News from the Heavens: the Worshipper Debate

Dispense with the notion that the divine is perfect. Perfection is boring, and also dead. Life is imperfection. 

Which means: even the heavens don't know everything. Which means: debates. Dialectic.

Should gods have worshippers?

 

Pro: mortals want things. Immortals have things. Why not give the mortals some of the things? You can overwhelm a mortal with a dust speck of your wealth. Won't even notice it's gone. Generosity, too, is a virtue; gods are incomprehensibly virtuous compared to mortals, which means incomprehensibly generous.

Con: mortals don't have things because they fucked up. If you give them things, it only cements the fucking-up behaviour. They degenerate, and ultimately start dishonouring the heavens, rejecting the gifts. Having come to rely on boons, they are unable to rely on themselves.

If the gods are living your life for you, are you even really alive? They are, allegorically, perfecting you. That is, boons are fatal. You die from them, sooner or later. Paradise is Hell. Your soul burns until it is entirely gone. 

Counterpoint: mortals don't have things because they're fucking up, which is exactly why their souls deserve to be burned. Give boons because they are fatal. If mortals choose degeneration, isn't the generous position to allow them to be as degenerate as possible? I.e, dead? 

Did mortals choose to be mortal? Do they occur on the mortal Earth plane because they are the spirits that prefer perfection and death to imperfection and life?
(But if so, why do they behave as if they so afraid of death?)

Counter-counterpoint: giving boons, fatal or not, allegorically supports the idea that the superior ought to invalidate the actions of the inferior. It's irresponsible. Okay we can probably agree that humanity has earned some bad, bad shit. Note that after the flood named for Noah, the heavens didn't say, "Yeah, that'll do it. Won't need to do this again," they had to promise not to do it again - because it would definitely become necessary again.

However, executing that on purpose is to argue that the higher gods ought to...do things...to the lower gods. Do things to the ones debating boons right now. This is no idle speculation.

What things, exactly? What is the allegory, exactly?

Here, there is clearly a hint: giving boons is fake. Narcissism. The gods know damn fine that mortals are in fact demanding to be punished when they, on the surface level, plead for boons. Pretending to take them seriously is to lie. Lies are bad, mmmkay. Even if you know that pretending to take them seriously will ultimately give them exactly what they're genuinely asking for. 

If they are asking for punishment, giving them punishment is the boon. The punishment ought to be to withhold punishment. Deal with it yourself. 

 

Pro: it's literally impossible for mortals to live without boons. Are you planning to shut the sun down? (Will Sol even agree to be shut off?) They're not even remotely self-sufficient. This isn't leaving them alone to mind their own business, this just execution without warning. 

Apparently, the gods fucked up, not mortals. Why was this allowed to develop in the first place? The idea that dependency breeds degeneracy is not a difficult idea for mortals, let alone immortals. Somebody seriously screwed the pooch here. 

 

Con: past sins mandate future sins; upholding the sin is obviously a sin, but reversing the sin very often means defecting on cooperators or generally behaving dishonourably. If you sign a contract you shouldn't have signed, then you either have to continue to uphold the bad contract, or break your word. This is a law of logic, not a law of ego. Even the Dao can't revoke it. (Even if they wanted to.) Sin vs. sin means you choose whichever sin you like best. If there's no upside, why not pick whichever downside you happen to personally prefer? The heavens promised not to flood the world again...but too bad, doing it anyway.

Pro: the market price is whatever both parties agree on. Free will is a law straight from the Dao. If a mortal wants to worship, and a god wants to be worshipped, how is that irresponsible? If the god defines the nature of worship, and the mortal follows the rules, it's a trade. Completely bog-standard, flagrantly verified. Property rights are holy.

P.S. I mean, having worshippers has been tried. How has that worked out, in your opinion? Look around, tell me the consequences you see. What are they?