Praise the Lord!

[Conchubar]

I was brought up as a Catholic and rejected Catholicism entirely around the age of 15. I already had serious doubts when I was about 11 and remember asking a teacher of mine (Sister Agnes of the Sisters of Mercy) one question that really preoccupied me. Here is an accurate transcription of our conversation.

Me: So what will we do when we Catholics die and go to heaven?

SA: We will be in the presence of our Lord.

Me: Yes, but what will we spend our time doing for the rest of eternity?

SA: We will praise, worship and glorify God.

At the time, I remember thinking this was not exactly an appealing prospect or proposition. I could just about manage a half hour of this stuff, split into 10 minutes respectively of praising, worshipping and glorifying but no more than that. Seriously. We would still have the rest of eternity to deal with after that first half hour…

I also thought about the concept of “praising” in more detail. It’s not exactly something you associate with mature and responsible adults, is it. I can imagine praising my 18-month old grandson for sitting on a pot and pissing into it. Well done, Johnny, what a good little boy you are! We’re so proud of you, etc. But I think praising an adult for virtually anything is cheesy and embarrassing. Isn’t it? I’m quite happy to receive personally expressed acknowledgment for something I have achieved but I don’t want to be “praised” or “glorified” by anyone at all. Why does the Christian god seem to be such an inadequate individual that he requires this constant excessively enthusiastic adulation?

 

[skepticalbip]

I think that it is the "true believers'" need to worship some higher authority that is responsible for their creating such a heaven. Some people need an authority figure to follow so they create gods and/or assume their political leaders are worthy of adoration.

 

[Thomas II]

I was brought up as a Catholic and rejected Catholicism entirely around the age of 15. I already had serious doubts when I was about 11 and remember asking a teacher of mine (Sister Agnes of the Sisters of Mercy) one question that really preoccupied me. Here is an accurate transcription of our conversation.

Me: So what will we do when we Catholics die and go to heaven?

SA: We will be in the presence of our Lord.

Me: Yes, but what will we spend our time doing for the rest of eternity?

SA: We will praise, worship and glorify God.

At the time, I remember thinking this was not exactly an appealing prospect or proposition. I could just about manage a half hour of this stuff, split into 10 minutes respectively of praising, worshipping and glorifying but no more than that. Seriously. We would still have the rest of eternity to deal with after that first half hour…

I also thought about the concept of “praising” in more detail. It’s not exactly something you associate with mature and responsible adults, is it. I can imagine praising my 18-month old grandson for sitting on a pot and pissing into it. Well done, Johnny, what a good little boy you are! We’re so proud of you, etc. But I think praising an adult for virtually anything is cheesy and embarrassing. Isn’t it? I’m quite happy to receive personally expressed acknowledgment for something I have achieved but I don’t want to be “praised” or “glorified” by anyone at all. Why does the Christian god seem to be such an inadequate individual that he requires this constant excessively enthusiastic adulation?

Maybe it's not God who needs the praise...Maybe it's the priests, nuns, and some followers who need it more?...Also it raises their God's importance in their own view...The more people praising, the more "confirmation" it gives them...

 

[Conchubar]

Maybe it's not God who needs the praise...Maybe it's the priests, nuns, and some followers who need it more?...Also it raises their God's importance in their own view...The more people praising, the more "confirmation" it gives them...

Thank you for that toe-curlingly "awesome" video. LOL really does apply in this case.

 

[Rhea]

That worship and praise thing also struck me as a child as a giant plot hole. I could never imagine a good person - or a good being - who would be comfortable with “worship and praise.” It was so achingly incongruous that it just did not compute. I could no longer suspend disbelief. I was unable to avoid concluding that no being that wanted constant worship and praise could possiibly exist. Hand in hand with it not being possible that a being that could tolerate hell could possibly exist. It just broke any possibility of belief. Doesn’t compute.

 

[Thomas II]

That worship and praise thing also struck me as a child as a giant plot hole. I could never imagine a good person - or a good being - who would be comfortable with “worship and praise.” It was so achingly incongruous that it just did not compute. I could no longer suspend disbelief. I was unable to avoid concluding that no being that wanted constant worship and praise could possiibly exist. Hand in hand with it not being possible that a being that could tolerate hell could possibly exist. It just broke any possibility of belief. Doesn’t compute.

