What makes a deity worthy of worship?

[Sha'irullah]

Perfect being
One with no partner in any sense
Unique
Has all noble attributes
No weakness
Source of all blessings

Yet you worship Allah? Seems contradictory

 

[Andywelikandy]

What makes a deity worthy of worship? Or not worthy of worship?

If one wants to know what the Holy Bible says, it says that there is only ONE ALMIGHTY CREATOR God and all other gods are of human "manufacture." Thus there is only ONE God worthy of worship and that is the God of Isaac, Jacob (Israel) , King David (of Israel) and Jesus Christ--the Saviour who gave His life on a Roman Cross to provide Eternal Salvation to all who want to trust in Him to escape eternal hell-fire.

In the Old Testament the Hebrews worshipped the Creator-God Who created the sun, moon and stars and earth. They knew Him to be the God of thier forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Israel) and their highly venerated King David.

Come the New Testament, Jesus Christ appears on the scene as a baby, grows up to be a man of 30 yrs and starts teaching the Hebrews (Jews) that He came down from Almighty God in heaven (as the Manna came down from heaven to thier forefathers). He taught the Hebrews (Jews) that He and the Creator God are one and the same by saying: The Father and I are One with the Father in Him and He in the Father. The Jews who believed on Him worshipped Him as God. The Jews who did not believe on Him rebelled against Him and got Him killed by the Roman authorities. After His entombment, He came out of the tomb by His own power and the same day (Sunday) He appeared to some of His followers. Forty days later He went back up to heaven. Before His departure He promised that He will be back a second time to rule and reign the world from Jerusalem for a thousand years. Pl Google for: The Millennial Rule of Jesus Christ.

 

[LuisDantas]

Perfect being
One with no partner in any sense
Unique
Has all noble attributes
No weakness
Source of all blessings

No partner?

 

[DawudTalut]

No partner?

Peace be on you.
What this means is, here:
[112:1] In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful.
[112:2] Say, ‘He is Allah, the One;
[112:3] ‘Allah, the Independent and Besought of all.
[112:4] ‘He begets not, nor is He begotten;
[112:5] ‘And there is none like unto Him.’

Ref:alislam.org/quran

Obrigado Thanks for asking.

 

[DawudTalut]

Yet you worship Allah? Seems contradictory

Peace be on you.
Worship does not mean God need anything from us.
Worship means we as being are thankful that we are granted things for our benefit which we even did not prayed for. We are given faculties to use bounties to get benefits from rules and things. We are thankful that we are taught how to use lives in positive ways for the benefit of all human and other creatures.
It is expression of love to beloved Allah to seek more blessings. Worship keep soul alive as food keep body alive.

 

[LuisDantas]

Peace be on you.
What this means is, here:
[112:1] In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful.
[112:2] Say, ‘He is Allah, the One;
[112:3] ‘Allah, the Independent and Besought of all.
[112:4] ‘He begets not, nor is He begotten;
[112:5] ‘And there is none like unto Him.’

Ref:alislam.org/quran

Obrigado Thanks for asking.

Granted, I may be failing to notice some meaningful subtlety from the language (particularly given that the original is doubtless in Arabic), but this verse seems to claim that God is unique, perhaps Supreme and incomparable. It does not seem to claim or imply that he has no partners, though. In fact, I think it is not unreasonable to say that a Prophet is in some sense his God's partner, human as he can be. An unequal partnership is still a partnership.

Come to think of it, isn't theistic religion often a partnership of sorts between God and his followers?

 

[nazz]

Granted, I may be failing to notice some meaningful subtlety from the language (particularly given that the original is doubtless in Arabic), but this verse seems to claim that God is unique, perhaps Supreme and incomparable. It does not seem to claim or imply that he has no partners, though. In fact, I think it is not unreasonable to say that a Prophet is in some sense his God's partner, human as he can be. An unequal partnership is still a partnership.

Come to think of it, isn't theistic religion often a partnership of sorts between God and his followers?

That Allah has no partners is a very central and important teaching in Islam. To associate partners with Allah is in unpardonable sin:

Shirk (Islam) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[LuisDantas]

That Allah has no partners is a very central and important teaching in Islam. To associate partners with Allah is in unpardonable sin:

Shirk (Islam) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I can only assume you are using a more strict meaning for "partner" than I do.

