Why would an omnipotent God need to be worshipped?

The Abrahamic religions all value belief and worship over goodness. In fact, without belief, even the most genuinely good person cannot be saved.
This makes little sense, but it makes even less when you realize that no amount of trying to believe can make one believe. And to make matters worse, each religion states that it is the correct religion and that you must believe and worship accordingly.

This God actually sounds more like a villain. He's jealous, vengeful, petty, angry, violent, and completely unreasonable. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he sounded downright evil. After all, only an evil being would torture someone forever simply because they could not believe in that being.

Perhaps God is evil and isn't omnipotent at all. Maybe all of the worship gives Him power and makes him feel good like a drug would. What better way to accumulate that worship than to convince people that they must worship or be eternally condemned to a situation that would make abu-ghraib seem like a resort.
Of course that's just silly speculation.

Now I'm not assaulting the possibility of a God, I'm just pointing out that religion, among other things, contains a valuable little catch-22 that is used to keep people in its own folds, and it is especially useful now as religion's importance as a social institution is diminishing. Anyone that would say that you must be a part of their group or suffer eternal consequences sounds like a manipulative asshat to me.

AAAANNNNDDDD



What does God need with a starship?





Haha, God that movie sucked.

I agree with your point. I also am not debating the existence of a God, it's just what religion has done to make people fear God. This board is entitled Conspiracies in Religion. I myself believe that modern religion itself is the conspiracy. Perverted by humans so they can subjugate the masses on a grand scale and blind people to the truth. I'm not against anyones religion nor am I knocking anyones faith in said religion but over time all religions have been changed to serve the needs of the ruling class. Having everyone fearing an unknowable omnipotent vengeful God and using that to your advantage is one easy way to control people. The truth is still there but it's pretty nicely spread out throughout all religions IMO you just gotta pick through the BS that man has put in there over the last xxxx years.

Man oh man, only if time travel was possible at our current time.


LMAO at that Star Trek V reference it fit quite well

[edit on 3/1/2007 by ShAuNmAn-X]

No disrespect to those of faith, but I've found it more realistic to see God as the totality of all things. Call him the flow of energy powering the universe, call him Tao, call him nature, but I just can't accept all the man-made religions so many blindly follow with their silly rituals and worship. It is possible to be virtuous, know right from wrong, and be spiritual without conventional religion tying up life with theatrical ceremonies.

Originally posted by DiabolusFireDragon
No disrespect to those of faith, but I've found it more realistic to see God as the totality of all things. Call him the flow of energy powering the universe, call him Tao, call him nature, but I just can't accept all the man-made religions so many blindly follow with their silly rituals and worship. It is possible to be virtuous, know right from wrong, and be spiritual without conventional religion tying up life with theatrical ceremonies.

Ya know I couldn't have put it better myself God is everything and nothing. God shouldn't be feared and used as a tool to control people. As I said before Modern Organized religion is the conspiracy in and of itself.

Originally posted by Sunsetspawn
Perhaps God is evil and isn't omnipotent at all.

I have several thoughts on this. But I am going to start with a couple of questions. Are you implying the omnipotence and evilness are mutually exclusive?

Now this might be a little off topic (in which case sorry):
Since you're referring to Abrahamic religions (I'm taking part of this to mean Judaism, as I am Jewish) why do you say God is omnipotent? Very powerful...yes, I think so. But all the beliefs and logic behind an OOO Being (omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent) doesn't sit well with me(omnipresent is the most acceptable to me of the three).

I read a quote from article on beliefnet.com:
"Rabbi Harold Kushner, who contends that God is not really as powerful as we have claimed. Nowhere in the Hebrew Scriptures does it say that God is omnipotent."

I guess I'll do some more digging...but interesting none-the-less how 'almighty' has become omnipotent.


Now my personal opinions (at least the political/historical/logical (aka non-religious) side of me) is that religion is mainly used to instill fear in people...which as modern day politicians know...is an easy way to control the masses. Is this 'bad' or 'wrong'? is another question though.

Jealous?

My God is. (HIS Name is I AM)

He has said so, for Millenium. He is the God of Abraham and his followers.

Just like the 1st Commandment:

"Thou shalt have NO other Gods before me".

When someone or better yet ,a SUPREME BEING (Yahwheh) tells me that there are NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME.. ummmmmm I Think I will LISTEN.

