{"id":1396,"date":"2010-04-10T22:36:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-10T22:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/04\/whom-or-what-do-you-worship-and-why\/"},"modified":"2010-04-10T22:36:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-10T22:36:00","slug":"whom-or-what-do-you-worship-and-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/04\/whom-or-what-do-you-worship-and-why.html","title":{"rendered":"Whom or What do you Worship and Why?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Recently in my religion and science fiction class (inspiring a number of recent posts on the class blog<\/a>) the assigned reading was an article by Aaron Smuts<\/a>, a draft<\/a> of which is online. The final version appeared as \u201c\u2018The Little People\u2019: Power and the Worshipable,\u201d in Philosophy in The Twilight Zone<\/a>\"\"<\/em>, eds. Lester Hunt and No\u00ebl Carroll (Blackwell, 2008). There is also another piece by Smuts on a related topic<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Science fiction provides a striking number of stories through which to consider what, if anything, makes a being worthy of worship, and whether demanding worship is not inherently self-contradictory.<\/p>\n

Here is the first of three videos of the episode of The Twilight Zone<\/em> discussed in the article:<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FDttI-SMVAo<\/a>\n

There is also another relevant story, the episode \u201cTapestry<\/a>\u201d from Star Trek: The Next Generation, which raises questions about Q (the Continuum, not the hypothetical source), divinity and the afterlife. <\/p>\nhttp:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1pZSw7ojvw8<\/a>\n

So what if anything makes a reality, a being, an entity, Nature or something else worthy of worship, in your opinion? Can genuine worship be commanded? Why or why not?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently in my religion and science fiction class (inspiring a number of recent posts on the class blog) the assigned reading was an article by Aaron Smuts, a draft of which is online. The final version appeared as \u201c\u2018The Little People\u2019: Power and the Worshipable,\u201d in Philosophy in The Twilight Zone, eds. Lester Hunt and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWhom or What do you Worship and Why?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Recently in my religion and science fiction class (inspiring a number of recent posts on the class blog) the assigned reading was an article by Aaron\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/04\/whom-or-what-do-you-worship-and-why.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Whom or What do you Worship and Why?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Recently in my religion and science fiction class (inspiring a number of recent posts on the class blog) the assigned reading was an article by Aaron\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/04\/whom-or-what-do-you-worship-and-why.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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