{"id":16344,"date":"2013-08-05T08:33:08","date_gmt":"2013-08-05T12:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=16344"},"modified":"2013-08-05T08:33:08","modified_gmt":"2013-08-05T12:33:08","slug":"worthy-of-worship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/08\/worthy-of-worship.html","title":{"rendered":"Worthy of Worship?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I\u2019ve assigned Aaron Smuts\u2019 chapter \u201c\u2018The Little People\u2019: Power and the Worshipable\u201d from\u00a0Philosophy in The Twilight Zone<\/a><\/em>\u00a0when I\u2019ve taught my class about religion and science fiction in the past. Here is a link to the episode \u201cThe Little People\u201d<\/a> to which the title refers, in case you\u2019ve never seen it:<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/www.dailymotion.com\/video\/xx7fv6_twilight-zone-the-little-people_shortfilms<\/a>\n

It turns out that not only is an earlier draft of Smuts\u2019 chapter available online<\/a>, but so too are many others of his writings<\/a>. Among them, and of related interest, is a piece called \u201cThe Power to Make Others Worship<\/a>.\u201d Here\u2019s the abstract:<\/p>\n

Can any being worthy of worship make others worship it? I think not. By way of an analogy to love, I argue that it is perfectly coherent to think that one could be made to worship. However, forcing someone to worship violates their autonomy, not because worship must be freely given, but because forced worship would be inauthentic\u2014much like love earned through potions. For this reason, I argue that one cannot be made to worship properly; forced worship would be unfitting. My principal claim is that no being worthy of worship could exercise the power to make others worship it, since the act of making another worship would necessarily make one unworthy of worship.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are also a great many papers<\/a> related to topics such as what makes life worth living.<\/p>\n

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

I\u2019ve assigned Aaron Smuts\u2019 chapter \u201c\u2018The Little People\u2019: Power and the Worshipable\u201d from\u00a0Philosophy in The Twilight Zone\u00a0when I\u2019ve taught my class about religion and science fiction in the past. Here is a link to the episode \u201cThe Little People\u201d to which the title refers, in case you\u2019ve never seen it: It turns out that not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,86],"tags":[4005,4029,9395,13026,13900],"class_list":["post-16344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","category-science-fiction","tag-god","tag-gods","tag-power","tag-twilight-zone","tag-worship"],"yoast_head":"\nWorthy of Worship?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I've assigned Aaron Smuts' chapter "'The Little People': Power and the Worshipable" from\u00a0Philosophy in The Twilight Zone\u00a0when I've taught my class about\" \/>\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\/2013\/08\/worthy-of-worship.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Worthy of Worship?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I've assigned Aaron Smuts' chapter "'The Little People': Power and the Worshipable" from\u00a0Philosophy in The Twilight Zone\u00a0when I've taught my class about\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/08\/worthy-of-worship.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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