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Why Worship Gods?
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<blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 2372346" data-attributes="member: 812"><p>Barsoom has gods, but they only rarely and sporadically receive worship. The Demon Goddess demanded worship for a while, and her subconscious desires for that wormed their way out of her pretty head and made folks around start thinking that building temples and organizing whole villages and towns into displays of devotion and obedience would be cool. So they did.</p><p></p><p>But Barsoom has an agency that actively seeks out and destroys "gods" whenever they emerge and tries to prevent religious organizations from flourishing.</p><p></p><p>Augustine's <em>City Of God</em> sheds some pretty interesting light on what pre-Christian worship must have been like, and how it contrasts to what WE in the modern world typically think of. fusangite's notions of "public duty" are very much in line with what I've read about how things worked.</p><p></p><p>If you're going into battle, you sharpen your spear, make sure your shield is well-reinforced, your armour snug and uncracked, and you stop off at the temple of Athena to offer her your genuflection. Not because you're exactly a "worshipper" of Athena, but because it's all part of making sure you're as protected as you can be.</p><p></p><p>And the kinds of public ceremonies fu describes don't even have to be restricted to big honking pantheon gods -- many communities will have their own idiosyncratic rituals that got started who knows how, but that are part of the life and identity of the community. Every neighborhood in Tokyo has a couple of shrines that every year get trotted out and paraded through the streets while the locals cheer and drink and party it up. Is this really a "religious" festival? Well, kind of, but it's not like the people spend their days "worshipping" the spirits or whatever that the shrines are dedicated to.</p><p></p><p>Anymore than people are worshipping the God of the Wood when they bring a tree into their house and decorate it as a holy site, lay offerings at its feet and then let it die and throw it away.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="barsoomcore, post: 2372346, member: 812"] Barsoom has gods, but they only rarely and sporadically receive worship. The Demon Goddess demanded worship for a while, and her subconscious desires for that wormed their way out of her pretty head and made folks around start thinking that building temples and organizing whole villages and towns into displays of devotion and obedience would be cool. So they did. But Barsoom has an agency that actively seeks out and destroys "gods" whenever they emerge and tries to prevent religious organizations from flourishing. Augustine's [i]City Of God[/i] sheds some pretty interesting light on what pre-Christian worship must have been like, and how it contrasts to what WE in the modern world typically think of. fusangite's notions of "public duty" are very much in line with what I've read about how things worked. If you're going into battle, you sharpen your spear, make sure your shield is well-reinforced, your armour snug and uncracked, and you stop off at the temple of Athena to offer her your genuflection. Not because you're exactly a "worshipper" of Athena, but because it's all part of making sure you're as protected as you can be. And the kinds of public ceremonies fu describes don't even have to be restricted to big honking pantheon gods -- many communities will have their own idiosyncratic rituals that got started who knows how, but that are part of the life and identity of the community. Every neighborhood in Tokyo has a couple of shrines that every year get trotted out and paraded through the streets while the locals cheer and drink and party it up. Is this really a "religious" festival? Well, kind of, but it's not like the people spend their days "worshipping" the spirits or whatever that the shrines are dedicated to. Anymore than people are worshipping the God of the Wood when they bring a tree into their house and decorate it as a holy site, lay offerings at its feet and then let it die and throw it away. [/QUOTE]
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