Why is it that this commandment gets ignored so often by all three Abrahamic religions?
The Wailing Wall is a Graven Image
The Rock in Mecca is a Graven image
The Crucifix is a Graven Image
The American Flag is a Graven Image
Why are these things so regularly forgotten? Why don’t people realize that a city or a nation can be a graven image? Anything material thing that you are worshipping as of higher spiritual value than any other material thing is worshipping a graven image.
In a Macrocosmic context, all material things are of equal value. Within a limited context things have value for a certain time based upon certain criteria. Like a hammer has more value than a screwdriver if you are nailing boards together, but that doesn’t mean that a hammer is ‘holier’ than a screwdriver.
It was pointed out on the daily show the other day that a statue of the ten commandments was a graven image.
Even the Jehovah’s Witnesses who are against organizations and putting up flags for this reason organize themselves in a fashion that is contrary to what they are saying, though they are one of the only ones that even pays regular lip service to this particular commandment of all that I’ve experienced.
So why do you think that this particular commandment is almost completely ignored?
Possibly because in application it isn’t terribly relevant to the “real world.” While religious restrictions for violence and diet have reasonable applications to one’s life, putting up a flag or a statue isn’t going to have any kind of direct, drastic effect. It may piss someone off (possibly enough to kill you, which would certainly be a direct and drastic effect) but it doesn’t really hurt anybody.
Plus, people seem to be forgiving if something looks nice on the mantle.
Plus I think the OP is twisting people’s motives in a way. To show respect towards an object because of the abstract idea it represents isn’t truly worship. I’m sure that many people would gladly dive behind that “graven image” of the ten commandments to dodge gunfire, rather than placing themselves in front of it to preserve it. When it comes right down to it for most people, the object is replaceable, the ideas it represents remain, and if the object must be sacrificed to preserve life, than so be it.
The only one of those that’s a graven image is the crucifix. The Wailing Wall is graven, but not an image, and the Ka’aba in Mecca and the American Flag are neither graven nor images.
People are willing to kill for the promotion of ideas that they feel are correct. If killing is done for objects, it would be for oil, fertile land, or other resources the people killing want. By your logic, the person who posted the thread “I’d kill for a bloody fag” recently worships cigarettes. I’d say you have a problem telling the difference between tangible things, and the abstract ideas the things have come to represent.
So you are saying that there is no dispute about who should control the hill where the temple was? You’re saying that Israelis and Palestinians do not kill each other over that particular piece of land? Are you perhaps implying that back in 2000 when Sharon visited the area that Palestinians didn’t rise up into further violence?
What if I piss on a Cross or the flag in public? Are you implying that I wouldn’t get beaten up? Are you implying that it wouldn’t anger people? If they aren’t ‘worshipping’ it, then what does it matter? What if I go through the effort of building that crucifix myself and then piss on it? It’s something that I built, that I paid for. What if I did that in a public place in say, Georgia? Are you saying that there would be no violent reaction to it?
Again, you don’t get the idea that people are upset because you are showing tangible, physical disrespect for an idea that they hold precious, via doing something to an object that represents such ideas.