What is an idol?
The 10 Commandments start with two commandments prohibiting idolatry:
So what is idolatry? What does it mean to worship another god? Why are they two separate commandments? Any thoughts?
Exodus 20:3-6:[i]1. You shall have no other gods before me.
2. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments[/i]
So what is idolatry? What does it mean to worship another god? Why are they two separate commandments? Any thoughts?
Soren Kierkegaard:If one who lives in a Christian culture goes up to God’s house, the house of the true God, with a true conception of God, with knowledge of God and prays—but prays in a false spirit; and one who lives in a idolatrous land prays with the total passion of the infinite, although his eyes rest on the image of an idol; where is there most truth? The one prays in truth to God, although he worships an idol. The other prays in untruth to the true God and therefore really worships an idol
Comments (50)
How do you read this?
The second one is a clever strategy to make their own totem seem superior to, and less vulnerable than, those of other tribes and hence to further enhance patriotism. It is easy to mock a god with an image by defacing its statue, dressing it up in silly clothes, jeering at it, or even just smashing it. If the god has no statue, one cannot do that.
Of course, few limit their reading of the bible to the literal, and the question of idolatry then becomes a far more interesting topic. Even in a non-religious context, a prohibition against idol worship would make sense. The worship of money, success, fame, admiration, etc. would all be idol worship because it seeks something other than that which ought be worshiped. In a religious context that which ought be worshipped is the true god who is actually God, but in a non-religious context, god might be service to others, compassion, or other such things.
So, idol worship is to pray to that which is not most holy, and what is most holy I suppose can be debated. I would say, though, that someone who accepts the concept of the holy and the sacred, even should they apply it in a non-religious way, will present and behave as do the religious because it is doubtful that a thinking person would find holiness in the mundane.
And that takes us to the first commandment, which is whatever it is that you hold to be the most sacred is the only thing you are to consider god. I do think 1 and 2 are wrapped up together. Again, though, if you read the Old Testament literally, you may not accept this interpretation because in Exodus, as you may recall, the Egyptians received the 10 plagues as proof of the supremacy of God (Yahweh) as being more powerful than the Egyptian gods. That is, it is clear there were many gods, it's just that the God of Israel was the strongest and for that reason God (Yahweh) was to be accepted as the baddest of all the gods. Again, though, I don't think the literal interpretations yield as meaningful results as the interpretative.
So from first principles ...
Everyone must put something at the centre of their life as the most important; God, money, social status, pleasure, power, love, themselves, science, ... something. That thing is what one worships, whether one is in a church, a mosque, a temple, a laboratory, or the hypermarket.
An idol is a worldly thing, as distinct from an ideal. In this scheme, there are no atheists, only self-made men who worship their maker.
What is an image? And what is a non-image?
Consider that I give a ring to my wife-to-be. What does that mean?
If you smash it, what have you smashed and what have you not smashed?
Quoting Hanover
Why "ought" something to be worshipped? And what does it mean to worship something?
Quoting Hanover
What is holiness found in then? Why is it that we call an icon holy?
Quoting unenlightened
What does it mean to put something at the center of your life? How do you go about doing that? What is it really?
Quoting unenlightened
Consider the situation I have asked andrewk to consider. If I give a ring to my wife-to-be, have I given her a worldly thing? What distinguishes the worldly thing from the non-worldly?
It means your life is about something.
Quoting Agustino
What is important here, your giving, the ring itself or your wife? And are any of these the centre of your life? Is your life about a ring? Is it, in the end, about your wife? If it is, you are worshipping an idol.
This is an abstraction. What is it concretely? How is my life, concretely, about something? What makes it about something instead of about something else?
Quoting unenlightened
Neither of the three, but the first comes closest.
Quoting unenlightened
Why would that be so? What makes my wife an idol? Or better said, what would make her an idol?
And please try to actually answer my questions. So let's go back to these as well:
Quoting Agustino
If interpreted in the Jewish tradition, I'd agree with the earlier posters about what it means. But in the Christian sense, I think that it's a lesson in avoiding the mistake of making one's own flesh an idol, a graven image, that which is worshiped. Theologically speaking, we are created in the image of the God of Love, not in the image of our fallen and sinful selves.
Right! Right! We are created in the image of God. What does a painting of Mount Everest point to? And is the painting of Mount Everest one with Mount Everest?
No, not at all. I'm trying to see where your thinking moves. Would you agree that if man is created in the image of God, then man's self always points beyond itself?
An image, or idol, is a material object taken to be a representation of the immaterial God. You are not supposed to worship the material object, you are supposed to worship the immaterial God. Therefore there is no purpose in making such an image. It was for the same reason that many insisted God should not have a name. The name being a representation, or image of God. If God has a name, then we may start to worship the name, and forget about God. This is important because it is how we affirm that we all worship the same God. If we worship an idol, or image, then different groups start to worship different idols and therefore different gods. Then no one pays attention to God.
Is an icon an idol?
What is an icon?
Can an idea not be an idol? The Communist society...
Hmm. The tricky business here is that "pointing beyond the self" actually entails gazing further within oneself, but in an attempt to see God more fully, rather than our own nature, which is only represented just the same outside of our bodies in the world.