I have never had any experience in my life to where I would attribute homage to another gods except to Yahwheh.

All knees wil bend to HIM.

Originally posted by TheDuckster
Jealous?

My God is. (HIS Name is I AM)

He has said so, for Millenium. He is the God of Abraham and his followers.

Just like the 1st Commandment:

"Thou shalt have NO other Gods before me".

When someone or better yet ,a SUPREME BEING (Yahwheh) tells me that there are NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME.. ummmmmm I Think I will LISTEN.

I have never had any experience in my life to where I would attribute homage to another gods except to Yahwheh.

All knees wil bend to HIM.

I was going to make a long post about how prideful it is to think we can figure out anything about our Lord, how prideful it is to believe that we are anything but children in the light of the Lord, with the understanding of a child (at best) however the above quote said more than I have in all my years with all of my thousands of words combined.

Thank you.

Every knee shall bow.

In REVELATIONS:

All, those who have transgressed, in the time of Yahwheh, for He will judge rightly and so.

In that day, the earth's sky will split, there will be colors amongst the heavens.. blue and purple, it will seem to be fireworks.. with STATIC in the air.

The air will seem heavy and quiet.

(This will be more than the thread of Dark Knight)

Everyone will feel the 'pull' the 'energy' that day.

(Perhaps my captions should be put to futuristic threads)

Everyone will look to move underground

Enough of prophesies.

Move underground.

The God of the old and new Testament is a literary construct made by man in a feeble attempt at understanding what can't be understood by man.

Good try though!

Originally posted by TheDuckster
All, those who have transgressed, in the time of Yahwheh, for He will judge rightly and so.

The worms will judge me.
What ive used in this life will be returned from whence it came, as it should.

so, where other than religions own "sales brochure" does it say any of this stuff?

I always try to find another source besides a company's own marketing materials upon which to base important decision, don't you?

here are the three reasons why a proposed omnipotent god would need worshipping:

1: sociopathic tendencies. looking at the actions supposedly taken by deities on the omnipotent level, it isnt' that hard to see
2: god is an attention whore. basically, god is just a massivly powerful version of those girls that garner attention on myspace
3: god has insecurities. which would make no sense for the most powerful being, but who knows?

and, TheDuckster, why would you even need to pay homage to your deity in the first place? just one more thing, isn't this about ANY hypothetically omnipotent deity? wouldn't the egyptian god aten fit into this argument as well?


[edit on 3/3/07 by madnessinmysoul]

The thing is, I can't be Made to believe in a god.

Either I do, or I don't. It's an internal thing. It's like being told that I must fall in love with someone. It just doesn't work that way.

And who is doing the demanding anyway? Other people.
A priest, social pressure, some guy who wrote some text a long time ago. It's not even "God" who is insisting that I believe in him/her/it. It's peer pressure.

Originally posted by Sunsetspawn
In fact, without belief, even the most genuinely good person cannot be saved.
This makes little sense,

Why should it have to make sense? It might not seem 'right' in the human ideal, but why should the petty ideals of mere human beings be applied to omnipotent and supernatural gods?

but it makes even less when you realize that no amount of trying to believe can make one believe.

Indeed, its a conundrum. A person is a rational animal, and it can't, rationally, beleive in the irrational. So faith must be irrational. But if faith is irrational, how can we have it held against us if we don't beleive? If faith is irrational, but not instinctual, then where does it come from? God? If it comes from god, then how can a person be faulted for not beleiving, either god injects them with faith or he doesn't. And being all knowing, god will now how much faith a person must be magically injected with in order to beleive.

And to make matters worse, each religion states that it is the correct religion and that you must believe and worship accordingly.

This is debateable. The jews say that you must keep the laws of the old testament. But notice that judaism doesn't have the same concept of afterlife as most people have. YOu don't die in judaism and have your spirit float up into heaven, which is set up like an idyllic place. You rest in the grave rather, and you are physically restored at the end of the world. If you are polluted, god rejects you (this is actually a very common religious idea, from judaism to hinduism). You can avoid pollution by obeying the torah, which you must beleive is divinely written by god in order to accept.

This God actually sounds more like a villain. He's jealous, vengeful, petty, angry, violent, and completely unreasonable.