 

[nazz]

I can only assume you are using a more strict meaning for "partner" than I do.

Yes, it has a distinct meaning in this application

 

[DawudTalut]

@ LuisDantuss said in #86

......................................................................................In fact, I think it is not unreasonable to say that a Prophet is in some sense his God's partner, human as he can be. An unequal partnership is still a partnership.

Come to think of it, isn't theistic religion often a partnership of sorts between God and his followers?


Peace be on you.
If you need broader meaning of closeness and nearness [but i shall refrain using word 'partner']. Then, Holy Quran tells:

No partner:
[6:164] ‘He has no partner. And so am I commanded, and I am the first of those who submit.’

No wife no son:
[72:4] ‘And we believe that the majesty of our Lord is exalted. He has taken neither wife nor son unto Himself.


No son, no partner in His Kingdom:
[17:112] And say, ‘All praise belongs to Allah Who has taken unto Himself no son, and Who has no partner in His Kingdom, nor has He anyone to help Him on account of weakness.’ And extol His glory with all glorification.


Subject of Spiritual closeness of Holy Prophet to Allah the Exalted:
[53:8] And He revealed His Word when he was on the uppermost horizon,
[53:9] Then he drew nearer to God; then he came down to mankind,
[53:10] So that he became, as it were, one chord to two bows or closer still.
[53:11] Then He revealed to His servant that which He revealed.
[53:12] The heart of the Prophet was not untrue to that which he saw.

[53:14] And certainly, he saw Him a second time also,
[53:15] Near the farthest Lote-tree,
[53:16] Near which is the Garden of Eternal Abode.


Holy Prophet was human who received revelation, and,
became (spiritual) Light,
and illumined others:
Say, ‘I am only a man like yourselves; but I have received the revelation that your God is only One God. So let him who hopes to meet his Lord do good deeds, and let him join no one in the worship of his Lord.’

[24:36] Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The similitude of His light is as a lustrous niche, wherein is a lamp. The lamp is in a glass. The glass is as it were a glittering star. It is lit from a blessed tree — an olive — neither of the east nor of the west, whose oil would well-nigh glow forth even though fire touched it not. Light upon light! Allah guides to His light whomsoever He will. And Allah sets forth parables to men, and Allah knows all things full well.

[42:53] And thus have We revealed to thee the Word by Our command. Thou didst not know what the Book was, nor what the faith. But We have made it (the revelation) a light, whereby We guide such of Our servants as We please. And truly, thou guidest mankind to the right path,

Party of Allah:
[5:57] And those who take Allah and His Messenger and the believers for friends should rest assured that it is the party of Allah that must triumph.

Blessings of Allah and Holy Prophet pbuh:
[4:70] And whoso obeys Allah and this Messenger of His shall be among those on whom Allah has bestowed His blessings, namely, the Prophets, the Truthful, the Martyrs, and the Righteous. And excellent companions are these.

[7:158] ‘Those who follow the Messenger, the Prophet, the Immaculate one, whom they find mentioned in the Torah and the Gospel which are with them. He enjoins on them good and forbids them evil, and makes lawful for them the good things and forbids them the bad, and removes from them their burden and the shackles that were upon them. So those who shall believe in him, and honour and support him, and help him, and follow the light that has been sent down with him — these shall prosper.’

Hope subject is clear now.

 

[Erebus]

Hi again Cephus. Same principle here, I'll try to respond to the gist of your post along with anything that particularly stood out to me.

My problem is, if you're not talking about supernatural, objective and interventionalist deities, is it worthwhile calling them gods at all? If it's natural, it isn't a god. It's a thing.

You absolutely can argue the value of considering such things worthy of being called gods, I have no issue with that. What I have more of a problem with is when people simply dismiss them out of hand for not resembling more familiar god concepts. It happens all the time and it gets infuriating after a while. These god concepts have been with us way before Jesus. It's possible that they form the very earliest notion of what a god is, so to dismiss them as "not really being a god" is frankly insulting.

