For Zeez: God and Worship

[_MrStakhanovite]

Here is my definition of worship:

S is worshiping G if and only if S is expressing maximal deference and reverence towards G.

This definition of worship strikes me as highly intuitive, and falls right in line with the first commandment(s) in the Decalogue that unities the Abrahamic faiths:

Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness [of any thing] that [is] in heaven above, or that [is] in the earth beneath, or that [is] in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God [am] a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth [generation] of them that hate me

(Exodus 20: 3-5)

God is to be number one in your life, nothing gets priority over God, and if God is the maximally greatest being, this makes sense. But if God isn’t the maximally greatest being, is it right to worship God?


Discuss

[_Jersey Girl]

Human beings are incapable of worship.

[_hans castorp]

Human beings are incapable of worship.

In Stak's (and the First Commandment's) sense probably so, and Luther would agree. But I don't think his definition describes most of the human activities that have been called worship.

Try a little phenomenology, Stak.

hc

ADDENDUM: I think the First Commandment is about one's whole life, of which worship is a part. But how could this apply to, say, a polytheistic religion?

[_MrStakhanovite]

Human beings are incapable of worship.

How are Human beings incapable of worship?

[_zeezrom]

Wow, a thread with my name on it? And from the philosopher Stak, no less. I'm flattered.

[blush]

I'll delve in tonight after the kids are snuggly in their beds.

[_Jersey Girl]

Human beings are incapable of worship.

How are Human beings incapable of worship?

Egocentricity.

[_MrStakhanovite]

In Stak's (and the First Commandment's) sense probably so, and Luther would agree.

Same question, how and why are human beings incapable of worship as I defined it?

Try a little phenomenology, Stak.

I honestly think that would only compound the issue about one's duties to worship.

[_hans castorp]

Here are a very few of the things that have been called worship:

singing a psalm
lighting a candle in front of a statue
pouring a libation
sacrificing an animal
offering a plate of rice
burning incense to the ancestors
proclaiming a text
bowing or prostrating

What do all these things have in common?

hc

[_MrStakhanovite]

Egocentricity.

Just so I understand you...

You are saying that because humanity suffers from egocentrism, humans are incapable of giving God their maximal deference and reverence?

The way I'm understanding this is that you are saying humanity is idolatrous by necessity, would you agree with that?

[_hans castorp]

The way I'm understanding this is that you are saying humanity is idolatrous by necessity, would you agree with that?

A great many Christians would agree with that proposition. Didn't Calvin call the human mind an idol factory?

hc