Would a naturalistic view of god be beneficial during our pr

Would a naturalistic view of god be beneficial during our present animal extinction event?

Nature gives us life and spirit. Our spirit gives us god. A god within each of us is very ancient thinking.

We cannot define our gods exactly. We can only use analogies.

I think that supernatural gods do not need anything from us. They do not need toys.

If we are to serve any god, it should be one that gives life and that is Earth.

Earth cannot speak. Only life in the form of a man can.

In the natural world, all life worships its own natural likeness. All except man.

Why are we fighting nature, and idol worshiping imaginary gods, as we destroy our eco system?

Regards
DL

How do you know what fish, cats or shrubs worship? Or if they worship anything?

We are told in scriptures to mimic god.

All life mimics its own.

You do not see fish trying to be cats or cats idol worship or act like shrubs.

Regards
DL

Yes the bible says that because gods mimic each other, as well! Or, in other words, religion is not an opiate, but a mime.

No argument.

To a fault that makes us less innovative today than chimps. No guff on this. I saw a piece on child and chimp ways of learning and on not doing useless steps, the chimp won because our mimic level is high.

Regards
DL

I don’t know why you switched from the word ‘worship’ to the word ‘mimic’ because they don’t mean the same thing according to the dictionary. The phrase ‘act like’ doesn’t have the same meaning as worship either. And ‘idol worship’ is a specific type of worship.

It appears that neither animals(aside from humans) or plants engage in worship. So why do you say that “all life worships its own likeness”?

That’s the key point that I’m trying to get at.

I don’t know what that means. How does something worship its own likeness? What facet of what fish do are you calling worship? Fish are like fish, though I don’t see any worship in there.

Man is vastly more malleable that other creatures. More able to, for example, have an ideal and try to achieve it. Not that I see people, Christians, say, focusing a lot on imitating God or mentioning it much, though it is certainly in the NT.

There are lots of ways we fight nature and a range of motivations for this. I think part of the reason is the disenchantment of nature. The Abrahamists certainly contributed to this, but so did scientific models. And capitalism and communism both seem to be pretty harsh to nature. The panpsychists are shaking their heads and crying and gnashing their teeth, no doubt. All these usurper ideologies.

The fact that all life worships its own likeness, is proven when you, as an example of life, tell us what your first love and if you aspired to emulate or mimic the one you loved.

I cannot prove anything. Only you can.

Regards
DL

How does something worship its own likeness?

Does a baby not smile at it’s mother and father?

I asked phyllo a question. See if you would like to answer it.

On your “disenchantment of nature.”

Insightful.

Regards
DL

If I smile at something, I am worshipping it? I have seen babies smile at dogs, cats, balls, snow…

thank you. Great, a little overlap.

That doesn’t prove anything because worship is not equivalent to love.

Aside from that, there is the small matter I shouldn’t be used as test of your claim because I’m a man and your claim is that men worship gods instead of their own natural likeness. If I say that I worship my likeness, then your claim would be contradicted.

I would not call the attraction organisms express toward their own kind worship. The attraction seems to have more to do with genetic furthering of the species.
As for man’s worship of his own image as a god, history seems to prove this is the case. We assign power to a superman and worship that power. I’m not familiar with any gods who are not extensions of some features of humans. As for destruction of nature by humans, this is possible when humans forget they are integral parts of the sustaining ecosystems. In a war of man against nature, nature will always win. The earth does not need us in order to function.

Perhaps you just aren’t listening. The languages of man are not the only voices on planet earth.

I am not sure what the question was…

Is this it?
I assume I loved my mother. I automatically emulated a lot of things, facial expressions, movements, words eventually. I didn’t worship her. Unless you are using a very loose metaphor, but it wouldn’t be a good one in the context of a thread dealing with God.

But maybe it was some other question.

And she wasn’t anything like me. She was enormous, a woman, could move unlike me, had vast powers beyond mine. Had language, lots of hair. She smelled differently, not that I knew exactly what I was like. If she had been a kind gorilla mother, I would have loved and imitated her.

In fact in many ways the child is relating to an adult across boundaries of knowledge and abilities that are magical to the child.

And animals will imprint on other species.

If your argument is that we worhip our likeness and animals do this, this is countered by animals being raised by mothers and even fathers from other species. Dogs mothering large felines. Even predatory animals raising prey animals. And, of course, many baby animals will imprint on humans.