Certainly, gods that don't call for our worship aren't worthy of worship. If they don't care, why would we debase ourselves to them?

Interesting. I hold the opposite, a god that demands worship isn't worthy of it. Each to their own though.

Conceptually, yes, gods can be powerful concepts but more often than not, it's humans who are demanding that power, not the gods themselves. Since no god has ever been demonstrated to be factually real in the history of humanity, gods aren't actually powerful, it's their churches and mouthpieces who have been powerful, and in almost all cases, corrupt. What you're really talking about here are not gods but religions and religions are just self-declared human representatives of gods who declare that the god's will (which conveniently parallels their own) grants them power and money and influence over people's lives. That's not a god, that's a scam.

Bold bit is going back to my first point. That will come across as a really weird thing to say to some theists. Pantheists in particular.

As to the rest of this paragraph. I reckon you're on the right lines here. If a group or organisation causes harm in the name of their god (as many absolutely have done) then is such a god concept worth rallying behind? I would say no. I would also say that some of these gods are worth rallying behind regardless of whether they exist, purely because the concept itself is powerful/valuable/worthwhile.

And you can love fiction, so long as you understand the difference between fiction and reality. If gods were just myths, stories like Aesop's Fables that nobody took seriously, that existed to pass along lessons, there wouldn't be a problem. However, people take modern gods seriously. It's not like they treat the ancient Greek pantheon, they actually think these things exist and they act accordingly.

Whoah, hold up there! Did you just suggest that people no longer take the Greek Pantheon seriously? That stories and myths aren't taken seriously? Personally, I take stories very seriously. How can you not take them seriously if you're to learn anything from them?

This is why many, many children die every year because their religious parents think an imaginary man in the sky told them to withhold medical treatment. This is why people fly airplanes into the side of buildings because they think that they get 72 virgins after they die. There's an inordinate number of religious horrors caused by people who hold the bizarre belief that there's an invisible man in the sky with a bizarre facination with their sex life.

I'm sorry, but I tend to switch off when I hear this as a generalised argument against theism or religion. I don't do any of those things, the other theists I know don't do any of those things, most theists in the world don't do any of those things. Even the people who follow the god you're describing (many theists don't, remember) tend not to be psychopaths.

That's a problem with your perception then. Unfortunately, our beliefs inform our actions whether we like it or not and studies have shown that the more irrational nonsense you allow into your head, the more you're likely to accept. We know that the more religious one is, the more likely they are to accept other unscientific, irrational and nonsensical woo. Ghosts, alien abductions, conspiracy theories, Bigfoot, all manner of ridiculous bunk is much more likely to be accepted by those who buy into the god claims than by those who are skeptical of things that cannot be demonstrated. You're arguing for personal emotional comfort, I'm not. I don't give a damn about personal comfort. Reality doesn't exist to make us feel good, reality exists regardless and it's up to us to deal with it as it is, on it's own terms. It doesn't have to make us happy. It probably shouldn't. People die horribly every day, they starve, they get hacked up with butcher knives by religious extremists, they get terrible diseases and live horrible lives and that's just the way it is. Wasting time on our knees talking to ourselves because it makes us feel good to think that an imaginary friend in the sky might do something about it, but conveniently never actually does, is foolish. The only way to solve these problems is to get up and actually do something about it. Prayer solves nothing. Action does. Sure, you might feel powerless but that's mostly because you are. That's why we have to band together and do things collectively, something we can't do if we're all concerned about bowing down to the wrong imaginary friend.
Dealing with reality as it actually is, that's part of the maturation process and there are far too many people who never really grow up, they're still pretending that Santa Claus is going to bring good boys and girls presents and the Easter Bunny is going to bring them a basket of candy. That's not reality.

There are a lot of assumptions in this post and at times it's insulting. Cool it or I'm out.

First of all, I still don't agree with you that a lot of what you call ridiculous is in fact ridiculous. I've never seen a convincing argument otherwise. Ultimately it tends to boil down to "well I don't believe it so neither should you." This rigidity of perception is something I've never been able to understand. It seems blindingly obvious to me that the world exists in shades of grey rather than black and white.
Secondly, I really don't believe that you don't give a damn about emotional comfort. Strict adherence to a binary notion of right/wrong real/unreal provides its own comfort. You may not recognise it as such, but it's perfectly clear to me.

