GOD WORSHIP IS DISGUISED SELF-WORSHIP
The worshippers of God
are really worshipping an idol based on themselves
- they indirectly worship themselves
In other words, it is not God they are interested in but
in looking at God like a mirror and seeing their own reflection.
John Calvin, "Daily experience teaches us that flesh is always uneasy until it
has obtained some figment like itself in which it may fondly find solace as an
image of God. In almost every age since the beginning of the world, men in order
that they might obey this blind desire, have set up symbols in which they
believe God appeared before their bodily eyes. We must not think the heathen so
stupid that they did not understand God to be something other than sticks and
stones. For while they change images at pleasure, they always kept the same gods
in mind." Institutes of the Christian Religion I, 11.8.
ESSENTIAL POINTS
Every religion claims to have an object of worship. It may be Gods who
supposedly live on top of a mountain (when they have magical powers it is hard
to see what they are doing there!!) or an Almighty God. We can prove that
religion doesn’t worship the divine being or beings at all and we are going to
do it in the following ways.
#First, even if Kant is wrong to say that when you look at something you will
never know it in itself but only the phenomena the mind creates about the tree,
he is not wrong when it comes to God. You might know a tree in itself for you
can sense it but you have no way of detecting God or when he is at work.
Most people have a definition of God and his characteristics which makes them
idolaters for they worship what they think God is - they worship their
perception of God. Maimonides and St Thomas Aquinas said that giving God human
characteristics and feelings is worse idolatry than what the pagans got up to
for it is equally dehumanising and is dangerous for it is so subtle and harder to
treat. Thus the pair said that God should be described by what he is not.
Defining him by what he is gets you nowhere. St Clement of Alexandria thought
that people invent gods because
- they think there is a supernatural reason why they suffering and that it is
punishment or correction.
- they idealise feelings such as say love and anger. They see the gods as models
of the emotions.
- they like to think that virtues such as justice and prudence are somehow
divine or god and can be worshipped in the form of a god.
People say they love people. Some say they love God. Even if you are wrong to
love man as you think he is at least you are still loving a person and trying
to. But with God you don’t know if you are having a relationship with a person
or something that is in your head. The cruelty of having people love a being who
does not exist or a version of God that is not the right one is tremendous
considering how religion demands that you must even die for God!
#Second, by showing that when we are naturally selfish (even when we sacrifice
for another we are really doing it because we want to and that is the real
reason so we are still doing it: to please ourselves) we cannot sincerely adore
another being. God is supposed to be perfectly good and the king of the universe
who wields authority over us. Even those who do not think, we are naturally
always selfish, agree that we prefer to have a God of authority our way than
what he really is.
We resent some evils not all. The mother who lets her son put himself in danger
for others is praised and not resented. So our hatred for sin is not about it
being harmful so much as us not liking it. If we really despised evil because it
was evil, it wouldn’t matter if it hurt us or not. If it is not really breaches
of God's law that bothers us then the God we worship is what we want him to be
not what he is. He's idolatry in the robes of morality and holiness - the
craftiest and worst kind.
#Third, we prove it from the fact that faith in deity is evil and egotistic so
when we worship God each one worships herself or himself. For example, when
grave useless suffering exists, believers will not say, "God is so good that if
such a thing happens then he does not have the power to stop it. He is not
all-powerful." Rather they say, "God is good so somehow he is right to cause
this terrible thing by letting it happen." They are interested in maintaining
belief in his endless power - that is all that matters. They refuse to see if
the evil should be determined as so bad that it refutes the existence of God for
it cannot directly or indirectly have any value. You only go that far to believe
in an all-powerful God if you think that he will use that power to give you
everlasting glory and power. It's about you.
Love is a negative thing in the sense that when you concern yourself about what
is best for another your attitude is, "I would hurt you if I needed to but I
don't". Love treats others as a means. If we say that God comes first then we
are saying we should treat him more like that than anybody else. We are
worshipping egoism when we worship God.
Sensible people know they have enough to worry about when they have to care for
their family and friends and work colleagues so it is selfish to actually care
for God or others. Love can be a form of selfishness. Period.
#Fourth, we prove it from the fact that we choose a God that appeals to us. This
is reflected in the Christian doctrine that people do not reject God but a
travesty of him for God is all-attractive. We cannot sincerely worship a God who
we feel or suspect is despicable. We tend to project what is in our minds and
hearts on to others. And we will be better at doing that with God for he cannot
bite back. We adore in others and in God what we perceive in them. We adore our
perception of them. We perceive in the people we adore the qualities that we
adore in ourselves.
#Fifth, we prove it from the relationship of God to morality. We tend to have a
God who agrees with our opinions. If you are in a position to judge God as the
perfect role model and object of devotion then you must be even more perfect for
you are claiming to be in a position to judge. Your humility is really arrogant
self-aggrandizement. The God you adore can be seen in the mirror. Religion says
that somehow God is goodness which opposes the view, "Good is good whether there
is a god or not." It opposes logic. Even if there were no God, good would still
exist. It would be good that there is nothing at all in the sense that there is
nothing to endure suffering. Believers feel that love is a person or good is a
person. That makes no sense. It is pure feeling. Believers who give evidence for
God do not believe because of the evidence. In fact they feel there is a God or
are trying to feel there is one. They worship what they feel. You can feel the
tree in the garden is a person just as easily. It is idolatry. And even more so
when there is so much disagreement about what is good or evil from one person to
the next.
