Why Does God Need So Much Praise?

[Rhondazvous]

In the late fourth century, Hypatia of Alexander was a vastly educated and intelligent woman. She excelled in every area of scholarship: philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, science. You name it she mastered it. But this notable woman had the misfortune to get caught up in a political feud between Orestes, the governor of Alexandria and Cyril. The bishop of Alexandria. Cyril incited the wrath of the Christians in Alexandria by claiming that her intelligence took glory away from god. They kidnapped her, dragged her to a church, and before the altar, they beat her to death with clubs, scrapped the skin off her, dragged her mangled body through the streets and burned her. They wanted to make sure she was dead. No playing possum with them

How odd that a human being should have to dumb down for the creator of the universe to keep his glory undiminished. But put yourself in god’s shoes for just a minute.

There you are, sitting enthroned above the circle of the Earth (Isaiah 40:22. The word translated circle is chug. This is the dome or vault that the ancients believed encircled the Earth, they still thought the Earth was flat, not spherical). You’re looking down at humans like grasshoppers and you’re kinda jealous of them. They have cultures, science, art, education and government, while you have none of these. You are alone, without peer or society. The other deities that are beneath you in the Bronze Age pantheon are rivals for the affections of your grasshoppers, and in the end you will punish them (Isaiah 27:1)

It drives you to violent jealousy to see your creation going about their business, carrying on their lives with no thought of you, while you have no other business than to watch them and worry about what they do. If they don’t remind you of how wonderful you are, you might forget or even doubt it. So you need praise, incessant and passionate from all your creatures. Everything they do must be done for your glory, and yours alone. You go into a hissy fit if anyone else gets any attention.

Wouldn’t you just loathe somebody like Hypatia? Wouldn’t you love it when your faithful grasshoppers are eager to kill to protect your glory—your fragile, precarious glory?

[Minimalist]

There is no god but there are primitive, evil, fuckwits.

The doctrine of eternal punishment is in perfect harmony with the savagery of the men who made the orthodox creeds. It is in harmony with torture, with flaying alive, and with burnings. The men who burned their fellow-men for a moment, believed that God would burn his enemies forever.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll,

[robvalue]

If I was anything like as powerful as God, nothing humans did would be of any concern to me. I'd just make sure they were all happy and healthy. They'd be kind of like an ant is to me now. I wish it no ill will, I'll idly watch it from time to time, and I'd help it out if it was in trouble. But I'm never going to have much of a meaningful relationship with it.

The idea of requiring worship is absolutely absurd. The idea of being angry at not getting it and dishing out punishment makes God a poor excuse for a human, let alone a deity.

[KevinM1]

If I was anything like as powerful as God, nothing humans did would be of any concern to me. I'd just make sure they were all happy and healthy. They'd be kind of like an ant is to me now. I wish it no ill will, I'll idly watch it from time to time, and I'd help it out if it was in trouble. But I'm never going to have much of a meaningful relationship with it.

The idea of requiring worship is absolutely absurd. The idea of being angry at not getting it and dishing out punishment makes God a poor excuse for a human, let alone a deity.

Yup, and I'll go one step further:

A perfect being would have no desire to create anything because it would be complete entirely by itself.  The idea of an omni-everything being who created the universe is utterly illogical, and not even supported in the bible given we have a creature who needed six 'days' to create instead of one or none, needed rest on the seventh, cocked up his creation so badly he needed to hit the 'reset by global flood' button, and so on.

[robvalue]

Agreed, totally. I would never have made the humans in the first place. It again makes out this deity is a bored teenager, breeding ants to keep him company.

Even if I was just very powerful, I'd have no need to create other life forms. I could create whatever scenario I wanted to be in, and do whatever I want. Why would I grow a bunch of talking apes on a rock? And worse, make them self aware as part of my stupid game?

[Minimalist]

The idea of requiring worship is absolutely absurd.

Only the Moon God



should be happy with this shit.

[KevinM1]

Quick, let's steal their wallets!

[robvalue]

Man, I find prayer to be so creepy. Especially groups of people doing it.

*Shivers*

[vorlon13]

Quick, let's steal their wallets!

Well, puts me in mind of something else entirely.

[Minimalist]

Kind of like a buffet, eh V?