(August 3, 2015 at 9:26 am)Nope Wrote:(August 3, 2015 at 9:20 am)robvalue Wrote: Yeah, I made a whole thread asking the exact question some time ago and got pretty much no answer. "You'll be sorry otherwise" seems to be about it. It's clearly a human in a god's clothes if it has anything to gain by people worshipping it.
I think that it would be an interesting to find out why people feel the need to worship a god but I don't think that theists can have that discussion. If they start examining why they need a god then they might discover that they really don't need religion after all.
The Bible tells why people worship "gods".
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se...ersion=CEB
Wisdom 14:15-21 (CEB) = 15 Imagine a father overcome with grief at the untimely death of his child. In his grief, he makes an image of the child. The person who was once a corpse he now honors as a god. He passes it on to those under his authority, along with certain mysteries and special ceremonies. 16 As time goes by, his godless custom becomes tradition. Eventually, his custom becomes law, and rulers order the people to worship these carved images.
17 These rulers, moreover, lived far away from most of their subjects. So because the people couldn’t pay their respects in person, they imagined what the ruler looked like and made an image of their honored leader. By their diligent efforts, they were thus still able to shower the king with their flattery. 18 But the artist’s desire to be recognized for his work also incited the fools to an ever greater intensity of worship. 19 Perhaps out of a desire to please the person in power, the artist makes the most of his artistic skill to fashion an even more beautiful and perfect image. 20 The masses, charmed by the object’s workmanship, now begin to consider the object worthy of their worship, where not long before they had only honored the person as a human being.
21 In this way idolatry becomes a trap for one’s life. Whether it is because of a father’s misfortune or because people are ordered to do so, stones and plants begin to be called by the name that was never supposed to be shared with anything or anyone else.
