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That's good! I didn't think of that. If I could count on him granting me wishes I think I would provide him worship. How else can you repay a god, eh? Still, I can't see what He really gets out of it. Though maybe, if we can make ourselves look silly enough while we do it we might just give him a good laugh?
You have a valid point, but if he's not of sound mind then we really don't want to annoy him/her and better make sure we have arrived at the correct form of worship.
You want a god who is one of the boys. I think the Norse hit upon your concept when they created Valhalla.I don't think I would. First, I can't be certain no matter what evidence it provides or what it tells me that it is indeed a universal supreme deity.Second, if a deity won't be a mensch and sit at my table, share food and drink in their honor, and talk with me on a level I can really understand, then I'm not sure I would want to have any relationship with it at all.
Any that I might have heard of? I can't quite figure what advantage a deity gets from being worshiped. In his book, American Gods, fiction writer Neil Gaiman postulates that gods gain magical power from being worshiped (I highly recommend this book, by the way, a great read).
As for the book, I'd have to put that on goodreads. Just stared my classes. Thanks though.
Like I said, dependent upon the circumstances.
The complete picture is:
Then you reject scientific understanding. There is no natural evidence in the world to support the religious view of a special creation, in fact quite the opposite. The fossil record shows humans did not suddenly appear, but instead evolved from other life forms. Where in the Koran is guided evolution written about?
Good luck with your studies. Also, just thought I would mention, Gaiman incorporates all religious traditions in his books (the universe he creates in American Gods is incorporated in a few of his other books. The Abrahamic religions don't figure much).Since there are so many, where would you start? Abrahamics don't hold a monopoly on how one defines god; so, not all gods ask to be worshiped.
deity and spirits in most indigenous and animistic cultures are really about social relationships. I can't imagine a Really Huge Universal Deity wanting to social with what for all intents and purposes from their perspective are on the same scale with bacteria. Somewhat smaller deities and spirits, ya, I can see family and other social connections being important...You want a god who is one of the boys. I think the Norse hit upon your concept when they created Valhalla.
Amusing...and very much to my position: at some point, the relative positions/conditions/abilities simply preclude any sort of a personal or social relationship that makes any sense. Now, I like ants, and recognize the vital role they play in our environment...just not inside my house, or on my food at a picnic...
While I attempted to inject a bit of humor into the question raised in the OP, it is based on a serious idea. What strikes me as being peculiar is how a being who created or is All That Is could possibly be aware of creatures that would be less significant to it than is bacteria to us. Does bacteria secretly worship us? Could we even relate to any form of worship a given bacteria offered us? I'm sorry to say that the whole worship thingy is predicated on the idea that we are this utterly remarkable creature in all of creation and that a given deity is waiting with baited breath on every thought we let fly its way. Why would a given deity be impressed with our feeble offerings? IMO, worship is little more than anthropomorphic egotistical arrogance.
Peace be on you.
== Quran repeatedly declares that at every step of creation choices had to be made and each time the selector was not the blind operator of natural selection, but the hand of God, the All-Seeing, the All-Knowing. Again it is specifically and categorically declared:
