[ExI] religious question

[Ben Zaiboc]

On 30/04/2020 20:39, bill w wrote:
> I think that maybe I asking the totally wrong group:

Maybe you are.

>
> What is your understanding of worship?  Where does it come from? What 
> does it accomplish?  Can there be a religion without worship?  Is it 
> just a form of great esteem, like we might have for Maxwell or Newton?
>

I understand it as abasing yourself before a being perceived as more 
powerful than yourself.

It probably comes from human psychology, both from the perspective of 
people willing/wanting to be led, and from the perspective of people 
wanting to gain power, and realising that if they pose as the 
representative of an imaginary powerful being and encourage worship of 
said being, they can place themselves in a position of power as priests, 
etc. That's quite an accomplishment, I think.

There may be religions without worship, but I'm sure they'd be a 
minority, as worship is a powerful tool for religion, so why would one 
not take advantage of it?

Esteem? No, it seems to me to be a form of fear or insecurity. Those are 
much more powerful for controlling people. Making people fear their gods 
is more common, and more effective, than asking them to praise them. You 
can tell people to praise the gods or else, but that's not esteeming them.

-- 
Ben Zaiboc

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20200430/ba1ce05e/attachment.htm>