In history people have worshiped virtueous super beings, instead of worshiping virtue and super-ness itself.
Why not worship goodness, kindness, greatness, etc. and try to add to it?
Worship seems to be a re-affirmation of master and slave, authority and follower, instead of being a productive goal.
If I could identify my own religion, it would be worship of virtue itself, as well as seeking wisdom and understanding of nature.
Let’s just face it, gods are basically useless. The best thing we have for solving problems is our self, our friends and our family.
I identify the over-dependance on gods as irresponsible worship and irresponsible religion.
A responsible worship would be devoted to possible, personal actions. Positive activity.
Also I may be wrong, but plato proposed a sort of virtue-worship too.
But disembodied or abstracted virtues are dry dust for the psyche. People identify better with virtues embodied in a hero contextualized in a story. Stories are what we remember not abstract virtues. Paul and perhaps the Pseudo-paul of the so called catholic epistles itemizes virtues like a grocery list. If you want to get an idea what they mean you have to go to the stories. Not everybody has an actual virtuous person around they can emulate.
I think the word “worship” is problematic in that it generally implies some distance in value between one and the person or thing so revered. If it means 'being in awe of", it still does not compel anyone to become some example of virtue. Worship has to mean participation with something other than the self. To worship an abstraction such as virtue, honor or loving kindness sometimes excuses one from actually practicing these things. There are many nominal Christians, as there probably are in most religions, who worship, but do not act on what they seem to praise. There are nature lovers who wouldn’t set foot in the woods.
I think even worshipping goodness, etc., can and generally does have master slave qualities. One part of the self ‘knows’ what goodness is and evaluates and whips the other parts to make them good slaves to the ideal. And frankly I think a lot of the religious heroes were self-flagellators of one kind or another. Useful attempts, perhaps even very powerful people, magical, but still flawed by this same split making.
People who believe in gods usually have a different brain frequency to those that don’t. There are many brains and many goods and why not? What makes you think that worshiping gods and goodness, virtue are different anyhow?
If they’re useless then why do they exist? The brain, according to scientists, has a “spiritual hole”, it has to be filled somehow. I am not religious myself, but many religious people I know do solve problems with friends and family. The two are not mutually exclusive.
True, Mark. Need for gods and heros, examples of aspirations, is in or genes and memes. The aspiration is toward an evident display of virtue. We seem to crave examples.