I don’t think this is worship. But if bonding with an adult as a baby is worship well animals in many circumstances will worship what is not their likeness.

They want love and instruction and safety and will take it as it comes.

And just imagine how godlike a human parent is to a duckling.

Karpel Tunnel,

I pretty much come close to worshipping a gosling’s webbed feet. They are awesome. :laughing:

I think that if a human being had “adopted”, for instance, rescued a gosling, cared for and loved it, protected it, that gosling would pretty much worship that human being. That human being would, in the eyes of the gosling, be Everything to it, be so far above what the gosling experienced of it’s own self.

I think that is what worship means. It is a “beyond the world” transcendent attachment to another, whether that other deserve it or not.

When my uncle in-law died he owned a farm. While there attending to his estate, I stumbled upon an abandoned kitten. My father in law who lived on that farm said kittens born that time of year (early November in Iowa) rarely lived through the winter, and without anyone left there to attend to the animals he believed the kittens chances for survival were slim to none. It was so young it’s eyes hadn’t even opened yet. We adopted the kitten, took it to a vet and found out it was less then a week old, with a serious infection. My wife told me if I wanted the kitten I would have to take care of it.

So we got the medicine and for over two weeks I fed that kitten from a bottle, 7 times a day 24 hours a day. We named him Bandit. The infection cleared, he put on weight and when his eyes opened for the first time I was what he saw with those beautiful kitten blue eyes. I didn’t know anything about raising a cat. For instance I didn’t know they had to be stimulated to release their waste, so in addition to feeding I cleaned and cared for that cute little critter. He grew up to be a fairly large cat and I can say from experience he certainly doesn’t worship the ground on which I walk. I dare say that I think it is he who thinks he trained me well.

Sure, personal experience is only anecdotal, but I am fairly certain that cat doesn’t worship me either; regardless that for eighteen years I am the one that has cared for it. It is quite fond of my wife, who spoils it rotten. So lest we draw too sweeping of generalizations… Every life seems rather unique, and worship doesn’t appear a requirement of life. Mankind seems the only animal that evidences a penchant for worship or being worshiped. Lets not forget royalty was thought to be ordained by the gods. I don’t see any other animals fashioning idols.

But the sentiment is cute and even endearing.

Mowk,

Thank you for that story. You are a good “Daddy”. :evilfun:

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I found our cat, Yoda, out on the street 11 years ago when he was even too young for the vet to know if he was a he or she or so the vet said. Go figure. His ears were larger than the rest of his body…just a bit of hyperbole there but not much. There are times I believe he worships me, the way he follows me and watches me, cries when he wants my undivided attention… and then again at other times I know differently.

I would agree with you here. lol Chances are, he probably did, just as Yoda did me. If we pay close attention, we can learn well from animals and not just about how they need to be treated.

That’s fine. His idea is that animals will only worship their likeness and so should we. But he’s wrong, if the love babies have for their parents is worshipping, well animals will do that with animals that do not look like them, including us.

I don’t think that is quite what is happening. I think its a poor word choice. There is something differnt to me in what an adult human does when their worship a deity. But either way, you are disagreeing with his thesis, since many, many animals have been raised by humans only.

Cats don’t have the lovebond hormones to the degree that, for example, humans and dogs do. So, I am sure you are right. And I don’t like the word worship for what baby humans have in relation to their mothers for example. But Greatest I am is saying we worship those who are like us, which must mean our love bonds to other humans. If that is true, well, many animals lovebond with humans when they are found and raised by them. They utterly bond to them, just as they would to their same species mothers. They will also bond to other species if one of them parents them. Greatest is wrong either way.

Further he is wrong because my mother was not my likeness. She had so many different qualities, a very different body, different skills, and different emotional reactions, and she was much, much bigger. Heck she had breasts and language and songs and a lot of past pain baggage and a husband and long hair and she could carry me and did.

If I was walking down the street and a creature that much bigger than me appeared and was different is as many ways as that, I would be stunned and wonder what the heck it was.

And conversely , some albeit rare, feral babies occurred. I can vouch for that, in part.

Perhaps the reason for the historically worshipped demigod, consisting of sphinx like, or elephant like, beetle, monkey, fu-dog, cow, snake. and other.
Filling in manifold symbolism. On different levels.