I don't know what your life is about. It is for you to say what is the most important thing to you. For me it is love - which is not to say that I am loving or lovely, but that is what it is about; that is where I stand, and where I am trying to go. And it is an abstraction, to the extent that I fail to make it real in my life.
Quoting Agustino
One makes an idol by giving central importance to, by worshipping, something that is not worthy of that place in life.
Quoting Agustino
Yes, obviously.
Quoting Agustino
Take justice as an unworldly example. It is not a natural condition, but is only brought into being by a just man. I don't think I can make the unworldly concrete, except in so far as I can show you a life lived.
So Heister, in what sense are you gazing further within yourself - trying to see God more fully - rather than your own nature? Is there something within you that is not your nature? Is there something in you that is beyond your self?
So that is still an abstraction. I'm asking you practically, for you, what does it mean that your life is about love? What makes your life about love? If I look at your life, what in it makes me think "this is about love"?
Quoting unenlightened
Obvious enough it is, but has something slipped unnoticed? When I have given her the ring, was it just the ring that was given?
Quoting unenlightened
Would love also be an unworldly example?
Clarify this - how does one find truth in themselves?
Consider by analogy - when one watches pornography, it seems that the images that one sees point beyond themselves. Someone watching porn isn't ultimately watching themselves. But, do they control the images? Can they stop the images? Can they choose the images that they want? And in choosing them, are they ultimately thrown back upon themselves? How does this compare with your wife? Do you control your wife? Do you control what sounds she makes, when she smiles, when she's happy? In having sex with your wife (for example), are you pointing out of yourself - encountering someone that is other than you - and therefore reaching out of your own self?
Love is the truth and it is in me - but unless it can reflect itself in the world, it is dead O:)
Quoting Agustino
wat
This is more unintelligible than the poetic drivel I just wrote above, >:O
Is all of it in you? Or is your asceticism a way to reach out of yourself? Is Love greater than you or equal to you?
No.
Quoting Agustino
For my love to be given, yes.
Quoting Agustino
Greater, of course.
I don't think there is a "how." Truth is found in oneself because they are always the person who knows. Eliminating oneself is always an illusion. One may care for others obviously, rather than some other goal or desire, but it is always them doing the caring. The destruction of the self amounts to an abstraction. One cannot tell whether they love giving, their wife, a ring or themselves precisely because such a question treats life as an abstraction.
Would you give the wedding ring to anyone but your wife? I mean could you stand to propose and give the ring to any stranger in the street? What about handing the ring over to someone else, giving them the decision about what to do with it in reference to your marriage and relationship (as close as we can get to eliminating yourself for the situation)? Would you choose to propose and not give the ring (and yourself) to your partner? Or just not get a ring at all? All these are clearly unacceptable. Do any of them, and you could fail by your own measure. The state itself is what matters. Giving, wife, ring and themselves in that particular situation.
The abstraction of "how" or "why" you love is just a dishonest reduction to particular concepts or images, where the lived well-being is reduced to some idea, standard or authority. Whether we are talking about gods, relationships, appearance, possessions, culture, self or just about anything, it is this abstraction which amounts to idolatry.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Ok. So if Love is greater than you, it is not completely contained by you - it always exceeds you. And in order to know it, and be closer to it - you have to reach out of the prison of your self. So man is created in the image of God - destined to reach out of their own self - to point towards God.
Who is the Pharisee really praying to? And who is the tax collector praying to?
Why is the Christian, in the house of the true God, with a true conception and knowledge of God praying to an idol, while the one kneeling before the statue of the false God is praying in truth to the real God? What is the relationship between the object in front of which one prays and idolatry?
Why is this a problem? Why can't the lived well-being be reduced to some conception?
Love is the governor of the world. I wouldn't say that it transcends the world like any concept of God.
We are living. Take us away, there is no-one experiencing well-being.
People may experience lived well-being when reducing it to a conception-- that happens all the time. Beliefs, goals, worth etc. are sometimes envisioned in an abstracted way. The point is this is a dishonest. They are ignorant that's their living which amounts to well-being. When asked about their well-being, they are stumped (just as you were) because they don't understand it.
Right. So then life cannot be reduced to concept, is that correct?
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Why so quick to judge? :)
I'd be careful here. Life is frequently a concept. It's a meaning we refer to and reason about all the time. Even living itself is a concept in this sense (I'm talking about it right now).
Life is not a concept. This means something different than "Life cannot be reduced to a concept," and is not mutually exclusive with it.
I'm hardly being quick. Four or so years of your posting is quite a ripe age for these sorts of things.
Well I stated my point clearly - so is it a true statement that "life cannot be reduced to a concept" or is it a false statement?
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Even an entire life may not be sufficient to know someone :)
Likewise, someone can bow before the icon of the true God, and pray to an idol - because it's their interiority that makes the object an idol - they are making it an idol. How is this possible? How do they make it an idol? What about them makes it an idol? They pray in untruth ... What is untruth?
