Why not to worship.
People (not anyone in particular, you understand, just people) go to religious buildings on holy days in order to worship. I want to know why; that is, why do they worship? I want to know why people feel it is the proper thing to do.
worship to render religious reverence and homage, as to a deity.
It seems that most religions worship a deity, and a significant number of mainstream deities demand that reverence. But why? What need has an omnipotent and omniscient being of the blind devotion of insignificant lumps of meat? What difference does it make that we burn incense or cut our hair (or don’t) in a particular way or genuflect daily to a particular compass point? If you were to be in that position, having made a sea of beings less significant to yourself than bacteria are to us, would you need them to pay reverence to you?
It seems that any creator which requires these things is
Extremely weird. Not to say a bit of a hair fetishist. What is it with religions and hair? Tonsured monks, bearded imams, shaved Buddhists, the Sikh with the uncut hair and the Jew with the little ringlets. But why?? What’s wrong with this god person?
Then there’s the food, the clothing, exactly how you show your reverence… the list of idiosyncracies and capricious whimsies is seemingly unending. Which brings me on to:
Graspingly vain and desperate for attention. Heralds of angels, burning bushes, killing off first-borns - these are the hallmarks of a dictator, not a benefactor. Only someone incredibly insecure and paranoid would really require such constant flattery and public displays of affection.
It really does remind me of nothing less than a kind of Stalinesque cult of personality… around a person that doesn’t exist. No wonder Richard Dawkins (in The Root of all Evil?) compared Ted Haggard’s sermons to a Nuremberg rally. It’s not just the emotions that are similar; the focus of the emotion is too.
Which brings me back to my point. Even if such a god exists - as these religions claim - would you want to worship one? An all-powerful being who seems to embody all the worst characteristics of humanity. I could not worship such a being.
Of course the comparison with Stalin or Hitler could be closer than I originally intended: maybe people display reverence out of fear. Not so much worship (which to me implies a kind of love) as just kowtowing to the one in charge. Toeing the line and trying not to be noticed. It doesn’t sound like much of a life though, and you could certainly sympathise with Lucifer. Rebel, and think for yourself.