Sure thing. I had to look up the definitiy of the word.
"Idolatry is the worship of an idol as though it were a deity. In Abrahamic religions (namely Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, Islam, and the Baháʼí Faith) idolatry connotes the worship of something or someone other than the Abrahamic God as if it were God."
If I was a believer in Abrahamic God, I'd believe idolatry is wrong because, I'd believe there's only one God and no other thing is God, so people worshipping anything else but the God I believe in would be wrong and possibly dangerous because they might mislead others from worshipping the only correct God.
God is not an idolater because he doesn't worship anything (I assume) just demands worshipping himself from his every sentient creation.
I'm curious why are you interested in answers to those questions. What do my answers tell you?
I asked because I realized there's something we probably already agree on, as long as one twist is accounted for.
But to get to the twist we should unpack this word Worship because it's a little nebulous. It could mean lots of things but I want to reduce it to its basic essence.
Let's imagine a dirty barefoot ignorant heathen Bob who carves an idol out of wood. It's a small figurine that he names as his brand new god Steve. Bob _claims_ to worship Steve, Bob bows down to Steve at regular intervals and burns incense to Steve, etc etc.
But over time Bob gets into a hobby like golf. And Bob spends all his free time playing golf, practicing golf, reading about golf, visualizing his next golf skill improvements, dreaming about golf.
Dust gathers on Steve's head and shoulders. If Steve were to suddenly animate, would Steve agree that Bob is a true Steve worshiper? No. I think if we simmer this nebulous word worship, we might get a more revealing word like "prioritize".
And maybe if we were to use more words, we might expand that to "hold (in thoughts, feelings, and resulting behavior) as most valuable"
And from Bob's behavior, we can see Bob cares more about golf than he cares about Steve.
Similarly, there are some people who claim to be Christians, but we see from their behavior that some of these people care more about, say, having a reputation as a miracle working faith healer -- or maybe they care more about the money they can rake in while faking miracles, than they care about God.
Even while we may disagree whether God exists, we can agree that such fake faith healers are criminals when money gets involved, right?
Then suppose for a second that God does exist, wouldn't you agree that a God who is supposedly perfect in justice should signify for anyone watching that these people are indeed criminals? Like, something has to be _SAID_ at least.
So in this supposed existence which has a supreme being, I think you can agree everyone's Priority Number One Arrow should point at God. When someone's arrow isn't pointed at God, that's idolatry.
If this makes sense, let me know and I can get to the twist. Or maybe you can figure out the twist before I say it.
scotty79|1 year ago
"Idolatry is the worship of an idol as though it were a deity. In Abrahamic religions (namely Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, Islam, and the Baháʼí Faith) idolatry connotes the worship of something or someone other than the Abrahamic God as if it were God."
If I was a believer in Abrahamic God, I'd believe idolatry is wrong because, I'd believe there's only one God and no other thing is God, so people worshipping anything else but the God I believe in would be wrong and possibly dangerous because they might mislead others from worshipping the only correct God.
God is not an idolater because he doesn't worship anything (I assume) just demands worshipping himself from his every sentient creation.
I'm curious why are you interested in answers to those questions. What do my answers tell you?
m1n1|1 year ago
But to get to the twist we should unpack this word Worship because it's a little nebulous. It could mean lots of things but I want to reduce it to its basic essence.
Let's imagine a dirty barefoot ignorant heathen Bob who carves an idol out of wood. It's a small figurine that he names as his brand new god Steve. Bob _claims_ to worship Steve, Bob bows down to Steve at regular intervals and burns incense to Steve, etc etc.
But over time Bob gets into a hobby like golf. And Bob spends all his free time playing golf, practicing golf, reading about golf, visualizing his next golf skill improvements, dreaming about golf.
Dust gathers on Steve's head and shoulders. If Steve were to suddenly animate, would Steve agree that Bob is a true Steve worshiper? No. I think if we simmer this nebulous word worship, we might get a more revealing word like "prioritize".
And maybe if we were to use more words, we might expand that to "hold (in thoughts, feelings, and resulting behavior) as most valuable"
And from Bob's behavior, we can see Bob cares more about golf than he cares about Steve.
Similarly, there are some people who claim to be Christians, but we see from their behavior that some of these people care more about, say, having a reputation as a miracle working faith healer -- or maybe they care more about the money they can rake in while faking miracles, than they care about God.
Even while we may disagree whether God exists, we can agree that such fake faith healers are criminals when money gets involved, right?
Then suppose for a second that God does exist, wouldn't you agree that a God who is supposedly perfect in justice should signify for anyone watching that these people are indeed criminals? Like, something has to be _SAID_ at least.
So in this supposed existence which has a supreme being, I think you can agree everyone's Priority Number One Arrow should point at God. When someone's arrow isn't pointed at God, that's idolatry.
If this makes sense, let me know and I can get to the twist. Or maybe you can figure out the twist before I say it.