Idol Worship -- what does it look like?

[Tambora]

The most prevalent example on TOL is the idolatry of the Bible, when people treat the written text as if God had written or spoken it. Treating a man-made book as if it were the voice of God is no different than treating a man-made statue as if it were the embodiment of God. It's all idol worship … and it's all idolatry.

I'll let others speak for themselves.
But I do not consider my bible to be GOD.
I don't bow to it or pray to it.
I don't encase my bible in bulletproof glass to display.
I don't dress it up in different outfits and parade it through the streets.
I don't build little shrines around it.
And when it gets wore out and can't hold together anymore, I don't entomb it in a gold trimmed glass casket for folks to come by and gawk at.

I throw it in the trash bin and buy another one.


But this right here just flat out looks like idol worship:

 

[Cruciform]

Doesn't have to be "in place of", but can also be in addition to.

In practical terms, it ends up being the same thing.

But I agree that all those popes and priests and pew-sitters that bow before and pray to those [statues] are not worshiping GOD at all.

Of course not, since invoking the prayers of past Saints has nothing whatsoever to do with "worship" in the first place.

 

[Cruciform]

But this right here just flat out looks like idol worship:

Only because you've been conditioned by your preferred recently-invented, man-made anti-Catholic sect to "see" it that way.

 

[Tambora]

Of course not, since invoking the prayers of past Saints has nothing whatsoever to do with "worship" in the first place.

Invoking dead saints?

You're the one praying.
Whom do you want your prayer to reach?

 

[Tambora]

Only because you've been conditioned by your preferred recently-invented, man-made anti-Catholic sect to "see" it that way.

No sir.
It's because it looks just like this:

Is this idol worship, or just some folks displaying some colorful artwork?

 

[PureX]

I'll let others speak for themselves.
But I do not consider my bible to be GOD.
I don't bow to it or pray to it.
I don't encase my bible in bulletproof glass to display.
I don't dress it up in different outfits and parade it through the streets.
I don't build little shrines around it.
And when it gets wore out and can't hold together anymore, I don't entomb it in a gold trimmed glass casket for folks to come by and gawk at.

I throw it in the trash bin and buy another one.


But this right here just flat out looks like idol worship:

Looks can be deceiving. If these folks understand that the statue is NOT the embodiment of their venerated deity, but is only a clay representation, then this is not idol worship. Even though it may appear to be, to you.

Conversely, assuming that every word you read in the Bible came directly from the mind, mouth, or hand of God IS idolatry, pure and simple, even though it may not appear to be, to you. And the reason it is idolatry is because those words did not come from the mind, mouth, or hand of God, but from the minds and hands of men. Just as any statue, painting, or mythical story has. Refusing to recognize this is exactly what makes it idolatry.

 

[Tambora]

Looks can be deceiving. If these folks understand that the statue is NOT the embodiment of their venerated deity, but is only a clay representation, then this is not idol worship. Even though it may appear to be, to you.

Conversely, assuming that every word you read in the Bible came directly from the mind, mouth, or hand of God IS idolatry, pure and simple, even though it may not appear to be, to you. And the reason it is idolatry is because those words did not come from the mind, mouth, or hand of God, but from the minds and hands of men. Just as any statue, painting, or mythical story has. Refusing to recognize this is exactly what makes it idolatry.

Just looks like it, huh.

Does this here "just look like" idol worship, but really isn't????

 

[PureX]

Just looks like it, huh.

Does this here "just look like" idol worship, but really isn't????

When I can read all those people's minds, I'll let you know.

 

[Angel4Truth]

View attachment 24608

 

[Tambora]

When I can read all those people's minds, I'll let you know.

I don't recall GOD giving the stipulation that reading people's minds is a requirement to recognize idol worship.

 

[Angel4Truth]

Just saying
People want to sit here and be obnoxiously legalistic.

Are you saying they are worshiping the ark, or who is sitting between the cherubim wings on the mercy seat of the ark?

The answer would dictate whether or not there is idol worship happening there.

 

[SaulToPaul 2]

This is still true whether they are "worshiping" them or not:


Exodus 20
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;


Neither bow down to them, nor serve them.
That's two things not to do.

 

[Angel4Truth]

This is still true whether they are "worshiping" them or not:


Exodus 20
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;


Neither bow down to them, nor serve them.
That's two things not to do.

:thumb:

 

[daqq]

This is still true whether they are "worshiping" them or not:


Exodus 20
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;


Neither bow down to them, nor serve them.
That's two things not to do.

Well, yeah, that's what it says but I thought most everyone here was, ehem, "free from the law"?

 

[SaulToPaul 2]

Well, yeah, that's what it says but I thought most everyone here was, ehem, "free from the law"?

Yeah, well, I am dead to the law. Bowing down to a statue cannot convict me.
But it's crazy that Catholics think that bowing down to an object is a good thing that God approves of.

 

[daqq]

Yeah, well, I am dead to the law. Bowing down to a statue cannot convict me.
But it's crazy that Catholics think that bowing down to an object is a good thing that God approves of.

I certainly cannot argue with that!

 

[Crucible]

Are you saying they are worshiping the ark, or who is sitting between the cherubim wings on the mercy seat of the ark?

The answer would dictate whether or not there is idol worship happening there.

Oh, that's different though :rotfl:

I don't think you understand the point lain:

 

[PureX]

I don't recall GOD giving the stipulation that reading people's minds is a requirement to recognize idol worship.

God has not given anyone any "stipulations". But that's beside the point. Unless we know that those people are imbuing their statues with the embodiment of their god, we can't know that they are committing idolatry.

The difference is whether or not they are praying to the statue, or praying to their god in front of the statue because the statue is an iconic representation of their god.

 

[Tambora]

Are you saying they are worshiping the ark, or who is sitting between the cherubim wings on the mercy seat of the ark?

The answer would dictate whether or not there is idol worship happening there.

We don't have any reference in scripture of any bowing before the ark.
Or asking dead people to pray for them before the ark.
And there certainly was no "queen of heaven" on the ark, in the ark, or close by the ark.

 

[PureX]

Yeah, well, I am dead to the law. Bowing down to a statue cannot convict me.
But it's crazy that Catholics think that bowing down to an object is a good thing that God approves of.

I don't think they are bowing down to the object. I think they are bowing down to the divinity they believe the object represents. And I think it's your own desire to condemn people that you don't even know that's causing you to blindly assume that they are blowing down to the objects, themselves.