Why does God want to be worshiped?

[tik 🪀✨]

If I were the all-knowing divine creator of the Universe, I'd want someone around to say, "Hey, this is neat. Way to go."

What good is creating something that you won't share? If you have something, you truly appreciate it by giving it away/sharing it and seeing what someone else thinks. Ogling at it yourself is only satisfying to a certain degree. This is certainly true of the highest gifts God has given us - a sense of being, the ability to reason and feel emotion, and create ourselves.

The Christian God certainly does not need or require your validation. But in a way, it is a self-validation. It takes someone of strong character to outwardly or inwardly display their own appreciation, recognize their own inferiority, and feel grateful for the gifts we have. The greatest mistake people in the Christian church make is believing for a moment that God needs or requires anything from them. For all intents and purposes, God does not want to be worshiped for his own validation, he wants you to worship for your own validation.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to wipe the sh**t off my lips.

[tik 🪀✨]

Thanks for the answers so far, they make very interesting reading...

Love, to be love, must be given.  If that love is not returned, God is not capricious or petulant.  God does not then withhold love. 

For all intents and purposes, God does not want to be worshiped for his own validation, he wants you to worship for your own validation.

If I can follow-up to both of you, why then (if he is not petulent or if worship is for our own validation) would God reward worship and punish those who don't?

To basically rephrase JSojourner, if your reference to "reward" and "punish" means heaven vs. hell, I have no good answer for you. This is one of the reasons I don't follow Christianity myself, as they is simply no answer for it. Anyone who pretends they know if worshiping God results in eternal life is simply a liar. I can tell you this, however: the actual act/lifestyle of worship is NOT what most Christians believe is necessary for salvation (not by works that no man can boast, to paraphrase an actual verse) as this would violate the "saved by faith alone" tenant. But that's a whole different bag of crap to sort through to find the peanuts.

Alternately, if you meant "reward" and "punish" as in everyday life, I don't believe God does. Look around you. Who is healthy, wealthy, and wise? What religions do they adhere to? They're all over the place. There is no trend line. If there were, we would only have one religion. God does not reward or punish his followers in this world. Anyone who says they think they know otherwise is either a liar or delusional. Just be wary of the sea of anecdotes.