What objection(s) can there be against/to idolatry?

Great Debates
1

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have very strong views on idolatry. The worship of images is forbidden.

Well, technically in Christianity. Catholic veneration of saints through statues and icons and Orthodox veneration of saints through icons are staple elements of both traditions. But both differentiate between their use of imagery and, say, a pagan/heathen/polytheist’s use thereof.

The Big Three state, basically, that it’s useless to worship these false gods. Gods of stone, wood, etc., are helpless and useless. Such a god cannot speak or move, how can he/she/it help his/her/its devotee? The devotee is worshiping an item of his/her creation, rather than worshiping God who created him/her. All this worship and veneration and adoration to such material items are worthless and useless. Better, instead, to worship God, who is formless (generally), invisible, etc.

But how accurate is such a characterization as above? From what I have learned about image-worship, what is being worshiped is not the image itself but what the image represents. Even in traditions that believe that part of the deity resides in the image, it is the deity - who is still mostly unattached to the image and certainly is not the image itself - who is worshiped. No such worshiper is stupid enough to believe that the image itself is their deity or that the image itself can do anything: the image serves as a point of focus and attention for the devotee and the deity, a point for the two to meet, or even a place for which the devotee to meet the deity or part of the deity. These facts make the Big Three’s injunctions and statements against idolatry and idolaters out of step with reality.

Now, Judaism and Islam would emphatically state that God has no form, cannot “reside” in any form or confined area. God is everywhere and formless and invisible. Humanity cannot even begin to depict God, who is infinitely superior to and supreme to humanity. Christianity here is influenced by the doctrine of the Incarnation, that God took upon Himself human flesh and form - which is why representations of God and Jesus are legion. But Islam may also suffer: Muslims believe that the Ka’ba is the House of God, where God resides. If God cannot reside in a form, how can such a doctrine exist? If God can be present in the Ka’ba or in a mosque, why can He not be present in a statue or painting?

So, what objection is there or can there be - whether by the Big Three or not - against idolatry?

WRS

2

Idolitry is a mark of paganism of all kinds, and is not well-liked by any of the montheist religions. Part of it is sheer rivalry, and part of it is the belief that the God of Abraham is the only God and (For Xtians and Muslims) is the God for all people- the idea of exclusive monotheism is pretty rare in the world. If you can worship any old idol you want, and everyone is hanging around worshipping their own idols, it’s kind of hard to believe that your god is the only God and the universal God.

3

Idolatry is bad, because the Big Three realize that we as humans have an unfortunate tendency to focus on items or images instead of the message.

In Zen Buddhism (though not a religion), Buddhism is described as simply a finger pointing to the moon. To focus on finger, and not see the moon is to have missed the point. So building temples and giant statues for the glory of Buddha, does nothing in one’s journey towards Enlightenment.

To wear a diamond studded crucifix, does not make you a better Christian. It means you have focused on the image of the cross

To look for images of Christ in a grilled cheese sandwich does not make you a better Christian. It means you have focused on one popular image of how Jesus Christ might have looked.

Of all the good messages in the Bible, to focus on the literal message that the Earth is 6000 years old is to have missed the point.

4

Idolatry is also bad because it shows a lack of thankfulness.

If you are going to posit that God created us, then it behooves us to thank (if we’re going to thank anyone) Him for creating us.

Imagine a scenario in which you give your son a precious gift and then he turns around and thanks a complete stranger for that gift while failing to acknowledge your role at all.

Zev Steinhardt

5

Well, were these polytheists really polytheists or simply people who believe in One Ultimate Divinity who has various manifestations or faces (a la Hinduism)?

How is worshiping God through an image representing Him a sign of thanklessness?

WRS

6

Kind of like Santa Claus!

7

Worshipping an idol hat represents God has thr unfortunate effect of making people think the idol itself has or gains magical powers. So even in Christianity you get the beleif that a cross can ward off evil beings. But if you think about it God is everywhere and is no more in the cross than in any other object, the cross has no magic itself.
In Islam the black rock in Mecca (sorry can’t remember its proper name, no dissrespect is meant) I think suffers from the same misunderstanding. It is only a reminder of God/Allah but many Muslims would feel bad if it were destroyed and might even feel their faith weakened if it were gone yet Allah is as much in the stone as in anything else.
As soon as ou worship via an object or place, then you risk placing too much value on that object or place until loss of the object or place would leave you feeling weakened in your faith.
It also gives others a power over you. I could burn a countries flag (another sort of idol) and that would make upset and angry people from that country who saw me do it. I could burn a Bible, Qua’ran, or other book and make those who believe the book is more than written words angry. Yet the books are not important, it is the meaning of the words in the book that is important. (Muslims should consider that the Qua’ran was first passed by oral tradition the book though sacred is not the words in the book).

8

One of the most common form of idol-worship you’ll come across in western civ these days is the worship of the Bible itself by certain self-identified Christians. (They don’t consider themselves to be worshipping the book, but they do).

One of the more commonly identified forms is the worship of money.

In both cases, something has substituted for God and is informing their understandings and behaviors in ways differently than a worship of God would do.

9

In the beginning, it was for unit integrity.

At the time of the Commandments, the wandering Jews were a nation because of their God. So the whole “golden calf” incident was dangerous not only religiously, but nationally as well, considering further that the occupation of Canaan was justified by their self-identity as God’s chosen. Breaking ranks on such an important issue becomes disastrous.

The Christian ideas on idolatry are drawn from the Jewish tradition and on Jesus’s attempt to focus his teachings on the Father, the “kingdom of God” and the faith of his followers, rather than himself.
I know next to squat about Islam, so I won’t go near it, but I suppose that “cultural identity” played a part there as well. besides, if “Islam” is “obedience,” then there really can’t be conflicting sources of authority, can there?
Just my WAG.