Gods don't actually do anything. If we want to feed the hungry, praying isn't going to do it, we need to realize
that we are personally responsible for what goes on and we need to get up and actually do something to accomplish our goals. Some magic man isn't going to do it for us. The question is not, do we reject things that are valuable, it's are these things really valuable? Or are they just culturally indoctrinated beliefs that don't actually accomplish anything meaningfull and are getting in the way of things that would actually help? We waste a lot of time and money sitting on our butts in big expensive buildings, listening to well-meaning people explaining what a fictional father figure in the sky wants us to do. What might we accomplish with that time and that money if instead of paying for these huge buildings and salaries, if we just went out and helped people?

Again, be careful with those assumptions. You're talking to somebody who neither goes to church nor particularly cares about helping people he doesn't know.
My deities most certainly are valuable to me, they need not be to you. They aren't getting in the way of anything I want to do and in many respects help me to accomplish those things. It also seems that you consider prayer to essentially be making a wish to the god of your choice. Certainly this does occur, but plenty of theists (myself included) consider this a mistake. It's possible in fact that you yourself perform something similar to prayer on a regular basis (albeit with no gods involved). To me, prayer is essentially meditation, introspection and occasionally emotional outpouring. I focus on a particular archetype (god) pertinent to my situation when I do it. You probably don't.

So my gods don't make me go out and harm people, they don't make me waste my money in church or sham charities and they don't inform my views on appropriate medical practices. Conversely, they do give me a rock to fall back on in tough times, they do make me appreciate life more and they do appeal to me in terms of their myths and stories.
I would assume then that your main argument against my own gods would be that they "don't exist." Now, given what I've just told you, does that really matter?

 

[Cephus]

You absolutely can argue the value of considering such things worthy of being called gods, I have no issue with that. What I have more of a problem with is when people simply dismiss them out of hand for not resembling more familiar god concepts. It happens all the time and it gets infuriating after a while. These god concepts have been with us way before Jesus. It's possible that they form the very earliest notion of what a god is, so to dismiss them as "not really being a god" is frankly insulting.

Words have meanings for a reason, to facilitate communication between people. If anyone can just pick anything and declare it a god, that really makes the word meaningless. I don't care if you want to take a specific concept and argue that it's a god though.

As to the rest of this paragraph. I reckon you're on the right lines here. If a group or organisation causes harm in the name of their god (as many absolutely have done) then is such a god concept worth rallying behind? I would say no. I would also say that some of these gods are worth rallying behind regardless of whether they exist, purely because the concept itself is powerful/valuable/worthwhile.

But I don't know that there isn't any religion that hasn't caused harm in the name of their god, especially since I consider all irrational belief, not based on evidence, critical thinking and logic, to be harmful. And while you may argue that some of these concepts are worthwhile, the gods themselves are not. Extract the important concepts and leave the gods in the dustbin of history.

Whoah, hold up there! Did you just suggest that people no longer take the Greek Pantheon seriously? That stories and myths aren't taken seriously? Personally, I take stories very seriously. How can you not take them seriously if you're to learn anything from them?

As actual, existing gods, no. As stories, maybe. I can take Aesop's fables seriously as concepts but I don't think there are really anthropomorphic foxes out there trying to get to grapes.

I'm sorry, but I tend to switch off when I hear this as a generalised argument against theism or religion. I don't do any of those things, the other theists I know don't do any of those things, most theists in the world don't do any of those things. Even the people who follow the god you're describing (many theists don't, remember) tend not to be psychopaths.

No, they don't but they do provide cover for people who do. I'm not particularly interested in their mental state, I'm interested in the fact that there are people who are causing demonstrable harm to the world in the name of their religions. Beliefs influence actions and when one's beliefs cause these kinds of actions, then I have to question the validity of the beliefs.

There are a lot of assumptions in this post and at times it's insulting. Cool it or I'm out.

You do what you choose to do. I'm not telling you what you can and cannot say, nor will I be told the same. Respond or don't, it's your choice.