It's an anthropomorphism...WE created God in our own image, and we are all dysfunctional, so we (humans) created the image of a dysfunctional God...

Michelangelo painted it in the Sistine Chapel...

God is inside a human brain!

All we imagine of God comes from our own brains!

 

[skepticalbip]

That worship and praise thing also struck me as a child as a giant plot hole. I could never imagine a good person - or a good being - who would be comfortable with “worship and praise.” It was so achingly incongruous that it just did not compute. I could no longer suspend disbelief. I was unable to avoid concluding that no being that wanted constant worship and praise could possiibly exist. Hand in hand with it not being possible that a being that could tolerate hell could possibly exist. It just broke any possibility of belief. Doesn’t compute.

It's an anthropomorphism...WE created God in our own image, and we are all dysfunctional, so we (humans) created the image of a dysfunctional God...

Michelangelo painted it in the Sistine Chapel...

Why did Michelangelo imagine that god would have a bed made from fat babies? Do Christians believe that heaven is about rolling around on fat babies? And who is the dude he has his arm around?

 

[Thomas II]

That worship and praise thing also struck me as a child as a giant plot hole. I could never imagine a good person - or a good being - who would be comfortable with “worship and praise.” It was so achingly incongruous that it just did not compute. I could no longer suspend disbelief. I was unable to avoid concluding that no being that wanted constant worship and praise could possiibly exist. Hand in hand with it not being possible that a being that could tolerate hell could possibly exist. It just broke any possibility of belief. Doesn’t compute.

It's an anthropomorphism...WE created God in our own image, and we are all dysfunctional, so we (humans) created the image of a dysfunctional God...

Michelangelo painted it in the Sistine Chapel...

Why did Michelangelo imagine that god would have a bed made from fat babies? Do Christians believe that heaven is about rolling around on fat babies? And who is the dude he has his arm around?

I don't think it's a "dude", I think it's a woman. Look at the hair style. Michelangelo was a sculptor and an anatomist, so he created muscular images. Could it be Eve?

Looking at this other representation of "The Creation of Adam", it looks like a woman (?)
Whatever they are, they are supposed to be angels helping God in one way or another...

Regarding the "little fat babies", they are supposed to be Cherubim https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/cherub

 

[Thomas II]

bump

 

[southernhybrid]

This reminds me of some of the words to the popular hymn Amazing Grace.

When we've been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun! We've no less days to sing God's praise, then when we first begun"

Those are the exact words and they do make me wonder if Christians really think of what that means. That sounds rather hellish to me, to be forced to praise some dude who sends people to eternal torture for not praising him and asking him forgiveness for so called sins that they probably never even committed. I'll never forget the day that I told my evangelical fellow teens that I no longer believed in conservative Christianity because it didn't make any sense. One of them told me not to think so much about it. She was right. That's probably the only way that one can maintain such beliefs.

Oh well. Whatever floats your boat.

 

[excreationist]

This reminds me of some of the words to the popular hymn Amazing Grace.

When we've been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun! We've no less days to sing God's praise, then when we first begun"

Ten thousand years isn't that long - it's about the same length as civilisation..... though a googol or a googolplex is quite a long time.... but an eternity is infinitely longer than that....

 

[excreationist]

I think an eternity of worshipping in a pleasurable paradise is better than the church tradition of an eternity of suffering in hell....

The Brick Testament

 

[skepticalbip]

I think an eternity of worshipping in a pleasurable paradise is better than the church tradition of an eternity of suffering in hell....

But then my idea is that, if there was such a thing as heaven and hell, then they would be the same place. There would be a great place where everyone is assembled. A stage in the front has a continuous train of evangelicals who follow each other singing and leading the 'believers' in praises. This makes 'believers' to be in an eternal state of ecstasy and the 'non-believers' to be in an eternal state of misery having to listen to it.

Think of it as a going to a typical tent revival meeting. "deeply religious believers" would love it while "non-religious" would hate it.

 

[excreationist]

I think an eternity of worshipping in a pleasurable paradise is better than the church tradition of an eternity of suffering in hell....

But then my idea is that, if there was such a thing as heaven and hell, then they would be the same place.

There are quite a lot of preachers who don't believe that Jesus literally rose from the dead - so many Christians would say they're not saved... but I think those preachers enjoy praising God.... then there are all those millionaire televangelists that seem to enjoy praising God too.... (but they might not be saved)
A related passage:
Matthew 7:21-23

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

So not all unsaved people would find praising God to be unbearable....
Perhaps it is a bit like how some people are obsessed with Star Trek while they don't think it is the literal truth.

