I don't see on what grounds people would establish belief in God simply because he exists, I believe in certain things such as the big bang but I would not begin to worship an explosion because there is simply no logical necessity implied by that. X exists, X is (potentially) the cause of my existence, therefore I must worship X? it seems a pretty weak synthetic argument to me.

Furthermore, the 'problem of evil' stands, I don't see how any 'all-loving' god would grant man the freedoms that we have yet condemn him for the baser instincts which were provided to him through his nature. For example, the bible would condemn homosexuality, masturbation, sex on a sunday etc etc, yet these arise through man's natural desire for sex and this was provided by god therefore God has created man with the will to directly contradict god, this seems unlikely to me. Morever, a 'greatest good' would not act as he is supposed to according to the bible. For example, the story of Job is the most despicable thing ever, why would a god punish man simply to test his faith? that seems sadistic to say the least. This is also evident in Exodus when god kills egyptian children because one man wouldn't free the israelites, doesn't seem like an 'all-loving' thing to do and this guy begins to me to sound more akin to the devil than the supposed greatest good.

(May 17, 2012 at 1:01 pm)liam Wrote: I'm sure that the majority of the opposition that has been made against atheism in all of our lifetimes is that there IS a god, however, what perplexes me (besides the obvious issue of there being no reason to agree with this) is why this would necessitate worship? If we assume for a moment that god does exist, why would we be obliged to worship him/her/it? After all, that something was created by something implies no logical reason for worship, If i created the whole being of another human I would not necessarily need to be worshiped for this as I clearly had my own intentions for doing so.

What reasons can you think of for or against this? because I'm at a dead end in terms of the intrinsic value of God, even if it were to exist. Thanks

From a Christian point a view, this question is a bit like asking "Just because your wife exists, it doesn't logically follow that you should love her." For the Christian, it's not a question of logically necessity, or even moral obligation; it is a question of the very nature of the relationship between God and humanity. And what is the nature of that relationship? It is one of God's grace towards humanity, and humanity's response to that grace. That response is what Christian's (should) mean by the word "worship". It is not a word solely to do with particular acts of devotion like prayer or praise (though those things can be acts of worship). Paul "defines" worship in Romans 12:1 (NRSV) as follows:

"I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship."

So, Christian worship is the response to the mercies of God of a whole life lived as an offering to God. Of course, the obvious question is this: why is a whole of life of this sort of worship the proper response to God's grace? It is because of the costly nature of that grace, which means that an uncostly response does not take God's grace seriously:

"Costly grace is the treasure hidden in a field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will gladly sell all his goods...Above all, [grace] is costly because it cost God the life of his Son...and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us." (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship)

So this is the "rationale" for worship - not a logical requirement or a moral obligation to show an abstract god that we acknowledge his existence, but a concrete response to God's concrete expression of himself in the life, death and Resurrection of Jesus.

(May 19, 2012 at 9:38 am)Markos Wrote: From a Christian point a view, this question is a bit like asking "Just because your wife exists, it doesn't logically follow that you should love her." For the Christian, it's not a question of logically necessity, or even moral obligation; it is a question of the very nature of the relationship between God and humanity. And what is the nature of that relationship? It is one of God's grace towards humanity, and humanity's response to that grace. That response is what Christian's (should) mean by the word "worship". It is not a word solely to do with particular acts of devotion like prayer or praise (though those things can be acts of worship). Paul "defines" worship in Romans 12:1 (NRSV) as follows:

"I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship."

That is where you are wrong. Love is not in the nature of marriage - one can be married and remain married without love. Similarly, worship would not be within the nature of relationship between man and god (if such a thing exists). If either of those were in the "nature of the relationship", they'd be both logically necessary and morally obligatory. Your claim that it can be in the very nature of the relation and yet not be logically necessary is self-defeating.

(May 19, 2012 at 9:38 am)Markos Wrote: So, Christian worship is the response to the mercies of God of a whole life lived as an offering to God. Of course, the obvious question is this: why is a whole of life of this sort of worship the proper response to God's grace? It is because of the costly nature of that grace, which means that an uncostly response does not take God's grace seriously:

"Costly grace is the treasure hidden in a field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will gladly sell all his goods...Above all, [grace] is costly because it cost God the life of his Son...and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us." (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship)

So this is the "rationale" for worship - not a logical requirement or a moral obligation to show an abstract god that we acknowledge his existence, but a concrete response to God's concrete expression of himself in the life, death and Resurrection of Jesus.

