GOD WORSHIP IS A COVER FOR INTERNALISED AND SECRET IDOLATRY

Many wonder like Russell did that God and Satan despite being invested with invisible properties and powers are still essentially human figures, the one a projection of what we think our good selves would be and the other of our enemies. Perhaps there is a malign side to us that we don't want to see so we sense it but tell ourselves it is in Satan not us.  We make these entities seem unlike us to hide the disguise, to hide what they are.  It protects "them" and us.  We do see our good and bad sides as somehow above anything natural, like some kind of spiritual or psychic energy so it is no surprise if they are portrayed as spiritual persons who walk side by side with us.  We see our good and bad intentions as matters of psychology, like spirits within the brain.  So it is no wonder we say there are really spirits out there.  The Gods and Satans we experience exist only in our psychology and in our hearts.

By the way, if Satan is a sign of what you want to think of evil and thus evil people, your enemies and potential enemies, then despite you saying you only preach that Hell exists and people go there forever at death to warn, you have dark motives and desires.  You deep down want Hell to be real for them even as you say you preach that they must avoid it for their own sake.  And you are using Satan to demonise them even as you claim that you do not.

It would be an irony if God belief, which is made to look so smart and sophisticated were actually a mask.  What if it were a mask for your secret idol in your head?  It is hard to believe that human nature with its stream of idols for countless thousands of centuries would not harbour leanings towards inventing Gods on purpose to worship any more.  Psychological Projection is the process where one will, perhaps deliberately, misinterpret what is inside as coming from the outside. So if you are angry you might have an angry God. If you internalise the hate others have for you and turn it into self-hate you will have a God who threatens you with wrath and hell.  Be aware that believers may manipulate you to take what is from you as being outside you and placed in God.

God is a bigger thing than a fairy or an angel or a Satan or whatever.  Yet it is clear that the spirits and gods of Paganism were projections.  If the very human goddess Aphrodite says more about you and what you value and not her then how much more will it be with a God who is so invisible he might be only be an example of you mistaking your thoughts and feelings for him?  A sexy deity like her could still be a projection to the person who wanted to be sexy too but didn't have the opportunity or the courage.  She is the side of her or him that she or he cannot unleash.

God is a projection. God talk is also projection. What’s the difference? Well God can show you who he is but when you explain your connection with God to another your ideas can creep in undetected. So there are two projection questions, not one. It is really putting what is in you and what you want outside of you. Your God stuff is about you and you don’t see it.

We boldly will show that the worship of God is always idolatry. 
 
It is idolatry for God is not entitled to it. We know that hurting a baby for no reason is wrong even if there is no God. Thus we can never adore God above all things - it is good we must adore. Idolatry is wrong because it demeans human nature even though it may not look like it does for many idolaters are happy.
 
Most people think there is a God but they want to see him their way and that is what they worship. That is idolatry. It is craftier than actually getting down and worshipping a statue. It is harder to spot and therefore far more dangerous. It is far more deceptive.
 
Brigham Young taught that Adam, the first man, was God the Father and the only God to be worshipped. He didn't speak much about this doctrine as the Mormon faith was far from enthusiastic about this teaching.
 
Mormons today argue that if Young taught that Adam was God, then though he was wrong, the important thing was that he wanted us to worship God. They say he did not have us worshipping anybody other than God but just made an error about who God is. They say you can think that Joe Soap is now the Pope and not know its Joseph Ratzinger but that does not invalidate your respect and honour for the Pope. But such honour implies that you are being fake for you do not even know the man you honour. The argument confuses honouring the pope as a role with honouring the pope as a man.
 
Now Young taught that sinful Adam was God - to say a man is God is to fail to see that the imperfect and sinful man cannot be a perfect and holy God. It is not a mere mistake about who God is. Making a man God is lowering God down to what that man thinks and says and does. If you adore the wrong man as your God, it follows that you make the one true and essential role model of him. There is no real adoration unless you want to honour what you adore by becoming like him as much as possible. If the true God has the quality of absolute holiness and has had it always, it follows that you deny that if you say Adam, a sinner, is God.
 
The Mormons say we have a duty to worship God. What use is that if we can worship Adam or Moses or Abraham Lincoln as God and still worship the real God? The true religion would be the religion that has the instructions for worshipping God according to his requirements. Mormonism cannot be the one true religion if its prophet Brigham Young ordered it on divine authority to adore the wrong God. And the religion's rationalisation that it does not matter who you worship as long as you intend to adore God makes it stupid to make such a fuss about religion.
 