#Sixth, the reason we are very contradictory and inconsistent is because we
value what we want to do and think more than principles and consistency so we
will box up God, if we believe in him, in such a way that he will not impinge
much on what we want to do. Human nature is confusingly inconsistent.
Christianity finds it hard to get people to live up to what they say they
believe. For example, Catholics are supposed to complain to pharmacies if they
stock condoms but few do complain. A Catholic might, for example, be happy to
let a child be sexually abused by a priest and be outraged if somebody votes for
abortion.
# Eighth, God is too good to be true and where we see the word God we should
replace it with the term wish-fulfilment. Andre Comte Sponville lists the things
we need and desire the most. Firstly, not to completely go out of existence in
death. Secondly, to meet the departed loved ones again. Thirdly, to see justice
and peace conquer injustice and strife and hate. Lastly and most importantly, to
be loved. He says religion is too good to be true for it says that God takes
care of all four. He will fulfil the desires. He even loves us unimaginably.
Sponville argues that God doing this makes belief in God too good to be true. He
suspects that faith in God is really a crutch, it is a psychological trick we
play on ourselves to fulfil our desires that he lists.
Now both atheists and believers have the feeling that great suffering or death
will never happen to them or their loved ones. But feeling that does not make it
true. And the danger is that it can make a person unrealistic. The atheist sees
the illusion and goes along with it. She forgets it's an illusion and enjoys it.
The believer also enjoys the illusion but turns it into a motivation to follow
God and religion. The believer mistakes the feeling for a sense of divine
protection. The believer and the atheist have the same illusion. The believer
simply adds a new illusion to it. The believer does not understand himself and
his feelings. The feeling has nothing to do with God. It is just part of our
programming to help us cope in life. The illusion is the reason an atheist and
believer can both feel grateful say that they survived something really bad. If
you take belief in God away from the believer, you are only opening their eyes.
You are not taking away their crutch for God is only what they think is the
crutch. The real crutch is the feeling of invulnerability that deludes us to how
vulnerable we are. It will stay there unless the person has clinical depression.
# Ninth, there is the inversion theory. Michael Onfray argues that we make God
not in our image but in the inversion of our image. For example, we are weak and
he is all-strong. We are forgetful and prone to error while he knows all things
and cannot err. We may do harm but he does only good. If Onfray is right, then
belief in God is based on a desire to cope with the harsh realities of
existence. If I realise I cannot fully control the world and my life, I cope
with this by cuddling up to and sucking up to a God who is in control. I feel I
am in control by giving up the control to God. No wonder the Bible says that
when you are weak you are really strong. The believer is as keen on power as the
worst dictator. The lust is there but worked out in a different way.
#Tenth, in tests done to see how people work out what they think God wants them
to do, a part of their brain lights up when they consider their own view and
God's view. But when considering somebody else's view a different part reacts.
From the study, it was concluded that people subconsciously worship a God they
create themselves in accordance with what they want him to be (page 29, And Man
Created God). Behind the god they adore, there is a wish that is motivating and
driving the whole scheme. It is about fulfilment and not God.
#Eleventh, our problem in life is that we are not careful enough to work out
what evidence points to and to think rationally. We need to overcome wrong
thinking not wrong doing. The doing won't be fixed until the thinking is fixed.
It starts with the thinking. Perhaps love is more important to us which is why
we want a God to love?
# Twelfth, God commands right either because it is right or perhaps things are
only right because God commands them - this dilemma proves adoring God is proxy
self-worship. If God commands what is right just because it is right then it is
still right if there is no God at all. And if something is made right by God
commanding it, he can command us to rape babies for no reason but fun and still
be good. Christians say that right and wrong are grounded in God's nature. This
does not help at all. To say that something is good just because God commands it
is to say it is grounded in God's nature. So we are back where we started.
Believers can't give a reason as to how good could be real if God makes good
good. They merely feel that God is the creator of the laws of real good and real
evil. They have to feel God into existence. The God they worship is the product
of their feelings. They mean to worship good when they worship God. But good is
not God. If you worship good as God then this is projecting what you see as good
unto the deity. The idolaters worshipped images because of their beauty and
because they symbolised wonderful things such as fertility. You are doing
exactly the same thing. The style of the idolatry is different but it is still
rank idolatry.
#Thirteenth, if we worship God we will want to be with him hopefully for all
eternity. That is called Heaven. Much religion says we are not all going to
Heaven and if we will all get there in the end then why be moral? The worship of
God is really selfish if it is engaged in by a person who will not do right just
because it is right regardless of whether there is heavenly happiness or not.
