It depends on what you mean by “worship”. If you mean admire, respect, try to emulate, or believe in, I can’t answer your question, as every atheist is different. There’s nothing in the “atheist” tag that specifies any of those about a person.
If you mean in a religious sense… the answer is simple: nothing.
Now, many believers are brought up to believe that worship is an essential, universal part of the human condition; in other words, everyone worships someone or something. Since atheists don’t believe in gods — and, more specifically, they don’t believe in your god –, you may have been taught, or may have concluded yourself, that atheists worship someone or something else. Common theist claims about our objects of worship include:
- ourselves
- humanity
- Darwin
- Dawkins
- materialism
- wealth
- science
- reason
- evolution
- nature
- communism
- nihilism
- other gods than yours (which contradicts the definition of “atheist”, but never mind that…)
- Satan (!)
Needless to say, all those claims are false.
Atheists don’t worship, in the religious sense. We may respect, we may admire, we may even feel awed (and many of us frequently do — for instance, by nature or science). But “worship” implies something different.
Worship, much like religion, or having a car, is not an essential part of what being a sentient being is. Some do it (believers, in general), some don’t.
(Note: please keep any comments related to the above question / answer, and not to other subjects, such as whether God exists or not. Thanks.)
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A couple of weeks ago I had a really irritating exchange on my blog with some Muslims on this topic: They were like, “So what do you believe, then?” So I talked a little bit about skepticism and my need to examine any prospective “beliefs” before accepting them, and how, ultimately, there isn’t any evidence to suggest, much less prove, the existence of an omnimax deity and intellectual honesty prevents me from accepting anything like that without adequate proof…
The only response I kept getting from them was, “Why won’t you answer my question?! WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE??“
To keep the peace in the family I “faithfully” attend a small non-denominational church. Most of the people know I’m not part of the collective and usually leave me alone. Though sometimes some amusing situations arise when a new potential drone starts asking me questions regarding the church. Occasionally some issue comes up regarding science (there a number of YEC there) and I was told that Evolution is a religion and how a visit to Ken Ham’s Creation Museum would set me straight. After attending more than a few Christian apologetics seminars I simply refuse to attend any more of these. I make a modest living as a scientist and refuse to add funds to the “opposition”. Ditto for the upcoming “Intelligent Design Creationism movie”
Ah Dibbler, I hear you.
Keeping peace vs. being honest… I’ll go right ahead and lie to my parents, just so I don’t have to hear hours of… stuff.
As for the post itself:
I think that most peoples idea of WORSHIP, is of prayer and/or FOCUS on a subject, be it christ, or muhammad, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Prayer and focus are akin to meditation. I think most/all of those people who ask “What do you worship” are actually convinced that if you MEDITATE on anything other than a deity, you won’t get the same kind of feeling you get while meditating about anything.
All that said, perhaps ONE of the reasons it is so hard to show some people the truth, is that they’ve been given the POSITIVE re-enforcement of meditation itself, disguised as religion.