Worse. God created the universe, so the bible says, and made man a rational being, its the thing that distringuishes man from animal infact. And god made the universe in such a way that a rational consideration of it can lead us to all sorts of scientific conclusions, but science can't access god. And yet we're supposed to be punished if we can't access god. So god has played a trick on us. He's made us rational, he'd put us into a world that is deceptively rational, and given us no access to himself, and he punishes us for beleiving our rational mind and the examinations of the rational world. Its downright trickery, in a sense, the god of the literalists is an evil god.

After all, only an evil being would torture someone forever simply because they could not believe in that being.

ON this, there is contention. THe bible doesn't say, 'accept jesus as personal saviour, or you will be sent underground to a place i call 'hell', where a supernatural being called 'the devil' will commit physical acts of torture on you, forever'.
Rather, it says that at the end of the world, everyone gets phsyically resurrected, those not saved will be cast into a 'lake of fire'. IOW, they will
be obliterated, instantly. Not permanently tortured. And after a millenial kingdom on earth, god will vapourize all of existence into nothing (presumably keeping himself and the saved in heaven, and only obliterating everything else).

Perhaps God is evil and isn't omnipotent at all. Maybe all of the worship gives Him power and makes him feel good like a drug would.

If god were merely a very powerful being who could have godly powers over us, well, wouldn't he get more worship by being more direct? Why have a book, when you can phsyically manifest yourself and perform wonders to get everyone to worship you? Surely an immortal, super-powerful being residing on earth in direct rule of everyone would have more worshippers than there are in christianity now. If god wanted followers alone, then he could surely get more by being more direct.




Also, consider that, IF we allow that there is an omnipotent supernatural god who created the universe and everything in it, then it doesn't matter what he does, its, by definition, 'good'. God can wipe out an entire planet, for whatever reason, and its technically good. God ordered abraham to sacrifice his son, and abraham obliged, and that was GOOD. THe founder of judaism, christianity, and islam, Abraham, was a child murderer, certainly in his heart even though god at the last minute stops it.

An all powerful creator is due worship, de facto.

Why would an omnipotent God need to be worshipped?

Is not the god or gods that need the worshipping but humanity in need of something to believe that allow the worshiping.

Originally posted by Nygdan
Why should it have to make sense? It might not seem 'right' in the human ideal, but why should the petty ideals of mere human beings be applied to omnipotent and supernatural gods?

Thank you! How can we be so prideful that we think we can figure out our God? It's like when you were a kid, thought you had it all figured out. The adults around you knew you didn’t know squat, but they did praise you for having FAITH that what they said to you was the truth, for trusting and having FAITH in them. Who here has tried to explain something to a toddler? The toddler doesn’t know what is going on. When you move his hand away from the pretty fire, he gets angry, because he doesn’t know what you do. This is why the Christ told us over an over to be like children, because he knew something we didn’t. Sorry for the redundancy, I can think of 500 ways to put it.

those not saved will be cast into a 'lake of fire'.

Now remember what was going on in Jerusalem when the lake of fire and brimstone was being spoke of. Animals were being sacrificed for sins. When these animals wee sacrificed, they were drained of blood. The animal itself was CAST ONTO FIRE, and its blood was dashed at the alter.
So here we see fire as a means of purifying, of forgiving sins.

Onto the brimstone. Who here knows what brimstone is? It was used for bleaching, removing stains, washing and PURIFYING! In fact, it was used in the ritual, spiritual cleansing of places of worship.

Remember, the Law was prep work for Grace.

We offered sacrifices in fire for the atonement of sin. We used whitewash to spiritually cleanse. Fire and brimstone if you make the connection. We die, and at the resurrection we are either saved and accepted or "cast into the lake of fire and brimstone" to be purified, to obtain forgiveness the hard way.

If you look through the Old Testament you find nothing but foundation, the crown being the New Testament teachings of Christ. Nothing in the New Testament is actually new, just building upon a pre-laid foundation.

Also, consider that, IF we allow that there is an omnipotent supernatural god who created the universe and everything in it, then it doesn't matter what he does, its, by definition, 'good'. God can wipe out an entire planet, for whatever reason, and its technically good. God ordered abraham to sacrifice his son, and abraham obliged, and that was GOOD. THe founder of judaism, christianity, and islam, Abraham, was a child murderer, certainly in his heart even though god at the last minute stops it.