The Catholics worship the Eucharist, the bread and wine of Communion, as God. They say it has been turned into the body and blood of Jesus Christ who is God. They declare that it is the core doctrine of Christianity. It follows then that all their worship is indirectly or directly given to the Eucharist. If the Eucharist worship is idolatry, it follows that the religion is idolatry through and through.
 
If bread and wine really turn into Jesus, that means Jesus is somehow made of them. We turn our bread into part of us. The Church says that Jesus' body is complete and perfect in Heaven. Thus the food and drink cannot turn into it. The view that the bread and wine are annihilated and replaced by Jesus is rejected officially by the Church. Clearly what we have is a pretence that the bread and wine has turned into Jesus. It's intentional idolatry.
 
The Catholics have fooled the Protestants into being indifferent to the idolatry. They say, "Even if the bread and wine are not Jesus we intend to adore him not bread and wine. That is why our worship should be respected." But the worshippers of false gods intended by implication to honour the real gods. They thought that if the worship was lavished on the wrong gods the real gods would understand and accept the worship. The same goes if there is only one God. Their intention was not enough - they still worshipped the wrong thing.
 
The Church says we are all sinners - or rebels against God. It warns that we cannot look down on others as worse sinners than us. It quotes the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee from Luke 16 to prove that. If we are sinners then nobody can argue, "They mean well when they worship this idol so maybe God understands and accepts the worship as being ultimately intended for him?" Our attitude would prevent that rationalisation from having any validity.
 
Worshippers of images of goddesses Diana and Artemis, had a vague sense that the images were somehow the divine beings. This corresponds exactly to the Catholic claim that the bread and wine are somehow really the body and blood of Jesus and bread and wine no longer. Most Catholics do not know the thinking behind the doctrine. And the Church says that all that counts is agreeing with her that the bread and wine are really Jesus himself. That is not the point. The point is that it is an idol being worshipped. The Bible says that idolatry is sinful as it is intending to worship images. It does not matter what the image is of. The Catholic Church has led its people into idolatry and rebellion against God.
 
The Catholics appeal to saints to implore God for his mercy. With earthly judges, you may need somebody to appeal for mercy for you for the judge may not be aware how remorseful you are or unwilling to take your word for it. The saints interceding with God is not the same for he knows the whole story and sees all. In reality, the saints are treated as more merciful than God and able to force his hand. They are better Gods than God.
 
Even if the worship should be respected it should not be encouraged. It is not fair to ask Muslims and Protestants to encourage and even praise it. Their silence would be encouragement. It is only fair to expect them to challenge it but kindly and firmly.
 
Religionists want people to be obligated to love and worship God and the less religious of them want people obligated to love others. This shows that their ultimate motive is to use religion to achieve power. I'd assume the believer is an idolater until proven otherwise.
 
Society abhors idolatry that dehumanises and insults. Humanists and atheists find it offensive how religious people have more gratitude towards God for their recovery from illness than they do for anybody that helped them get better. Some never thank those people and thank God instead. Practically speaking, the worship of God leaves as much to be desired as idolatry does.

If you learn about and focus on prayer to a God who is not there or to a false version of a real God then you are wasting your time. That may be seen as harmless but it is not. You are doing that when you could be selling tickets to raise money for the poor. You are depriving yourself of a chance to develop. It is harmful if your goal is service of the truth for you are defeated.

Catholics see prayer as you lining up to God to let him use you as his instrument. It is argued that to respect and honour the saints is really to honour God for they are all about letting his power flow in them and so their work is his.  Then if they have Jesus the son of God made man what do they need saints for?   Jesus is not enough at all.  This goes further than the ignorant idolatry of the pagans.
 
FINALLY: For atheists and believers in God alike, there is no excuse for idolatry. We can sometimes praise the idolater for meaning well but not praise or condone his idolatry.  A false god is treated by you as an object to make yourself feel good and feign devotion to.  Idolatry is bad not just because it is superstition but because of what it says about you.  You do not know God personally and you never had coffee so you are filling in the gaps with your own ideas to suit yourself.  You need huge evidence if your God is to be loved above all things as you say but you provide nothing.  It is about your idea, you are giving power to the idea.  And you are too badly committed to your God for him to be really God for you.  The God in all this is you.  The maker of God is bigger than God.