10

Excellent point.

I think the prohibition on idolatry, even against idols of Yahweh, was the first step in the campaign against magic. By denying the power of any artifact, the Judeo-Christian tradition was away from attributing power to objects.

Of course, in the Old Testament it was also a function of keeping central the Temple cult. If you were allowed to set up an idol and offer sacrifice just anywhere, that detracted from the centrality of the Temple to Jewish faith and worship. And thus to the unity of the Jewish nation of Israel/Judah.

Which was why the fall of Jerusalem and the desecration of the Holy of Holies was so devastating to the Jews. Sort of like the fall of Rome to the Vandals, although the Jews didn’t have any Augustine to write a book to reassure them.

The Ka’aba.

Never could figure out how it remained at the center of Islam. IIRC, it is a left over from pre-Islamic days, and was a center of worship before Muhammed came on the scene.

Maybe I will schlep over to the “ask a Muslim’” thread and ask.

Regards,
Shodan

11

[Jerry Dandridge] You have to have faith for that to work against me, Mr. Vincent [/Jerry Dandridge]
The cross is not big magic or a super weapon. It is just a thing, a symbol. Nothing more. It is the faith that matters. With faith, all the “pretty stuff” is superfluous. Without faith, all the trappings are nothing.

12

That is the correct idea.

But imagine if an evil person wanted to destroy a Catholics Nun’s faith (Catholic chosen because they have many ‘idols’). It is possible to attack her rosary, her convent, her religious paraphanalia, and it would be possible to weaken her religious resolve through such things. Remember when the Turin Shroud was carbon dated, and some Catholics were said to be dissmayed to find it was much more recent than 30 AD[sup]*[/sup].

[sup]*[/sup] Recent news stories have put forward the idea/question that the area sampled from was an area where the original shroud had been restored with newer threads woven in, causing the date to appear more modern than it should have been.

13

I really doubt that destroying a rosary or anything similar would weaken anyone’s faith. The issue of the Shroud is a bit different because, (leaving aside that the Church had documented it as pious hoax shortly after its creation), some people believed that it had a direct connection to Jesus. Statues, rosaries, scapular medals, etc. are known to be the creation of men that have no intrinsic value–and even when a person is found to “put faith” in a particualr object, it is unlikely that their belief in God would be shattered because it was destroyed by men.

Attacking the (historical veracity) of the Shroud of Turin or of the painting of the Lady of Guadalupe might harm the belief of a person who had, indeed, put too much reliance in the object. (I doubt that destroying the object would weaken anyone’s faith, but calling into question its miraculous identity might.)

14

Tomndebb,

You’re aware that the shroud is now officially back in the running again, right?

The sample that was carbon dated was almost certainly taken from a patch sewed on by medieval nuns. The rest of the shroud is between 1300 and 3000 years old. They know this because there’s this chemical called vanillin which is found in the 1980s radiocarbon sample but not in the rest of the shroud. From this BBC article:

This is the actual journal paper itself which appeared in Thermochimica Acta

15

Perhaps.

16

Hmm… although Rogers’ paper reads more like science whereas that article sounds more like character assassination. Rogers’ has writtten a scientific theory so they need to disprove that theory (with proper maths and everything) or shut the fuck up.

17

It would be cool if the Shroud turned out to be the genuine article, but if it is indeed a fake, then my response would be “so what”. I would have the same response if someone disproved the Ethiopian claim that they have the Ark of the Covenant. On the other hand, it would be cool if it exists. Anyone who has real faith and grasps the real message does not need physical items. I guess that makes me a bit of an iconoclast.

18

I’m not a Christian or anything, but I thought that was a remarkably profound statement. Do you might if I quote it?

19

No. Bippy the Beardless wasn’t asking about the Ka‘bah building but about the black stone set into the corner. Its official name is (ta-daa) “The Black Stone.” Now in addition to always having to remind folks that the Immaculate Conception in Catholic doctrine does not mean the conception of Jesus, it will be a neverending task reminding folks that the Ka‘bah is not the Black Stone.
[/quote]

Never could figure out how it remained at the center of Islam. IIRC, it is a left over from pre-Islamic days, and was a center of worship before Muhammed came on the scene.
[/QUOTE]
In ancient Semitic religion, places of worship were set up around stones called baetyls. In Semitic, ‘house of God’, like Bethel which Jacob made into a hallowed place by anointing a rock. The Ka‘bah is called “Bayt Allah” in keeping with this practice. The worship of the Phrygian goddess Cybele was centered on a black or dark brown meteoritic stone, just like the one in the Ka‘bah. In 203 BC the stone was brought to Rome and set up in the Matreum, the temple on the Palatine Hill devoted to Cybele. This was credited with giving Rome victory over Carthage.

The Black Stone was actually stolen by a radical communist sect called the Qaramitah (the “Bolsheviks of Islam”) in the year 930. They didn’t return it until 951, and in the meantime Islam got along just fine without it. But when they returned it, it was broken into several pieces. The silver collar with which the stone is set into the wall is what holds the pieces together. Maybe they tried gluing it back together too, I don’t know.

In the 3rd century, the Roman boy-emperor Elagabalus took the black stone from the Matreum of Cybele and moved it over to a temple he was building to Baal, but afterwards it was returned to the Matreum. In 397, the Christians were beginning persecution of the Cybele religion. Apparently, some Cybele priestesses took the stone from the Matreum and hid it in the tomb of Elagabalus. In 405 CE the last known Cybeline priestesses were all brutally murdered in their own home, the Phrygianum on the Vatican. The black stone of Cybele was rediscovered in 1730 by Monsignor Bianchini. In his report, he claimed to have “lost” it.

20

I didn’t consider it all that pithy, but certainly you may.