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People pray, worship and commune because it's a natural response to the God in whom they believe. Prayer, communion and worship are not commanded because God is an egomaniac but because they are beneficial to the humans who do them.
They further and enhance a relationship with the creator. Prayer, communion and worship are the means of communication with the creator, and we engage in them for the same reason we seek to build a relationship with anyone. Prayer and worship flow from the individual to the creator, while communion (contemplation) opens the individual to communication from the creator.
Billions were force fed god/religions when they were born and MOST never stopped to work on their own thoughts and opinions. It took me into my 60's to "get the right message" for me to break the ties that were binding me. On my dad's death bed when he was close to 95, he finally said he NEVER believed but could never had said that during his long marriage and life as it was. Too bad.
Prayer and worship flow from the individual to the creator, while communion (contemplation) opens the individual to communication from the creator.
The atheist view of the above would be that you are opening yourself up for self deception. Would this openness to communication from the creator include the people about to find the face of Jesus in their taco shell?
You have advanced some characteristics of the creator despite not having anything beyond human imagination to work with in the construction of these characteristics. You somehow know that the creator does not need or demand worship. You somehow know what human behavior will make the creator most likely to communicate.
How do you know that even if the creator does not demand or need worship, it isn't outright annoyed by it? Same question for prayer, which strikes me as even more potentially annoying. Millions and millions, day after day, in a line that never ends, all begging for this or that. Save this person. Cure this affliction. Watch over my children. Help me hit a home run. Make my lottery number come up. That would sure get on my nerves.
In the conversations about church attendance during the pandemic, the notion of worship comes up. I never felt there was any there, there: nothing tangible or real to actually reference. I thought it was all poetry and make-believe. But apparently I was wrong, it seems on reflection, because people may actually believe they're worshipping something real.
So my question is, what is it in the character of humans that they need to prostrate themselves in front of a higher power, particularly an obviously imaginary one. I don't get it.
As someone who once lived that life, yes, worship is very, very real. There was a lot of comfort in the music, in the ideas and feelings of an almighty God and in the fellowship. The mind and emotions are very powerful.
In the conversations about church attendance during the pandemic, the notion of worship comes up. I never felt there was any there, there: nothing tangible or real to actually reference. I thought it was all poetry and make-believe. But apparently I was wrong, it seems on reflection, because people may actually believe they're worshipping something real.
So my question is, what is it in the character of humans that they need to prostrate themselves in front of a higher power, particularly an obviously imaginary one. I don't get it.
So many reasons, I think. Here are just a few.
*People want to believe in 'something bigger'. This also manifests itself in the idea of extraterrestrial technological far surpassing that of humanity.
[Note: Because we know that technology-creating life exists - us - extraterrestrial intelligence is therefore more conceptually sound than the idea of deities, which are entirely just coonjecture.]
*People want to be told what to do. They seek leadership. Even many those who rail against secular government are happy to entirely subordinate themselves to the ancient writings that their religion holds to be divine in origin.
[Note: This dichotomy is partly explained by authoritarians, who have an abiding dislike of egalitarian government but swoon under the fist of government that is happy to point the finger at various 'enemies'.]
*People want meaning without having to make the effort to craft it. So instead of reasoning out issues of right and wrong, they just 'look it up'.
[Note: Of course, this entails a lot of creative 'interpretation' which leads them exactly where they wanted to be led, but they convince themselves that such ideas are not their own but some 'objective' dictate from above.]
*People think life sucks, and they want a pony.
[Note: They don't get one, but they do get the promise that they'll receive a magical post-death pony.]
In a nutshell, it's not really about religious worship. Religion, like non-religious ideologies, excels at co-opting certain human proclivities to its own ends.
As someone who once lived that life, yes, worship is very, very real. There was a lot of comfort in the music, in the ideas and feelings of an almighty God and in the fellowship. The mind and emotions are very powerful.
Which is warm and fuzzy, but doesn't say much about the reality of god.
Billions were force fed god/religions when they were born and MOST never stopped to work on their own thoughts and opinions. It took me into my 60's to "get the right message" for me to break the ties that were binding me. On my dad's death bed when he was close to 95, he finally said he NEVER believed but could never had said that during his long marriage and life as it was. Too bad.
Talk about a HUGE business, the religion stuff.
Hey jamin! So good to see you online; I was just thinking about you and wondering if you were okay. Hope you're staying home and staying safe!
I agree that religion is a huge business venture, untaxed and IMO, built on a dishonest premise.
The atheist view of the above would be that you are opening yourself up for self deception. Would this openness to communication from the creator include the people about to find the face of Jesus in their taco shell?
Of course, the atheist view wouldn't be my view. My view of the atheist view would be that the atheist likewise is engaged in self-deception. And so it goes.
I don't engage in prayer, worship and communion in a vacuum. If many, many years of study and experience hadn't convinced me to a reasonable degree of certainty that there was a creator with whom I could communicate, I wouldn't engage in prayer, worship and communion.
Could someone who thinks she sees the face of Jesus in a taco shell engage in meaningful prayer, worship and communion? Certainly. Why not? I've seen startling examples of pareidolia where I could see the face of Jesus (or something equally unlikely) too.
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You have advanced some characteristics of the creator despite not having anything beyond human imagination to work with in the construction of these characteristics. You somehow know that the creator does not need or demand worship. You somehow know what human behavior will make the creator most likely to communicate.
It's your assumption that I have nothing beyond human imagination to work with. I have a very large body of philosophy, evidence and experience that has led me to a theistic position. I have a very large body of theology, evidence and experience that has led me to a Christian position. A very large body of Christian teaching and experience, including my own experience, support the importance and effectiveness of prayer, worship and communion. Christianity being a revelatory religion, those of us within the Christian community further believe that God's desire for prayer, worship and communion are matters of divine revelation.
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How do you know that even if the creator does not demand or need worship, it isn't outright annoyed by it? Same question for prayer, which strikes me as even more potentially annoying. Millions and millions, day after day, in a line that never ends, all begging for this or that. Save this person. Cure this affliction. Watch over my children. Help me hit a home run. Make my lottery number come up. That would sure get on my nerves.
This is partly answered by my response above. You have a very narrow understanding of prayer. Petitionary prayer, which is what you are describing, is only one of at least four distinct types. I virtually never engage in petitionary prayer, and certainly none as shallow or silly as some of your examples.
God in Christian theology is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. There is no "line that never ends" with the God of Christianity. No prayer, even a shallow or silly one driven by self-interest, is going to "get on the nerves" of the God of Christianity. An atheist's conception of the God of Christianity is, by definition, simply not going to be an accurate conception.
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