An all powerful creator is due worship, de facto.

Nygdan, you are so in line with my thought there (though probably not my faith) it is scary. Never have I heard that logic from any source, but it is something I firmly believe. No matter what the Supreme Being does, it is good and right because anything done by the Supreme Being is by definition Supreme.

No matter if our small brains think something our Lord does is right or wrong, I love my Lord for making me, for all the good times and the bad times, for the experience of living. For the ride. I thank the Lord for the pain and suffering, for the death and the life, for the good the bad and the ugly.

Without any of the bad, how could I enjoy the good? Without the horror of death, how would I appreciate LIFE?

Originally posted by Nygdan

Perhaps God is evil and isn't omnipotent at all. Maybe all of the worship gives Him power and makes him feel good like a drug would.

If god were merely a very powerful being who could have godly powers over us, well, wouldn't he get more worship by being more direct? Why have a book, when you can phsyically manifest yourself and perform wonders to get everyone to worship you? Surely an immortal, super-powerful being residing on earth in direct rule of everyone would have more worshippers than there are in christianity now. If god wanted followers alone, then he could surely get more by being more direct.

Oppsy, my bad. I should've clarified. I was actually going for an Ori feel on this point. Perhaps the God that the bible speaks of is evil, actually has very little power, and exists outside of our three dimensional space or is trapped on a planet in the center of the galaxy. The worship that we give him will eventually allow him to break free and physically force us to worship him so that his power becomes limitless.

Also, consider that, IF we allow that there is an omnipotent supernatural god who created the universe and everything in it, then it doesn't matter what he does, its, by definition, 'good'. God can wipe out an entire planet, for whatever reason, and its technically good. God ordered abraham to sacrifice his son, and abraham obliged, and that was GOOD.

Errr... my mom gave birth to me, so if she throws me off of a roof it's "good?"

An all powerful creator is due worship, de facto.

Maybe... if that all powerful creator made himself available to be worshipped, but it's all this tricky "pretending not to exist and burying dinosaur bones to test faith" nonsense that really ruins that argument. It's not so much the "worship" that's insane, it's the "irrational belief + worship."

Ahhh the old "We Can't Understand God's Mysterious Ways" line.

Nope. I'm not going to give God that out.

If he's up there, he killed my father with ALS. Nope. I wont thank him for that. I wont thank him for what he did to my mother, who watched her loved husband disintegrate. I wont thank him for taking away the joy of my dad seeing his grandkids grow up. I wont thank him for giving other people nasty body, mind and soul, and family, wrecking things like Huntington's Disease.

Stuff all that.

If God did that to my father, and even worse nightmares to so many other people.... and then wants to be THANKED and PRAISED at the end of it.

Well, he can go to hell.

Religion says that God is looking for worship, but God says that he is looking for fellowship.

Every where we look, no matter what religion sect or denomination we find the leaders all spouting the same garbage:worship God our way. This goes for the muslims as well! God is not looking for your worship- Reality check - He doesn't need it.

No in fact what God is looking for is a few to fellowship with Him, that is why he =created us in the first place. Simply doing what we were created to do is how we worship God, not by bowing 20 million times a day at the feet of blind clerics and priest. News flash- they will all be exposed for the pieces of dirty rags that they truely are when they stand in the presence of God on that day!!!

So what do I mean by fellowship with God? Well for one try a little Grattitude once in a while. There is nothing that you have that he did not create for your good pleasure. whether that be your health, your family, pasions, gifts, pets, so on and so forth. You made none of it and yet you walk around as if some how you make it all happen. and as if the answers that you give to this rediculous question some how Change who God is. You make nothing happen. even time itself exist only by his command and when He says enough, I garuntee that it will stop.

So stop bitchin about what you ain't got and thank God for what you do have! furthermore stop asking stupid question about whether God should be worshipped or not. Your questions and your "lifestlye" based answers change not the character of God. He continues to be good and you continue to be blind and ungrateful. God can no more change his nature anymore than you can change being an ant. Those who ask these rediculous questions already know the answer ! So ask your self this: does a tornado acknowledge a fart?!

If all you say is true, then even "Fellowship" is a load of bull.

Thank him for the Pretty Flowers, but put up with and don't complain about the Cancer.

God does what he likes, and we take it or leave it.