If a creator exists, why worship it?

[sojourner]

Please tell me where did we come from then?

From the same place the stars, planets, gases, particles, and other matter and energy come.

 

[The road to light1]

Unfortunately, as pretty a thought as it is, that's not evidence. It's supposition.

Well, they are not assumption as you say, just look at the video.If that's not enough, I wonder what will make you satisfied.

 

[JustWondering]

Look at the sky, moon, sun and earth do they come on their own?!

How are you sure that the invisible spaghetti monster didn't put the moon and sun where they are?

 

[JustWondering]

Bill gets it wrong and right. Wrong: Faith isn't blind belief that we have all the answers. Right: Doubt is the seed of faith. It's because humanity doesn't have all the answers that we foster faith.

No, we don't know what God is. But we do have ideas, gleaned from the best of what we do know: love, compassion, forbearance, mercy, acceptance, hospitality. And that is what we surmise God is. That's what we hope God is, and we are told that "faith is the assurance of things hoped for."

Love, compassion, forbearance, mercy, acceptance, and hospitality existed before YOUR god was made up. Love, compassion, forbearance, mercy, acceptance, and hospitality are human attributes that do not require a god to feel or share with others.

 

[JustWondering]

You don't know anything about "my God." Just as Maher said in the video you endorse. Therefore, how can you "know" whether you can love that God or not? Isn't your "knowledge" akin to the same sort of fanaticism that Maher intimates leads to tall buildings being destroyed?

How does my rejection of your god's existence make me a fanatic? If rejection of a religion and its god/s makes one a fanatic than I suppose you are a fanatic as well. Do you accept the existence of and love every god ever worshipped by anyone? I highly doubt it.

 

[JustWondering]

Faith isn't blind belief that we have all the answers.

Really? So where is your conclusive evidence that your god exists again? Where is your conclusive evidence that anything fantastical in any religious text or teaching ever really happened?

 

[JoStories]

What are the benefits that the worshiper gets specifically?

IMO, there are many benefits, depending on what one wants from said worship. In my case, it provides me with understanding, peace, and a host of other needed benefits. I aspire to enlightenment, which I believe will give me understanding. I have a hard time trying to put this in the coarse and unbending language we use because oft times it is outside of this language. If we are just dust, then IMO, there is no meaning to this life. OTOH, if I strive to understand, then I have found that what I do in this life; IE: fight elder abuse, etc, has provided me with something positive. Something that has meaning and purpose. Not sure if that made any sense but that is how I see this.

 

[JoStories]

That is ridiculously vague. So, why is worship necessary? What does worship provide than nothing else can?

In short, what are the specific benefits you mentioned before that can be attributed to worshiping God? It seems that you are saying that there really are no specific benefits, as all the ones that you mention can come from other aspects of religion or secular life.

For me, I don't really like the word worship nor the word God. Neither really are pertinent to me. What I see are goals that I want from the practices that I attribute to my faith. And its not a religion in the true sense of the word either. I don;t go to church for example. I do study various teachings in pursuit of an end but that does not mean worship in the true sense of the word. I don't 'pray', sing praises or any of that. I meditate to receive inspiration in answer to various questions or goals I might have. That is a benefit because it lowers my stress level, my BP and affords me an overall sense of communion and peace.

 

[JoStories]

How unfortunate.

Not really. He has a valid point. You can say you know God but do you really? I cannot, in all honesty say I do. I can only say that I believe that what I see as God, and it is clearly not what you view God as, as a goal of my study and understanding. There is no prove of this whatsoever. There is only my belief. So his point is really quite astute.

 

[Thanda]

Can someone define the worship please.

 

[The road to light1]

 

[The road to light1]

From the same place the stars, planets, gases, particles, and other matter and energy

 

[The road to light1]

 

[sojourner]

Love, compassion, forbearance, mercy, acceptance, and hospitality existed before YOUR god was made up. Love, compassion, forbearance, mercy, acceptance, and hospitality are human attributes that do not require a god to feel or share with others.

Correct. But you didn't read my post. I didn't say, "God created those things." I didn't say, "we need God to experience those things." What I said was that these are the best things we know, and so those are the things with which we describe God, with the hope that God is those things.

 

[sojourner]

How does my rejection of your god's existence make me a fanatic?

I didn't say it did. I said that the video places the blame for fanaticism on "knowledge" based on blind faith. Since it is as much blind faith for you to assert with certainty that God does not exist, as it is for the religious to believe that God does exist, by the definition put forth in the video, your blind belief is fanaticism. IOW, those who live in glass houses probably shouldn't throw rocks. Or, to put it in a more religious context: "You will be judged by the judgment with which you judge others." ;-)

 

[sojourner]

Really? So where is your conclusive evidence that your god exists again?

Really? I didn't say either that I believe God exists, or that evidence for God's existence is either available or necessary.

Where is your conclusive evidence that anything fantastical in any religious text or teaching ever really happened?

See above.

 

[sojourner]

If rejection of a religion and its god/s makes one a fanatic than I suppose you are a fanatic as well. Do you accept the existence of and love every god ever worshipped by anyone? I highly doubt it.

You don't know me very well. You're argument is as non sequitur as "Dawkins believes oranges can't really fly." I'm arguing for "God" as a description of existence itself, not as a definition of some existent, supernatural being. Therefore, however one chooses to describe Deity -- or even if one chooses to describe existence in a non-deific way, those descriptions are valid to me and worthy of my respect. Because existence... is, and there are as many ways to wrap one's head around it as there are people in the world.

 

[sojourner]

Aaaaaaand ... your comment on my post isssss .... ???

 

[sojourner]

Can someone define the worship please.

In the Christian context, the word "worship" comes from two anglo-Saxon root words. The second root word "ship" means shape. therefore, worship is a shape. It exists in time and has a form. The first root word, "wor," comes from the root word werden, which is the same root that forms words like, "witch," and "weird." It's a verb that means, "to be," or "to become." So, worship is a process, or a form, or shape of events, laid out in time, in which participants become something. More specifically, in which they open themselves for God to create with them, or in which they co-create along with God, in the context of community (because the Christian journey is all about forming loving relationships). And the various elements of worship, praise, thanksgiving, supplication, lament, penitence, allow participants to take various stances before God in that creative process whereby the vices and superfluities of life are stripped away and room is made for participants to grow into who God intends them to be.

 

[JustWondering]

I didn't say it did. I said that the video places the blame for fanaticism on "knowledge" based on blind faith. Since it is as much blind faith for you to assert with certainty that God does not exist, as it is for the religious to believe that God does exist, by the definition put forth in the video, your blind belief is fanaticism. IOW, those who live in glass houses probably shouldn't throw rocks. Or, to put it in a more religious context: "You will be judged by the judgment with which you judge others." ;-)

Wrong. It is lack of faith altogether that drives my rejection of your god. Claiming that something that cannot be seen, heard, or demonstrated to exist in anyway exists and then taking it even further by saying that this something has rules and demands we must abide by requires a LOT of blind faith. Whereas rejecting the idea of fantastical invisible beings requires what knowledge? Rejecting the existence of invisible fantastical beings merely requires looking about and noticing that said beings aren't there.