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Which god should you worship?

Houseman

Zealot
Sanctuary legend
Messages
1,060
This is just something I've been thinking of in my spare time:

Let's say that someone asks you "there are so many gods, which one should I worship? How do I choose?" Let's help this hypothetical person decide. Let's narrow it down.

1) Does the god want your worship?

Consider the god of Deism. It does not care about you. It does not intervene. It does not want you to waste time on it. It does not ask anything of you. It does not want your worship. Let's take all the gods that definitely do not want your worship, and disqualify them

Consider gods like Odin, Zeus. Do they ask that men pay homage to them? I actually don't know, which brings me to my next point:

2) Does the god make an effort to make themselves known to you?

If Zeus wants me to worship him, he's doing a pretty poor job of getting me to know that. I barely even know that he exists, and wouldn't have if he wasn't mentioned in passing during history classes. Let's take all the gods that we don't know about, and disqualify them. If they wanted us to worship him, (#1) they should make themselves known to us.

This means that some god who is only worshipped in some small corner of the globe, and who really claims that they are the one true creator, and deserves to be exalted above all else, should be disqualified. If you don't even speak the same language that this god has its writings in, then it probably doesn't care about you anyway.

Let's say that this god really does expect you to make a pilgrimage across the globe, learn a foreign language, and join their church. Let's say that if you don't, they'll punish you for all eternity. Let's say that a missionary comes and tells you this. In this case, they have made themselves known to you, and made an effort to reach you. Now you should worship that god. If you haven't heard about this god, don't worry about it. There's nothing you could've done anyway.

3) Are they better than you?

Let's say that the god makes mistakes, or is defeated, or fails in some aspect. This also disqualifies them. If a lesser god is beaten up by another god, apply the criteria to this god instead.

4) Are other gods better than them?

Let's say you find a god that meets these criteria, but there is another god that meets these criteria even MORE! Worship that God instead. This means that if your god supports reaches people in 50 languages, and there's another that has a reach of 100 languages, worship the latter.


This doesn't help you determine which god is TRUE, just which one you reasonably SHOULD worship.

Also, by this criteria, the JWs beat out the LDS ;)
 

bluegate

Disciple
Sanctuary legend
Messages
292
If Zeus wants me to worship him, he's doing a pretty poor job of getting me to know that. I barely even know that he exists, and wouldn't have if he wasn't mentioned in passing during history classes.
This can be said about any "god", the only way you "know" of "gods" is by zealots imagining that there are gods and them constantly rambling about it.

The better question is, why should one even worship a "deity"?
 

Houseman

Zealot
Sanctuary legend
Messages
1,060
Arnox said:
Unless JWs have recently switched to paganism, we worship the same God, you nutter.
Nah, your god was once a man. Ours never was. Totally different:

This can be said about any "god", the only way you "know" of "gods" is by zealots imagining that there are gods and them constantly rambling about it.
The key word is "barely". You don't "barely" hear of, say, the Christian god once in a history class and then never again.
But I'm not being fair to Zeus. I heard about him a lot through media like movies and games. I still don't know what, if anything, he wants, though.
The better question is, why should one even worship a "deity"?
This does not seek to address that question. It presupposes that someone wants to worship a god, but doesn't know which one to worship.
 

SupahEwok

Can't Stop the 'Wok
Messages
44
I'll worship whatever God that gives me a footrub and cures my lactose intolerance.
 

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,257
Houseman said:
Nah, your god was once a man. Ours never was.
That's just disagreeing about his origins. Not who he is now as a being. And in any case, we still believe God is from eternity to eternity.
 

Houseman

Zealot
Sanctuary legend
Messages
1,060
Arnox said:
Houseman said:
Nah, your god was once a man. Ours never was.
That's just disagreeing about his origins. Not who he is now as a being. And in any case, we still believe God is from eternity to eternity.
I dunno, if you tell me about a guy named Bob who was born in South Africa, and I tell you about a guy named Bob who was born in Ireland, it would be most reasonable to assume we aren't talking about the same person.

But yes, I understand what you're saying. We both claim to worship the God of the bible, the God of Abraham, the Christian God. I wouldn't say that I worship the God of the book of Mormon, however.

But for the purposes of this thought experiment, try to think of our gods as different, as they arguably are. This also prevents one religious group from trying to claim the achievements of another, such as the number of languages they reach.
 