First of all, I still don't agree with you that a lot of what you call ridiculous is in fact ridiculous. I've never seen a convincing argument otherwise. Ultimately it tends to boil down to "well I don't believe it so neither should you." This rigidity of perception is something I've never been able to understand. It seems blindingly obvious to me that the world exists in shades of grey rather than black and white.

It really comes down to having a rational standard.

Secondly, I really don't believe that you don't give a damn about emotional comfort. Strict adherence to a binary notion of right/wrong real/unreal provides its own comfort. You may not recognise it as such, but it's perfectly clear to me.

I don't care what you believe, I care what you can prove. And yes, it might provide comfort, that's why a lot of people do it, it's just not a realistic system to live under. The world doesn't really work that way. Holding a strict view that this system of morality is always going to be correct, regardless, doesn't allow one to test their moral positions to see if they are actually true in a given situation. We can see this happening in areas of the Middle East right now, where they've adopted the view that all heretics must die, that anyone who looks sideways at a Qur'an has to be punished, etc. These are people who are taking the world of an ancient book of mythology, or the self-appointed experts on that book, over their own ability to think rationally. And you think the comfort they might get from that system is important? Seriously?

Again, be careful with those assumptions. You're talking to somebody who neither goes to church nor particularly cares about helping people he doesn't know.

Which is up to you, of course. You're arguing as the exception, not as the rule. The rule is what I've portrayed. Finding an exception doesn't disprove the rule. I think you need to learn not to take things personally if they don't apply to your specific case.

My deities most certainly are valuable to me, they need not be to you. They aren't getting in the way of anything I want to do and in many respects help me to accomplish those things. It also seems that you consider prayer to essentially be making a wish to the god of your choice. Certainly this does occur, but plenty of theists (myself included) consider this a mistake. It's possible in fact that you yourself perform something similar to prayer on a regular basis (albeit with no gods involved). To me, prayer is essentially meditation, introspection and occasionally emotional outpouring. I focus on a particular archetype (god) pertinent to my situation when I do it. You probably don't.

Then it's not really a prayer, is it? Like I said, words have meanings for a reason. Taking a concept, stamping a word on it that most people would not think apply, and then making an argument over that misclassification does not make sense. You already have perfectly good words for what you do, you used them yourself, why try to call it prayer?

So my gods don't make me go out and harm people, they don't make me waste my money in church or sham charities and they don't inform my views on appropriate medical practices. Conversely, they do give me a rock to fall back on in tough times, they do make me appreciate life more and they do appeal to me in terms of their myths and stories.

Which says nothing about what a lot of people do. Again, if it doesn't apply to you, don't get upset.

I would assume then that your main argument against my own gods would be that they "don't exist." Now, given what I've just told you, does that really matter?

Yes, it matters. As far as I'm concerned, and you are, of course, welcome to disagree, existence is of primary importance in any rational view of the world around us. We discover what is real and we deal with it. Whether it makes someone happy or not is irrelevant. It doesn't matter how much someone might want a flying car, how much they dream about it, how much they pray for it, no matter how happy a flying car might make them, it doesn't change the fact that no flying cars are currently in production. Once there are, that's a different matter. We live in the now. We live with what we have today. When tomorrow comes, we might have to take another look. That's how the real world works.

 

[Quintessence]

I think I'm seeing part of the problem here. And I propose a new rule: there shall be no conflating of theism or theology with mythological literalism, and there shall be no assumptions made that a person doesn't understand the difference between the otherworldly and this-worldly aspects of reality.

 

[McBell]

there shall be no conflating of theism or theology with mythological literalism.

Please be so kind as to demonstrate they are in fact not the same thing.

The way I see it is that mythology is an umbrella term under which theology falls.

Like dog is an umbrella term under which Collie falls.

 

[Quintessence]

Please be so kind as to demonstrate they are in fact not the same thing.

The way I see it is that mythology is an umbrella term under which theology falls.

Like dog is an umbrella term under which Collie falls.

While I could address this question, to do so misses the point of what I was saying. I was merely griping about the unfortunately common assumption that theists take (or must take or should take) their sacred stories (aka, mythos) literally. Apparently we're incapable of appreciating story for story to some people, or incapable of differentiating between this-worldly and otherworldly.