I Shall Not Worship

There are many reasons it would be pointless to try to convert me to a deist religion. One of the main snags I have with deist religions today is the whole idea of worship. I don’t really believe in worshiping anyone, especially not someone who claims to be a god, whether that entity be visible to me or not.

It’s god’s supposed obsession with being worshiped that really gets to me. Every Sunday we’re supposed to sing him songs and pray extra loud to him for making us. If my parents forced me to thank them for conceiving me under penalty of eternal grounding I would not think them to be the greatest parents I could have received.

This aversion to worship probably wouldn’t make much sense to the god-is-all-loving type of people, because they would probably say they would worship him even if not ordered to do so. There is still, however, the threat of hell for most Christians, or at least suffering without god’s love.

I hope that even the people who think that god is all loving would admit that there are still some pretty bad things happening in this world. All I’m saying is that I’m not grateful for poverty, disease, parasites, cancer, and all of that bonus stuff that comes with being alive. Frankly, I think an ideal god would have done a better job with creation. Someone who wants all the credit for the good in the world could stand to take a little more credit for the bad things as well.

Mysterious ways, I know. He’s supposed to have a plan for everything, but I still don’t think that justifies giving a child’s mom cancer to give a stranger the Christmas spirit. This is an example of something a Christian band basically said god would do. I use that example in part as excuse to link to the following video of Patton Oswalt’s bit about the song “Christmas Shoes,” because it is spectacular (NSFW):

A god I would want to thank (not worship) would be one that demanded nothing of me beyond that I do my best to be a good person and was just a nice guy. The kind of being who would say things in his holy book such as, “Hey, everyone. I made the many varieties of delicious and healthy plants for you and was going to make some that were poisonous to you, but I thought, nah, what would be the point of that?! You don’t have to thank me, it just made sense.” Unfortunately that god, like other gods, does not exist.