Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Does God have an ego that requires he be stroked, praised, worshiped and adored by his followers?
All I can say to you is that that is how I understood it as an unbeliever. As a believer, what I understand about that view now is that it was my own arrogance in thinking I can fully comprehend God. My perception is that arrogance is one obstacle to someone's ability to want to worship God; furthermore, my understanding is that that sort of desire is impossible to have without the work of the Holy Spirit. I think naturally that a human being cannot humiliate themselves to want to submit themselves entirely to a higher Being which has complete dominion over them.
To which I could respond that, as a deconvert (should that ever happen (1) you would look back and clearly see that you were closing your eyes to nonsensical beliefs by telling yourself that it made perfect sense to God, and anyone who questioned that was 'arrogant'.
That the thinking involved is faulty is shown by saying that asking questions about the sense of it is 'claiming to know the mind of God'. That is not what it is doing. It is simply saying, if there is a god, does it make sense that all our rites, grovelling and hymn -singing mean anything much to it?
To cast that as 'claiming to know the mind of God' is a misrepresentation for the sole purpose of labelling it 'arrogance' as a pretext for dismissing the question without dealing with it, when claiming that nonsense makes sense to god, when you really have no basis for saying so other than your own faith that it must be so, is actually what we would see as arrogance.
(1) don't be too quick. Half of atheists never believed they would ever deconvert.
Does God have an ego that requires he be stroked, praised, worshiped and adored by his followers?
Or is this a projection from those that believe that's what God wants and needs?
Projections are our own thoughts and feelings that we displace or attribute to others.
The way he is portrayed by some of us theists it would appear he does have the need to.
But I find that to be a human error of attempting to give God(swt) human Attributes. People do attempt to project their own thoughts and feelings to God(swt)
Allaah(God)(swt) has no human attributes nor any needs. It is us that have the need to worship, adore and praise him. He has no need for anything we can provide. I am not capable of understanding the attributes of Allaah(swt), he is far beyond my concepts.
I do not worship Allaah(swt) because he needs me to. I worship because I need to. It is the only means of communication with God(Allaah)(swt) that I know how to do.
Does God have an ego that requires he be stroked, praised, worshiped and adored by his followers?
Or is this a projection from those that believe that's what God wants and needs?
Projections are our own thoughts and feelings that we displace or attribute to others.
The whole idea of god is nothing more than an invention, so everything about god is a projection of what people imagine him/it to be....Ego? Certainly, just look at the first four of the ten commandments...
Does God have an ego that requires he be stroked, praised, worshiped and adored by his followers?
Or is this a projection from those that believe that's what God wants and needs?
Projections are our own thoughts and feelings that we displace or attribute to others.
Unless an unassailable manifestation of god should appear before everyone, in such a manner as to eliminate any possible doubt as to its divine identity, none of us know that there is a god or if there was, what its nature might be. The human concepts of ego or desire may have no application to such an entity, it might be utterly beyond our comprehensive abilities.
Since that manifestation has not taken place, then everything said about a god will of course be the product of that individual's speculation, with no one's speculation having any evidence to back it, just human desires or human logic.
The god/ego question does generate a bit of nostalgia for me because it was in that concept that I first found reason to disbelieve the adults about their religious notions. I was raised Catholic and according to the Baltimore Catechism which they made us memorize, god was all perfect, all knowing, all powerful etc. It struck me that if that was true, such an entity would be absent any desires, any longing. How could it be perfect and still have unfulfilled desires? When I raised this questions with the nuns, the answer was "It is a mystery of faith."
And that is when I started becoming aware that religious dogma was bullbleep and everything anyone claimed to "know" about god, even that there was one, was the product of their wild guesses or personal wishes.
How do you know that? You are begging the question.
I know because the existence of gods is not logical.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