This, right here, demonstrates one of the many reasons why I despise you god. Any dealings between conscious beings should be on equal terms. Your god's way of dealing is heavy-handed. We did not ask for his "mercies" or "grace" (whatever the hell that means). He wasn't asked to sacrifice his son. That doesn't even address the fact that his son's life was not his to sacrifice in the first place. And let's not even go into the discussion if it can really be called a sacrifice if the bastard comes back to life three days later.

What your god is trying to do is to trick us into thinking that he gave up something for us and therefore we owe him our lives or our worship, disregarding the fact that they are not for sale, we didn't ask him to give up anything and he didn't.

If god was the creator it would just be an interesting 'fact' to me.
I never could understand this theist desire to worship.
It seems kinda primitive and tribal.

I swear that quoting the bible as supporting evidence for the existence of God is not a convincing argument, it simply demonstrates further ignorance towards the general etiquette of debating. There is no reason to support arguments with 'revelation' as this is entirely speculative and inaccurate. Please refrain from using scripture as support unless you have something genuinely useful to support it. 'we must worship god because god says so and he lets us live' is not a claim that is supported by anything, ' we must worship X because X says so' seems to me to only promote circular reasoning and generally disregards logic.

(May 19, 2012 at 2:26 am)genkaus Wrote: My problem with this argument is the very vague terms such as "greatest" being used to describe god without specifying why he is greatest.

Humans don't agree on morality and greatness, it doesn't mean we should deny either, just because it's exact properties are not agreed upon. We know what greatness as a concept means, we all believe in some greatness, so when it comes to Ultimate Greatness, we can agree upon some things but differ on other things.

Quote:Secondly, the ultimate goodness argument doesn't really cut it for me because all conceptualizations of god, while claiming ultimate goodness give a different meaning to that term. So, even if god exists, he may be ultimate good by one person's standard and ultimate evil by another. Then obviously, that another person would not and should not be expected to worship him.

Well obviously whatever God is, that is what we should deem ultimate goodness. I don't find the Christian or Islamic God conception to be ultimate goodness, but never the less, I accept there is an Ultimate Great God.

Whatever is true greatness and true goodness is defined through his existence.

Therefore if torturing people with fire for disbelieving in the true religion is evil, then naturally we shouldn't believe God would do such a thing.

It seems to me religion veiled people from the true beauty of God.

I can remember while religious, I focused on compassion, love, mercy of God portrayed in the religion, and sort of ignored the wrathful side portrayed in the religion.

I think deep inside I always knew the true beauty of God but just blinded myself to it by indoctrination.

You still haven't explained what your reasons are for assuming god is the 'ultimate goodness.'

(May 17, 2012 at 1:01 pm)liam Wrote: I'm sure that the majority of the opposition that has been made against atheism in all of our lifetimes is that there IS a god, however, what perplexes me (besides the obvious issue of there being no reason to agree with this) is why this would necessitate worship? If we assume for a moment that god does exist, why would we be obliged to worship him/her/it? After all, that something was created by something implies no logical reason for worship, If i created the whole being of another human I would not necessarily need to be worshiped for this as I clearly had my own intentions for doing so.

What reasons can you think of for or against this? because I'm at a dead end in terms of the intrinsic value of God, even if it were to exist. Thanks

You seem to be viewing this as a kind of slave/master relationship, I think the term "worship" is being misunderstood. It should be seen as a reciprocal relationship, a poor analogy would be "he worships his wife" Worship of God is essentially being in a joyous celebration of the existence of life. God provides our very being, in turn we reciprocate this love by saying thankyou (worship) not because we are told to, but because we want to. A man doesn't love his wife because he must, it's because by giving love he finds joy and peace.

(May 19, 2012 at 4:53 pm)Faith No More Wrote: You still haven't explained what your reasons are for assuming god is the 'ultimate goodness.'

I've explained this in other threads.

Well, excuse me for not remembering. At the very least you could have provided a link.