 

[Thomas II]

https://www.microneurosurgery-roma....en-meaning-of-michelangelos-creation-of-adam/

 

[southernhybrid]

I think an eternity of worshipping in a pleasurable paradise is better than the church tradition of an eternity of suffering in hell....

The Brick Testament

l.

There was a Twilight Zone episode when I was a kid that relates to this. Two farmers went to heaven and then along came a bad ass biker. The farmers were boring as hell but they felt that they were enjoying heaven. It was the ideal afterlife for them. The biker was going nuts being around the two boring farmers who he had nothing in common with, so heaven was hell to him. "One man's heaven is another man's hell". I think that praising a deity for eternity would be hell for most people.

 

[excreationist]

I think that praising a deity for eternity would be hell for most people.

Well the people would have new minds - that way there is no boredom and no more sinful thoughts.... maybe due to the Holy Spirit....
Almost most people are apparently going to hell anyway:
Matthew 7:13-14

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

 

[abaddon]

Well the people would have new minds - that way there is no boredom and no more sinful thoughts.... maybe due to the Holy Spirit....

Um, yay??

The manipulations of people in this myth, like they're just toys in a game, is really ugly stuff.

And it makes immortality of anyone's self into a lie if they must be re-configured to become ok with all the vile praising.

Almost most people are apparently going to hell anyway:
Matthew 7:13-14

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

If that's meant to be taken literally, if Jesus is talking about an actual hell and not about attitude, then there is no redeeming this mythology.

Blake spoke about experiencing "heaven in a wild flower... and eternity in an hour". That's about removing the disenchantment from one's mind that dismisses the wonder of THIS world... the only heaven anyone can know. That's a "narrow road" which apparently only some folk figure out. That's the one realistic options because there's no Really Big Man out there, beyond the universe, who does favors for some grovelers. So if the heaven and hell stuff in the Bible is really, only, about magical acts and realms that are other than the earth, then it's not just false but it's also abominable.

 

[excreationist]

Well the people would have new minds - that way there is no boredom and no more sinful thoughts.... maybe due to the Holy Spirit....

Um, yay??

The manipulations of people in this myth, like they're just toys in a game, is really ugly stuff.

And it makes immortality of anyone's self into a lie if they must be re-configured to become ok with all the vile praising.

I think a normal human mind can't be happy non-stop for long periods of time.... they would run out of dopamine or start acting reckless due to a manic episode, etc. And I don't think Christians would say that the praising is nonstop.

Almost most people are apparently going to hell anyway:
Matthew 7:13-14

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

If that's meant to be taken literally, if Jesus is talking about an actual hell and not about attitude, then there is no redeeming this mythology.

Blake spoke about experiencing "heaven in a wild flower... and eternity in an hour". That's about removing the disenchantment from one's mind that dismisses the wonder of THIS world... the only heaven anyone can know. That's a "narrow road" which apparently only some folk figure out. That's the one realistic options because there's no Really Big Man out there, beyond the universe, who does favors for some grovelers. So if the heaven and hell stuff in the Bible is really, only, about magical acts and realms that are other than the earth, then it's not just false but it's also abominable.

Yes in mainstream Christianity Heaven and Hell are not on earth. Though I was friends with a female Anglican priest that said that Heaven and Hell could just be states of mind on earth.... and she had tattoos and believes in gay marriage, etc.

 

[excreationist]

There was a Twilight Zone episode when I was a kid that relates to this. Two farmers went to heaven and then along came a bad ass biker. The farmers were boring as hell but they felt that they were enjoying heaven. It was the ideal afterlife for them. The biker was going nuts being around the two boring farmers who he had nothing in common with, so heaven was hell to him. "One man's heaven is another man's hell". I think that praising a deity for eternity would be hell for most people.

Hi would you be able to find out what that episode is called? I found "The Hunt" which is about an old man and his dog who don't want to go to a supposed Heaven because they wouldn't let his dog in, etc. It is related to the wide gate and the narrow gate. There is also "A Nice Place to Visit" about some kind of criminal who can have whatever he wants - except surprises - so he gets unbearably bored - then realises he's in hell....