What's wrong with worshipping God through an image? I haven't got a clear explanation on why abrahmic religions all agree on this topic.
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Idolatry... BAD
What's wrong with worshipping God through an image? I haven't got a clear explanation on why abrahmic religions all agree on this topic.
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dont christians worship images of mary, jesus, etc?
>dont christians worship images of mary, jesus, etc?
it is like saying muslims worship kaaba or saying muslims worship arabic writings of holy names.
Idolatry is the worship of something that is not God as if it were God. Worshipping God through the use of imagery is not idolatry.
>Idolatry is the worship of something that is not God as if it were God
Why can't God abide in the image? Like he did for your religion in the ark of the covenant?
God and His power absolutely can and does abide in certain objects, in the same way that He abides in all that is good. Worshipping even the most beautiful image of God as God simply misses the point. It's like worshipping nature because it is perfect and God can be found throughout it. The divine source of the beauty, inspiration, etc. that you might find in any object should be the subject of worship, not the object itself. That doesn't make the object evil, it's simply wise not to fall into the trap of thinking God can be understood in purely physical, material, or aesthetic terms - as useful as these concepts might be, it isn't the whole picture.
>it's simply wise not to fall into the trap of thinking God can be understood in purely physical, material, or aesthetic terms
I assume I'm speaking with a Catholic? You points are well thought out. So just from your perspective, the problem isnt worshiping God through images but worship "the correct God"?
Orthodox. Thank you. And more or less, yes. You could even say it's about worshipping thr correct God in thr correct way as well.
>he thinks Hindus and others worship the actual objects
>he thinks there is no concept of an omniscient God in Dharmic religion
kek
The way Hindu worship the images of God is actually similar to how Catholics worship the images of Christ. The only difference is the Gods they worship.
my thoughts exactly.
>omniscient God in Dharmic religion
which one is it? Brahma the dumb who got divided into almost non-existence? Shiva who later became all powerful?
God in monotheism is god of creation and everything at same time, a personal god. Hinduism has no idea of it. Gnostics had similar idea of god with hindus (Monad and Demiurge, similar to Brahman and Atman) but orthodoxy of Christianity has idea of one simple personal omnipresent god.
>We are all born idolaters, and idolatry is good, because it is in the nature of man. Who can get beyond it? Only the perfect man, the God-man. The rest are all idolaters. So long as we see this universe before us, with its forms and shapes, we are all idolaters. This is a gigantic symbol we are worshipping. He who says he is the body is a born idolater.
>implying
Not what I was saying at all. Hinduism is one of the least idolatrous religions I can think of actually.
The idea is that you cannot properly represent God in a physical image. Being divine, God cannot be depicted or expressed physically by human hands. If that's the case, you are misinterpreting him, only worshipping some image you've made of god in your head rather than the actual indefinable god they say you're meant to.
Obviously it doesn't matter, but that's the idea.
>The idea is that you cannot properly represent God in a physical image
How about in words?
For Christians it’s basically
My God = Real
Your God = Statue
They literally think the statue is supposed to be the god itself
Allah, the Lord of the Universe, an atemporal being, cannot be bound by space and time, and thus he doesn't have a physical body that can be conveyed through an image. Anthropromorphism within your creed can take you out of the confines of Islam, there are certain individuals who held to tashbih(making an image of Allah) like Muqatil bin Sulayman, and they were refuted by many scholars of aqeedah (creed).
So the Islamic answer to this question would be that you cannot make an image of Allah, and thus attempting to worship Him through that image is shirk.
Muslims are true monotheists and don't even make drawings of their prophet so I don't see any inconsistency in that view point. I just don't agree with it.
Interesting.
Allah has two hands, he said so himself
Why do Muslims limit God’s omnipotence?
israelite here. IDK about the other religions but basically if you worship an image than some of your devotion is going to the imagine(otherwise, way pray toward it). This means that less than 100% of it is going to god, so youre basically cutting yourself off from the divine. This really pisses god off for some reason so dont do it
>why abrahmic religions all agree on this topic.
That's complete bullshit. Abrahamic religions have been fighting over what is and is not "idolatry" or what idolatry even means for millennia. You've got everything from Islamic Iconoclasts who think it's bad to create any object that isn't a vague geometric pattern, to Catholic Relic worship to everything in-between.
It's because Abrahamics are conditioned from birth to see Idol worship as being wrong, that's literally it
It seems like there no explanation in the Bible why it's wrong aside from YHWH being a jealous god
Does there really need to be one? God made the universe, he doesnt have to explain shit. if he says idolatry is wrong, then it's wrong
You can't worship the creator by worshipping what He created. You must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Images are not only part of creation but are a creation of God's creation. It can not act as an intermediary, instead it blocks the path to the true Creator.
But I believe the creator isn't separate from his creation
Think the Aphrodite/Venus statues. Some Greek artist hired a mortal human prostitute to be an art model for a statue of a goddess. He had to hire her cause it's not like he actually knew what the goddess looks like and for all we know the statues do not resemble the goddess whatsoever.
>all we know the statues do not resemble the goddess whatsoever
Her butt was actually bigger and she had an outlier vag.
It really doesn't matter I think.
Just try to post.
Have fun learning and with the freebies.
look at what happens to societies that practice it