Are all believers in God automatically idol worshipers?

Are all believers in God automatically idol worshipers?

All believers in God are following an entity that they only know by what other people have said about that God. Few, if any, know their God from apotheosis or first-hand information.

That fact makes whoever that God is, an idol.

It must be so, as what is believed is not a known or real entity. Believers have no real or personal knowledge or experience of their God. All a believer can have is faith in whichever God they are idolizing based on what others have said.

Do you, as a believer, recognize that you are an idol worshiper?

NOTE FROM THE LINGUISTICS MODERATOR: This entire thread does not conform to the standard definition of the word "idol." I suggest that it not be taken seriously.

Regards
DL

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I recommend you consult a dictionary, to find what an idol is, before making any more stupid remarks.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I suggest you do the same.

Seems I hit a nerve in the heart of an idol worshiper in denial.

Thanks for showing us all your mental state.

Regards
DL

NOTE FROM THE LINGUISTICS MODERATOR: EXCHEMIST IS CORRECT. DL IS WRONG.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

An idol is a "thing" that is worshipped.
Alex

NOTE FROM THE LINGUISTICS MODERATOR: THIS IS A COLLOQUIAL DEFINITION. IN THE REALM OF RELIGION, AN IDOL IS A PHYSICAL OBJECT.

 

I would say it is whatever ones ideal is.

NOTE FROM THE LINGUISTICS MODERATOR: IN THE CONTEXT OF RELIGIOUS WORSHIP, AN IDOL IS A PHYSICAL OBJECT.

The think most are believing is words given by other people and nothing that came from their God.

What words make you a believer and idol worshiper? This assumes you are a believer of course.

Regards
DL

 

The word applies to a thing as opposed to a God, that is the original meaning and it is a religious thing but not the god but a representation.
These days the word can be used to describe someone like a rock star of foolball player.
But I doubt if folk will sgree with your premise that to worship God is to worship an idol.
The things that may pass for idols, but again folk would argue about this, could be statues of Jesus on a cross maybe even a cross by itself but folk that use those objects would not think of them as idols.
I dont believe in anything even the things I believe in and certainly have no idols or objects I worship.
Alex

 

My impression (from sketchy knowledge of Christianity and Islam) is that an idol is a physical representation of what they consider to be God.

I think the belief is /may be that God is unknowable in a physical way and so praying in the presence of physical artifacts supposed to represent the God is wrong.

Moreover ,even using the name of Jesus or Mohammed may be prohibited.

It is my belief that the Christians who are Protestants often consider that Roman Catholics commit this error and their places of worship tend to be much sparser places without a statue in sight.

I think the OP is being facetious and annoying. Anyone who believes in Marxism might be an idol worshiper by that definition as he has not learned Marxism from the horse's mouth.

 

Good for you. That would make you your own God/ideal and a free thinker. That agrees with both the Jewish and Gnostic Christian way of thinking.

You are correct that most believers will not admit that they are idol worshiping the mental construct that they have invented for themselves from the words of other people and not of anything of a real God.

Regards
DL

 

I basically agree with all but your last.

To your first.
An idol can be as you describe but can also be the mental construct that the believer has created from the words of other people and not from a God. Believers idolize the construct they have created.

Regards
DL

 

But ,as I said that can be generalized to any second hand belief and so is only trivially true.

Is that point not valid? .

 

Well thanks but no thanks I am just a man, an old man.
Alex

 

You highlighted the physical whereas the mental construct is what believers follow. I see that as more than a trivial truth.

It means that believers believe their own thinking which is based on the thinking of other people and nothing directly from themselves or their God.

That is pure idol worship.

Regards
DL

 

Sure but in the Jewish and Gnostic Christian thinking, God has always been a human.

Jesus asked, have ye forgotten that ye are Gods?

Most have.

Regards
DL

 

The example I gave was Marxism . That is mental not physical.

You don't even know that their God doesn't exist. I do not think it is possible to prove a negative.

 

You are correct in that that negative cannot be proven, that is why the onus is on the believer to prove his belief and God as real.

They cannot and that is why they push and use the word faith so much.

Regards
DL

 

That may be true for some .

You didn't answer my question in post#10 as to whether my point there was valid. It was not a rhetorical question. I was not confident whether it was right.

 

Believers have only their own perception of God to worship. It makes no difference whether they acquired that perception by first-hand experience or by second-hand commentary. In many cases, second-hand (confirmed) perceptions are more reliable than first-hand.

But none of that has anything to do with idolatry.

 

GreatestIAm: It sounds like, on a scale of badness, you see that as worse than worshipping a god, so your entire point is an attempt at a denigration: "Do you realize that you worship an idol?"

But your premise wrong.

Idol definitions:
- a picture or object that is worshipped as a god
- a representation or symbol of an object of worship; broadly: a false god
- a likeness of something

NOTE FROM THE LINGUISTICS MODERATOR: ONLY THE FIRST TWO DEFINITIONS ARE MORE-OR-LESS CORRECT IN THIS CONTEXT.

The idol is the thing, not the god.

It's pretty straightforward.

 

If you go to an art museum, a good work of art has the ability to move people, emotionally. The feeling can range from love to hate. Those subjective feelings, induced by art ,is essentially the unconscious basis for idol worship.

In many religions, statues help people get in the right state of feeling. The impressive churches with the large vaulted ceilings full of religious art, create a sense of art awe to help the mind flowing with feelings. Materialism is also based on the subjectivity of objects and idols. The socially valued objects are used to enhance oneself, so you can become an extension of the prestige, induced by the idol. A native warrior wearing the hide of the lion creates a subjective enhancement in terms of how the others of the tribe will view him; prestige from the idol; lion's spirit, becomes connected to him.

During one of the presidential elections campaigns, the handlers had President Obama give a speech in front of Greek columns props from the Parthenon. These columns have a certain prestige. This classic subjective art affect was designed to overlap the president with an idol affect. Idol worship goes way beyond religion and is also practice by atheists.

Most main religions recognize the art affect induced by objects and call the induced subjectivity false gods, to help people differentiate, so they don't remain unconscious. Atheism does not believe in any God, therefore they have no way to make this differentiation. They can worship an idol, get the same feeling as a religious person, but not call this religion. They remain in the dark.

The type of God that the main religions deal with are more like an abstraction. It is like the physicist visualizing dark matter which has never been proven to exist in the lab. God is spirit; abstraction, and not matter with an art object prestige.

Jesus was humble and poor. He was consciously not trying to use an idol affect, which could have made him more impressive to idol worshippers, both religious or not religious. He was do this to make a distinction between an internal change, through an abstraction and a change through the prestige of art and idols.

In the 4th century AD, Christianity becomes the official religion of Rome. Rome who was noted for its top caliber art. Religious idols were added to Christianity since this helped Rome expand the church via idol worship, which was still popular among the Pagans.

 

C

That is an interesting post although I have never noticed art moving me emotionally (except for aesthetic pleasure ).

"Idol" and "icon" seem similar concepts. I wonder what is the distinction.

NOTE FROM THE LINGUISTICS MODERATOR: "IDOL" IS GENERALLY USED FOR A RELIGIOUS FIGURE. AN "ICON" CAN BE A SOLID DEPICTION OF PRACTICALLY ANYTHING OR ANYONE THAT PIQUES INTEREST.

By the way do you think Jesus was affecting his humbleness and poverty (like a politician)?