Signa

Libertarian Contrarian
Sanctuary legend
Messages
760
I'd worship a god that grants tangible benefits for his followers. I've always liked the idea of sun worshipers, because the sun does literally fucking everything for us. If I didn't know it was just a burning ball of gas, it basically meets all the requirements of being a god.
 

Houseman

Zealot
Sanctuary legend
Messages
1,060
Signa said:
I'd worship a god that grants tangible benefits for his followers. I've always liked the idea of sun worshipers, because the sun does literally fucking everything for us. If I didn't know it was just a burning ball of gas, it basically meets all the requirements of being a god.
On the subject of tangible benefits, let's say that evil gods exist. They could be doing "miracles" to deceive you. Maybe I should add another point:

Do they have your best interest in mind?

Let's say that a god promises you health, wealth, and happiness. What does it ask back? Sundays? Your soul? Do you have to sacrifice all of your friends? If a god wants to take more than it gives, that god should be disqualified. Gods shouldn't be seeking to gain anything form mere mortals.
 

Signa

Libertarian Contrarian
Sanctuary legend
Messages
760
Houseman said:
Signa said:
I'd worship a god that grants tangible benefits for his followers. I've always liked the idea of sun worshipers, because the sun does literally fucking everything for us. If I didn't know it was just a burning ball of gas, it basically meets all the requirements of being a god.
On the subject of tangible benefits, let's say that evil gods exist. They could be doing "miracles" to deceive you. Maybe I should add another point:

Do they have your best interest in mind?

Let's say that a god promises you health, wealth, and happiness. What does it ask back? Sundays? Your soul? Do you have to sacrifice all of your friends? If a god wants to take more than it gives, that god should be disqualified. Gods shouldn't be seeking to gain anything form mere mortals.
On the other hand, gods aren't mortals. We don't know what rules apply to them, or what even allows them to have immortality. It could be the very act of worshiping them that gives them life.

And a benevolent evil god? Sounds more like chaotic neutral then. Just taking the bible at its word, it's easier to say that Satan is the good guy because all he ever did was hurt some pigs in what was probably a joke. God straight up murders people for checking that the Ark of the Covenant is intact after it was stolen. If the battle between God and Satan is 100% true, then The Bible reads as propaganda for the victor of the heavenly realm. Hell, they couldn't even make up good lies about Satan and tried painting every bad thing God did as good!
 

Houseman

Zealot
Sanctuary legend
Messages
1,060
Signa said:
On the other hand, gods aren't mortals. We don't know what rules apply to them, or what even allows them to have immortality. It could be the very act of worshiping them that gives them life.
It's true that different rules should apply to them, but when speaking about what one should do, I'm considering what would maximally benefit the human.

And a benevolent evil god? Sounds more like chaotic neutral then. Just taking the bible at its word, it's easier to say that Satan is the good guy because all he ever did was hurt some pigs in what was probably a joke. God straight up murders people for checking that the Ark of the Covenant is intact after it was stolen. If the battle between God and Satan is 100% true, then The Bible reads as propaganda for the victor of the heavenly realm. Hell, they couldn't even make up good lies about Satan and tried painting every bad thing God did as good!
We probably have very different understandings of what the bible says. For instance, as I understand it, Satan is partially to blame for why humans are imperfect, and why they grow old and die. You can extrapolate that to say that Satan killed everyone who ever lived. Even if you subtract the ones directly killed by God, Satan still wins by a landslide in terms of humans killed.
 

Kaleion

Devotee
Sanctuary legend
Messages
208
Step 3 indicates that I should worship no God, after all, I am infallible and no God could ever aspire to be better than me.
 

andersonnnunes

Disciple
Messages
326
When I say "meet me by the river at X hour", it does not matter if we both have the same idea of what a river is. As long as you show up when I expect, things are good. If your god says you have to be on the temple at X hour to pray, you can't meet me, then things are bad.

I could go on, but the search space is too vast, so let whatever process is already in place deal with it (evolution or whatever).
 

Houseman

Zealot
Sanctuary legend
Messages
1,060
When I say "meet me by the river at X hour", it does not matter if we both have the same idea of what a river is. As long as you show up when I expect, things are good. If your god says you have to be on the temple at X hour to pray, you can't meet me, then things are bad.

I could go on, but the search space is too vast, so let whatever process is already in place deal with it (evolution or whatever).
I'm sorry, I don't understand what point you're making. Could you rephrase that?
 
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