, westboro baptist church (messed up minds, and rejecting their children who escape the cult), terrorism, crazy things that happened in old Christian Europe, an oppressed subconscious.

I totally agree and I think the Bible agrees too. The nuance that the Bible would add is that the true God is the essence of goodness. It also claims that the fundamental problem with humanity is that we worship the wrong idea of God and we become like what we worship, so it messes us up severely.

 

[brightlights]

Could you please define worship.

Gladly. All I mean by worship is the act of assigning ultimate value to something. That is, we say to ourselves: "above all other things, I must have this. This gives my life meaning. This will give me security. This will do me good (in an ultimate sense).

How on earth this shows atheists do not exist is beyond me. (Unless you define atheism as 'someone without a reason to live' as opposed to 'someone who does not believe in the existence of a god.')

I think that atheists exist and atheists do not exist. Atheists exist so far as there are many who do not acknowledge the existence of God. But I would contend that there is no one who is without a functional god. A functional god being the thing described above. This is because man is an essentially religious being.

 

[yasic]

Gladly. All I mean by worship is the act of assigning ultimate value to something. That is, we say to ourselves: "above all other things, I must have this. This gives my life meaning. This will give me security. This will do me good (in an ultimate sense).

I think that atheists exist and atheists do not exist. Atheists exist so far as there are many who do not acknowledge the existence of God. But I would contend that there is no one who is without a functional god. A functional god being the thing described above. This is because man is an essentially religious being.

I can accept your definition of worship so far as to us it in conversation, however I have to refuse your definition of 'God'. No matte how you slice it, what you would consider to be my god (Namely 'Love of friends and family') is nowhere near anything that remotely resembles what I consider 'God' to be.

For instance, would you accept it if I defined Christianity to be 'The belief that humans regularly walk on water'?

 

[brightlights]

I can accept your definition of worship so far as to us it in conversation, however I have to refuse your definition of 'God'. No matte how you slice it, what you would consider to be my god (Namely 'Love of friends and family') is nowhere near anything that remotely resembles what I consider 'God' to be.

For instance, would you accept it if I defined Christianity to be 'The belief that humans regularly walk on water'?

We would never define these things as "god" in the west but they have certainly replaced God for us. What people of the past expected God or the gods to do we tend to expect money, success, fame, or family to do. We just don't have a little statue to represent these ideas like the ancients did.

 

[yasic]

We would never define these things as "god" in the west but they have certainly replaced God for us. What people of the past expected God or the gods to do we tend to expect money, success, fame, or family to do. We just don't have a little statue to represent these ideas like the ancients did.

What makes you think the past was any different than today in these things?

 

[brightlights]

What makes you think the past was any different than today in these things?

That's just it. I don't think it was different at all. People of the past just thought about it in a "religious" way and we think about it in a "secular" way, but it is essentially the same.

 

[yasic]

That's just it. I don't think it was different at all. People of the past just thought about it in a "religious" way and we think about it in a "secular" way, but it is essentially the same.

I mean, what makes you think that the people of the past found religious reasons to constitute the meaning for the lives more so than today?

Not that I am arguing this is a bad thing, I think it is much healthier to base the meaning of your life on something real, but I don't see evidence that today is different than before.

 

[Paradoxum]

I totally agree and I think the Bible agrees too. The nuance that the Bible would add is that the true God is the essence of goodness. It also claims that the fundamental problem with humanity is that we worship the wrong idea of God and we become like what we worship, so it messes us up severely.

Well if you have the right morality, that will be fine. But many will be wrong and use God to justify their immorality.

 

[Eudaimonist]

We generally view asexuality as a deficiency.

And areligiousness is not a deficiency. Seeing through the superstition of astrology is perhaps even a plus.

And since religiousness seems to be superstition to you, I think that settles it as far as the discussion of essentials goes.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[quatona]

I think that atheists exist and atheists do not exist. Atheists exist so far as there are many who do not acknowledge the existence of God. But I would contend that there is no one who is without a functional god. A functional god being the thing described above. This is because man is an essentially religious being.

And there you have the difference: You even capitalize your "God" and do not capitalize everyone else´s "gods", and neither would they.
Of course, if you ignore the differences any two things will be the same.

 

[Eudaimonist]

We would never define these things as "god" in the west but they have certainly replaced God for us. What people of the past expected God or the gods to do we tend to expect money, success, fame, or family to do. We just don't have a little statue to represent these ideas like the ancients did.

Those little statues didn't merely represent ideas, or even values. They represented powerful cosmic forces that were most likely understood as aware and having a personality. Take away that understanding, and you water down the concept of worship.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[KCfromNC]

We would never define these things as "god" in the west but they have certainly replaced God for us.

Nope. Atheists have all the same connections to friends, family, career, hobbies, finances, politics and so on that believers do. These things aren't gods to believers, so why would they be for non-believers?

Or are you saying there's no such thing as monotheists since everyone worships all of the things on the list above, theists included?

 

[grasping the after wind]

Surely many Christians put the collective good over the individual good. Most acts of charity are costly to the individual in service of the collective. Do these Christians worship two masters?

If their reasons for charity are to be in service to the collective. I would say yes they are worshipping two masters perhaps God and Mammon?

 

[essentialsaltes]

If their reasons for charity are to be in service to the collective. I would say yes they are worshipping two masters perhaps God and Mammon?

Oh, so it is *not* the case, as you stated before, that "So to me anyone that believe for instance the collective good is to take precedence over the individual good is worshiping the collective."

Some people might have reasons for supporting the collective good that make it no longer worship.

I would contend that some people can have reasons for valuing friends and family without it becoming worship. Or valuing knowledge, or money, or My Little Pony, or a sports team, or their own ego, without it being tantamount to worship. And it's possible not to worship anything at all.

 

[brightlights]

Nope. Atheists have all the same connections to friends, family, career, hobbies, finances, politics and so on that believers do. These things aren't gods to believers, so why would they be for non-believers?

Any of these things can become functional gods for believers and non-believers alike. I'm not saying that all of these things automatically become gods for nonbelievers but that any good thing has the potential of being worshiped as a god.

Or are you saying there's no such thing as monotheists since everyone worships all of the things on the list above, theists included?

This is maybe a better way to put it. All of us tend toward polytheism.

 

[brightlights]

And areligiousness is not a deficiency. Seeing through the superstition of astrology is perhaps even a plus.

And since religiousness seems to be superstition to you, I think that settles it as far as the discussion of essentials goes.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Superstition is a manifestation of human religiousness, but that doesn't make all religion superstition. It's possible for there to be true religion.

 

[brightlights]

I mean, what makes you think that the people of the past found religious reasons to constitute the meaning for the lives more so than today?

Not that I am arguing this is a bad thing, I think it is much healthier to base the meaning of your life on something real, but I don't see evidence that today is different than before.

I agree with you. Where are you seeing the disagreement?

 

[Eudaimonist]

Superstition is a manifestation of human religiousness, but that doesn't make all religion superstition.

LOL! Not from my perspective.

Any of these things can become functional gods for believers and non-believers alike. I'm not saying that all of these things automatically become gods for nonbelievers but that any good thing has the potential of being worshiped as a god.

It's certainly possible, but so is anything that one may grow out of. We may "tend" to be childish, since growth is difficult, but that doesn't mean that childishness is one's natural species-identity.

Or, to use another analogy, there may be a "tendency" towards vice, statistically speaking, since virtue requires effort, but that doesn't mean that vice is the essence of humanity over and above virtue. We all have the natural capacity for virtue, so if anything it should be the other way around.

So, saying that some people may go to the extreme of worshipping something "as a god" doesn't mean that this is a human essence such that people are something like natural polytheists. This can easily, and correctly, be viewed as a kind of childishness or vice -- an incomplete, unhealthy condition -- that one can simply grow out of with effort and awareness.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[KCfromNC]

Any of these things can become functional gods for believers and non-believers alike. I'm not saying that all of these things automatically become gods for nonbelievers but that any good thing has the potential of being worshiped as a god.

This is maybe a better way to put it. All of us tend toward polytheism.

I think there's a lot of projection going on to come to these sorts of conclusions. Not everyone is walking around looking for demons in the shadows at every turn, so to speak. It sounds more and more like the view of a religious person who is so caught up in their own head that they can't even comprehend that others aren't exactly like them.