Why Worship God?

In my book, The Big Picture, I criticize religion pretty strongly, as I feel that it holds humans down by stifling free thinking. Religion relies mostly on tradition. People believe things without question, even though many of these beliefs don't make much sense, and some are even dangerous. In a way to get people to think more critically about religion, I ask 13 very basic questions and invite anyone to provide viable answers. On the other hand, if you can't answer them, then you need to examine your beliefs more closely. Here is question 1. I'll share the other questions and my thoughts in future posts. As always, I invite reader feedback.

Why Does God Demand Us to Worship Him?

Religions emphasize that God demands people to worship Him, but this makes God appear vain and not humble. This is problematic because God should not be vain but humble. Isn’t vanity one of the seven deadly sins?  Doesn’t God expect us to be humble?  Being humble is good, therefore, God would be humble, not vain. The worship of God or gods sounds to me like an idea that humans would come up with. If God or gods exist, do they automatically deserve our worship?  Throughout human history people have believed that if they worship God (the gods), then He/they is more likely to be good to us, to protect us, and take care of our needs – like food. But when primitive peoples put their fate in the hands of capricious gods, they sacrificed animals and people in order to please the gods. Everything that happened was attributed to the temperament of the gods. When things were going well, i.e., good weather, good crop yields, the gods were pleased with human behavior. But when people did things to piss off the gods, the gods were prompted to punish the whole group by besetting them with some sort of plague. Even today many individuals still believe that when bad things happen to them alone it is due to something they’ve done to draw the ire of God.