Those who say some or many will be barred from Heaven argue that if there is
always another chance to repent there is no risk. They say that God lets us be
tempted to sin to try us out but that there is no temptation at all if we will
have endless chances to do better. That is nonsense. It would imply that
temptation to sin is not temptation if you are a young person with 80 years
ahead of you.
#Fourteenth, Geoffery Berg in the Six Ways of Atheism says we would recognise
that a cruel and nasty being could not be God (page 57). The trouble is, once
you say a good God is forced to allow evil for he needs it for a good and
justifiable reason, God could try to come across and evil and nasty but we would
never be able to tell if he really is evil and nasty. There is no way to tell
when it is Satan or God. Instead of recognising this God as good, believers
trust. This kind of trust is telling yourself he is good. How could that please
him for it is not about seeing and celebrating his goodness?
The problem of evil is worse than Christians let on. It forces them to develop
artificial worship of God. Religion is about them and they use God to cover that
up.
#Fifteenth, God believers say that truth cannot contradict truth. When something
comes up that refutes the existence of God, they reason "Truth cannot contradict
truth. There is some way to resolve this contradiction. We just don't know what
it is or maybe never will." God by definition is seen as being the truth meaning
that believers in God will have that attitude more than believers in anything
else will. All the argument is, is a rationalisation or excuse for refusing to
let the truth sink in. Whoever is against truth is making the God he worships.
#Sixteenth, it is not true that it is the goodness in others that attracts us.
Not all goodness attracts us. The very moral person usually isn't liked. The
rascal with charm will be liked better. We cherry-pick what we like out of good
and bad. Thus we do not like goodness for its own sake. It is what we want good
to be that we like. It is not goodness as such. So we are never attracted by the
goodness in others or in God. Even if there is a God, he will not expect any
worship from us for he will not get it. What will get it is the image we create
of him in our hearts and minds which is made to suit us. We like challenges to
different degrees in life. We need challenges. That is why we may not make our
image of God a perfect match for the good we want him to be. We give him faults
but even then it is about suiting ourselves. It follows that God is still
matching what we want goodness to be but in a different way. When he is contrary
for us, it is still good for we want it. Paganism with its invented gods never
disappeared. It only changed style. Today we are inventing a God. To adore what
you have made up is to adore the deity you invent to please yourself. This is
about you not the god. The god is only a cover. To adore what you have chosen to
believe in, is to worship yourself indirectly for your belief is your creation.
You are always better and more powerful than your belief.
#Seventeenth, the Protestant theologian Cornelius Van Til said that if we work
out there is a God by thinking about it and by feeling that there is one we are
using human criteria to find God. He stated that we will only make a God in our
own image. He said we need divinely authorised criteria. But that solution
solves nothing and makes the problem worse. If I decide the Bible or the Koran
reveal God to me, what happens is I end up thinking, "The Bible shows me that
God exists and God exists because the Bible is right". John Calvin argued that
as God is unimaginable he has to reveal himself in "baby talk" in the Bible . He
shows himself as changing his mind and having hands and a heart and so on. But
that forces people to depend on images of God not God. Van Til had no answer at
all to the problem.
# Eighteenth, Love and hate - vindictiveness - are two sides of the same coin.
If you love a person, you must hate on some level anything that can hurt them.
You cannot want your loved one to live unless you hate the possibility that they
can die. Good needs evil. To love good you need to embrace the evil of hating
evil. God is said to be perfect love. Love cannot be perfect so God cannot be
love. The attraction to God then is based on wishful thinking, "I want perfect
love to exist though it cannot. I want there to be a God of perfect love
therefore there is one." This is not a God based on truth but on what you would
like him to be. He is your idol.
# Nineteenth, You can fool yourself by yourself so you are hardly fit to judge
if you know God and if he is with you. Your thoughts are part of your mind and
of you. Yet you can pretend that you are spectator not a participant with regard
to your thoughts. This feels and seems so real but it cannot be. It proves our
minds are capable of experiencing God and this experience can be totally false
and delusional. When you can feel that something so unreal as you being a
spectator of your own mind is real imagine how good you could be at deluding
yourself that God is in you? You cannot even get your own mind right with its
internal stuff never mind external stuff such as God!
God is wish-fulfilment. You have created the idol out of your own wants and
called it God. You worship yourself in your own creation. CASE CLOSED.
Conclusion
Worshipping God is really the sublimated worship of yourself!
See devotion to God for what it is.
It is creating a god in your mind and worshipping your creation. Even if there
is a God that closely resembles the one you have in your head the fact remains
that it is still an imitation.
And Man Created God - Google Books
* The Case for Faith, Lee Strobel, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2000
Handbook of Christian Apologetics, Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli, Monarch
Publications, East Sussex, 1995
Eternal Life? Hans Kung, Collins, London, 1984
And Man Created God, Is God a Human Invention? Robert Banks, Lion, Oxford, 2011
Then Man Created God: The Truth about Believing a Lie, D.G. McLeod, 2009
God without Religion, Questioning Centuries of Accepted Truths, Sankara Saranam,
Benbella, Dallas, Texas, 2008
