This post is a sequel to WHAT DO ATHEISTS WORSHIP?, but first an aside.
An Aside
What people will argue about amazes me. I like to debate. I am over seventy, and I have been debating people most of my life, but I am still amazed. I expect much of my amazement stems from the generation gap. Even though I should know better, I still have trouble appreciating how very differently different generations view the world.
- Much of the generation gap comes from the fact that we go through different stages in life. A child perceives the world differently than an adult. Parents with children perceive the world differently than the childless. Grandparents have a perspective of looking back. And the elderly can no longer deny that the end is in sight.
- Because of our age differences, each generation experiences different world-shaking events. Even when we have experienced the same events, we experience those events at different stages in our lives. So, we can easily learn different lessons.
- Each generation has received a different education. Deliberate programs in public education (including the government funding of universities) have allowed the most mischievous of our elites to contrive and implement schemes designed to separate children from the values of their parents. Those schemes include the devaluing of Biblical teaching. Therefore, the elder generations tend to place a higher value on Biblical wisdom and values.
On to the Topic
So, what about the topic? The Worship of Idols by Ben Berwick contains a response to a comment I made here => https://citizentom.com/2023/01/31/what-does-the-worship-of-idols-look-like-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-107225. I asked Ben (here) if he wanted to take a shot at my questions, and he did. Ben most certainly has a different take than I do. Different generation? Different nationality? Different upbringing? Different genes? Different experience of God? Whatever the cause, we certainly don’t have the same views about God.
I doubt Ben will agree, but I think WHAT DO ATHEISTS WORSHIP? addresses most of Ben’s objections. So, what I will do here is set the Biblical quote I used in WHAT DO ATHEISTS WORSHIP? in context. Then I will add a few more words.
Have You Ever Worried?
Matthew 6:24-34 New King James Version
You Cannot Serve God and Riches
24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
Do Not Worry
25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Without God at the forefront of our lives, we will use stuff, our possessions, to sustain ourselves and to make ourselves as great as we can, and we will worry about the prospect of failure. With God, we know that such worries are meaningless. What matters is that we seek Him.
A Sacrifice to An Idol Is a Transaction
Consider a portion of insanitybytes22‘s observation on WHAT DO ATHEISTS WORSHIP? .
Hmm, I have no idea what all the fuss was about? Idolatry is a part of the human condition, most of us engage in it on some level, at some point in time. Look at how “science” has become an idol, a thing, with others now demanding we trust the science, obey the science, as if science were some kind of god. Some people call that kind of thing scientism, because of course it isn’t science at all.
https://citizentom.com/2023/02/01/what-do-atheists-worship/comment-page-1/#comment-107300
Here is part of my reply.
Some people don’t seem to want to understand. It isn’t complicated. The ancients sacrificed to idols (or the gods they represented) just get what they wanted from them. Some of the temples were brothels, for example, with temple prostitutes because a sacrifice to idol is a transaction.
https://citizentom.com/2023/02/01/what-do-atheists-worship/comment-page-1/#comment-107303
Citizen Tom 
Tom,.
In my opinion, based on world news reports and statistical studies, what many of us humans, in contemporary times, are following is the path of “The something else conundrum” in my post today, regardless of our religious, atheist, or etc beliefs.
Regards and goodwill blogging.
.
I wager you are correct Tom, in that I do not agree with you, though hopefully, we can indeed agree to disagree. I don’t see worship (and therefore do not see idolatry) in the actions of atheists, but then, as I said in my answer, and as per dictionary definitions, worship is a religious act, and atheism is the lack of belief in religious ideas. I dare say that with or without God, we have to sustain ourselves *somehow*. With or without God, we still look to certain material aspects of existence to have a comfortable life, that does not mean that without God, we seek to worship those aspects as though they *were* God.
When one considers the number of children who have no notion of your god,Yahweh, who die every single day from preventable disease and even starvation, who have no idea regarding this ‘worship of stuff’ that you go on about, it tends to illustrate just how specious your argument is.
Ark
Do you actually think you are the first person to make that observation?
Here is a good article on that subject => https://www.gotquestions.org/do-babies-go-to-heaven.html. There are plenty of others.
This article, however, is one you may find more useful => https://www.gotquestions.org/never-heard.html
God is our judge, not you or me, and we are most certainly not God’s judge, but that is the position you are demanding. The funny thing is is that you keep trying to judge God through Christians. You can complain to me all you want, but what good will it do you?
Got questions is for indoctrinated fundamentalists who merely want to confirm their unsubstabtiated beliefs and have no further use of critical thinking.
You may as well have recommended an arse-hat like Lee Strobel!
Just in case there is any confusion about why I banned you from my blog.
You demand “evidence.” Then when it is provided you ridicule the evidence, you pile on more insults to anything related to Christianity, and you demand more evidence. That just makes you a ridiculous, arrogant, and meanspirited troll.
Read Matthew 7:6. Since you are already trampling whatever pearls anyone gives you, I have no desire for a sustained dialogue with you. The only reason I respond to your comments is to support any Christian unfortunate enough to run into you.
Unsubstantiated claims are NOT evidence.
Why do you struggle with fact?
Ark
This is rich. You are doing all the struggling. I am not insisting you conform to my beliefs. Why would I bother? God is your master, not me. I just don’t want you to harm anyone when you try to force your beliefs upon them.
According to the Bible, God is the Truth. His creation works according to His design. Since God transcends His Creation, He can arbitrarily change the rules. God can do “miracles.”
Logic and reason demand that God exists. You disagree? I can’t change that, and I don’t want to try. I am not into brainwashing or forced indoctrination, but you won’t agree to disagree, and that is why you are struggling.
Because we begin with different assumptions about the world, we have different views of the world. So, how do we live together. After the Thirty Years War and the loss of so many lives, Christians took another look at the Bible. The Bible doesn’t approve of murdering people just because they don’t agree with us. That is why Americans have the First Amendment in our Constitution.
Unfortunately, you don’t approve of religious freedom. So, you run around harassing Christians and making outrageous claims against the Bible.