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God doesn't need praise but... you also can't just pick up a phone and call him. as I wrote he doesn't need praise... you "praise" him because you are "talking" to him there is no other form/way to communicate with him. if you find a phone that is linked to God phone please inform me :D I would like a few questions answered. until then I will "praise" him and pray so that he knows that I care and am great full that he is watching over me
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If God was a being of any sort I would still be sceptical about the identification of "him" as someone with needs, or even being deserving of anything. If I bliss out in wonder at the world, and when I attend group "meeting for worship", I see any voluble expression of the same as only being of benefit to me - and possibly encouraging a few others... I think a lot of traditional Christian ideas of the need for praising God are about keeping people humble... yes? and its a short step to keeping people stifled in a hierarchical power structure where someone knows best how to teach you how to do this praising...
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was it ever a question of need? I always saw it as a question of why does God deserve praise.
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schmo nails it yet again. God is self sufficient and does not neeeeeed our praise. To say He needs something means that He is lacking, which just is not true. He created us because He loves us and performed the greatest act of love for us, sacrifice. He died for what He loved and what he loved was you. If God had created perfect creatures, is that really love? We would just be programmed to love Him. God gave us the freedom of will to choose Him. CS Lewis had a really nice quote...allow me to share. "Because free will, though is makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of creatures that worked like machines would hardly be worth creating"
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In Psalm 50:9-10 God says, "I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills." God doesn't need our praise (or sacrifices for the Old Testament believer). But he knows that WE need the opportunity to worship him. When we appreciate what he has done for us, we will feel the need. If we don't worship him, we will worship something else. It might be ourselves, other people, material things or other gods of our own invention. Also praise to God isn't necessarily like going to church. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:31, "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." Praising God is best done in showing love for God by living to please him and especially showing love to the people around us. Jesus said, "Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5;16)
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You've caught an interesting point - I think the answer is that mankind is inherently flawed, and as a result, so is his conception of God. And yes, by that I mean that there is no element of religion that should not be taken with a grain of salt, because however perfect God may be, every element of religion comes through the filter of imperfect human understanding.
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God just is. We, on the other hand, need to do what gets us out of bed in the morning, so we can be nice to each other, share our toys, and do all the shitakke we need to do in order to survive. If that means praising an omniscient creator, Hallelujah!
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