Is the Pharisee praying to God watching porn? Is he actually doing what the porn viewer is doing? He looks at the true God - but sees in the true God what he wants to see. The true God speaks what he wants him to speak - congratulating him for his righteousness. Who is the "true God"? It's the Pharisee himself - but the Pharisee does not see this. This remains hidden to him.
So what is an idol? An invisible mirror through which the self speaks to the self as if God were speaking...
If I take your meaning here, yes. Christ taught a change of heart. Jews were only getting the rituals, while they failed to live moral lives, which is why idolatry is a sensitive topic because a lot of Christians think it prudent to remove all symbols and such, which is going too far.
Quoting Agustino
This goes, again, with Christ's teaching of a turning over of the heart.
Yes! It's not the action, but the heart.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Indeed!
The next thing to investigate is how an object, an idea, a person, or anything else can become an idol - what about the relationship of the person with it causes the person to use it as an invisible mirror reflecting their own self back to themselves while hiding the process and making it seem that God is reflected back? What makes the Pharisee blind - spiritually - to his idolatry? And what makes the penitent tax collector worship in truth - authentically?
Idols are easier to commit one's time and eyes to because they're manifested in material. Honesty, loyalty, love, contrition, and so on are all virtues that are beneath the surface. You can't walk into a statue of love like you can a golden cow.
A ring? Good choice!
It is not possible to mock a ring. At least, I have never seen a ring mocked, and cannot imagine how one would do that.
Nor do I think it could be smashed. I think the only way for the would-be smasher to destroy it would be for them to make their way to the cracks of Doom at Orodruin, and cast it in there.
So... the message is: have no images of God, and no other gods, imaged or not. (Palestine was rife, apparently, with Baal temples on high places, images, and so forth. So was Egypt rich in concrete forms of the gods).
Calling things 'idols' that we like a lot (sex, drugs, rock and roll, money, prestige, whatever...) isn't idolatry, really. Elevating these things to idolatrous status is stretching it. There may be a problem being engrossed in accumulating money and prestige, but that comes under the category of distractions and short-term goals. You can not serve too masters at once -- you can't serve God and mammon at the same time. But again, that assumes one believes in God. No god, no mammon.
Which meant worship of Jesus was a sin, because he was a man and not god.
And that the symbol of the crucifix was also a sin against god.
Probably nothing practically, I don't know. Rather as a Christian is not a good person, but a sinner, and climbers can often be found at the foot of the mountain rather than the peak.
Quoting Agustino
When I have given a ring, it was a commitment. And when the ring was thrown away, it was the rejection of that commitment. There is an understanding of the symbolic meaning, but ritual is not idolatry.
So if nothing practically makes your life about love, then it really isn't about love at all is it? It's one thing to try and fail, and another not to try at all. So if you did mean that you're trying and failing, what is it that you're doing that means that you're trying? If someone looks at your life from the outside, would they say "this man's life is about love"?
Quoting unenlightened
The ring was a commitment? What is the relationship between the ring and the commitment? When does the ring become by analogy an idol?
No, all that it assumes is that one must have a master in the sense used Biblically. Even if there is no God, one must have a master.
Yes, I think you are partly correct. But then, not all idols, as Wayfarer adds, are material - there are also immaterial idols. So what is the commonality between the two? The commonality is clearly in how the person relates to the object, whether this is a physical or a mental object. So why does a person relate to an object such that the object becomes an idol? How does the person make the object into an idol?
Idols are images that arise from the stories and teachings of religion, they act like words & stories as symbolic what is believed. So in a sense the images, sculptures paintings which are common to all religions (even Jewish, though here God is not portrayed it does portray somethings, like the Ark of the Covenant, which are symbolic) arise from their dialogues and writings. The majority of the ancient Greeks put more sense of reality into their statues of the gods, perhaps treating them as direct conduits to the gods.
Pauanias:
So then idols not as a deification of inert matter, but as the rectification of religious languages into images with shared meanings among the faithful, made to act as intermediaries between man & god.
Because the truth can be elusive, and objects help to root what is uncertain or veiled in a more coherent and visible reality. In Christian theosophy, I'd consider transubstantiation to be at the pinnacle of this religious tendency.
It's also more comfortable for people to channel their belief into objects because, after all, we are, at least in part, objects too. As I've said before, it's easier to conceptualize love or some other ideal into an object, such as a golden calf, a Buddha, or even Jesus Christ. However, as you've probably noticed, there exists a grey area between what is worship and what is idolatry. I remember when I was younger, having taken a few airplane flights and feeling a bit overwhelmed every time, I wanted to get a small crucifix so that I could hold it. Why? Rather simply, I wanted something other than myself to help channel a presence of calm in those situations Yet, I wouldn't consider that desire to be particularly out of the ordinary. Even so, we'd agree that the Israelites praying to golden bull out in the desert is pure nonsense (Yahweh at least agrees with me). So, what's the difference between my thinking about holding a little crucifix in my grasp and someone who prays to a bull? Both of us have the intention of angling ourselves more toward God, but somehow there's a breakdown in perception between the two.
Perhaps not, dude, I'm saying how I feel, where I am looking, not listing my achievements.
Quoting Agustino
I don't think it does. Perhaps you need to start speaking for yourself here, instead of interrogating me, because I don't know what you're getting at.