Inter-Faith Series, Catholicism: How does a person sin by idolatry?

Question

Fundie, thank you for your comments. I have a life already.

Twinsma and others: Paul Cyp said something there that you should consider. Paul said idolatry is 'denying the Lordship of God'. And by the way, I was not the one who put a thumbs down on your answers.

Twinsma, I gave you a thumbs up. Are you a mother of twins?

Answer 1

The First Commandment forbids idolatry. Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons (for example, satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, etc.

In the lands that surrounded Israel, there were many who worshiped false gods including the Egyptians. Later the Jews had to deal with the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses worshiped by their Governors and occupying forces.

Today people put many things in front of God in their lives including money, status, self, power, etc.

By definition, a Catholic praying before a crucifix to the true God or any Christian praying before a cross to the true God is not idolatry.

By definition, a Catholic asking a saint in heaven to pray for him or her in front of a statue of that saint is not idolatry.

For more information, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, sections 2083 and following: http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt3sect2chpt1.htm#art1

With love in Christ.

Answer 2

Catholicism condemns Idolatry as do all the Abrahamic faiths. Honoring religious symbols and making religious symbols is not idolatry and is commanded by Exodus 25.

Idolatry is the replacing God with something else:money,family,nation,etc.

Check out the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraphs 2129-2141

Answer 3

Idolatry is anything that monopolizes our attention away from God. It could be money, work, television, fishing, golf, family, our jobs, the Internet, and any other thing that would interfere with our relationship with God; anything can be an idol.


Anytime we place something, or someone else above God, we commit idolatry.

Answer 4

The answer to this question is in fact by the union of marriage. Because we see a DIVINE relation ship expressed in man and woman. Which is why JESUS says HE IS THE BRIDEGROOM and the CHURCH is the BRIDE. Therefore adultery is akin to idolitry. You'll see that GOD says HE'S a jealous GOD. And of course this is the sort of jealousy a spouse has when their betrothed cheats on them.

Also we see that the body is the TEMPLE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. Therefore to defile the flesh in adultery is likened to defiling the temple by false worship of idols. As if someone took down the cross and put up an image of baal, and worshipped it there . .. is like as to a man taking a strange woman into his own bedchamber where he sleeps with his wife, and having an adulterous affair with her there. He's defiled the temple . ..

LOVE your neighbor as yourself.
Amen.

Answer 5

"Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons, power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, etc. ... Idolatry rejects the unique lordship of God; it is therefore incompatible with communion with God. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, section 2113)

Answer 6

you're not worshiping God.

for example, creating a golden bull and sacrificing to it instead of worshipping God is idolatry.

edit- 2 thumbs down? are you serious? that's a textbook case of idolatry, take a look at exodus and the story of the 10 commandments.



lost(dot)eu/21618
replace (dot) with .

Answer 7

Worshipping a God besides the God of Abraham, and/or literally worshipping anything else. Catholics use religious iconography to help teach things (bibles in stone) and to help concentrate on prayers, but are never to worship them.

Answer 8

Christian:
anything that exalts itself above or equal to God. (2 Cor. 10:4-5)
this is also one of the Ten Commandments, not to have any gods before Him.

Answer 9

In about the year 50 C.E. when the apostle Paul visited Athens, (a city in which much emphasis was placed on the use of images in worship) Paul explained to the Athenians that God “does not dwell in handmade temples, neither is he attended to by human hands as if he needed anything . . . Therefore, . . . we ought not to imagine that the Divine Being is like gold or silver or stone, like something sculptured by the art and contrivance of man.”—Acts 17:24, 25, 29.

Actually, such warnings regarding the use of idols are common in the Christian Greek Scriptures, also called the New Testament. For example, the apostle John admonished Christians: “Guard yourselves from idols.” (1 John 5:21) Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “What agreement does God’s temple have with idols?” (2 Corinthians 6:16) Many early Christians had formerly used religious images in worship. Paul reminded Christians in Thessalonica of this when he wrote: “You turned to God from your idols to slave for a living and true God.” (1 Thessalonians 1:9) Clearly, those Christians would have had the same view of icons as John and Paul did.

During the first three centuries of the Christian Church, . . . there was no Christian art, and the church generally resisted it with all its might. Clement of Alexandria, for example, criticized religious (pagan) art in that it encouraged people to worship that which is created rather than the Creator.”

How, then, did the use of icons become so popular? The Britannica continues: “About the mid-3rd century an incipient pictorial art began to be used and accepted in the Christian Church but not without fervent opposition in some congregations. Only when the Christian Church became the Roman imperial church under Emperor Constantine in the early 4th century were pictures used in the churches, and they then began to strike roots in Christian popular religiosity.”

A common practice among the stream of pagans who now began to declare themselves Christians was the worship of portraits of the emperor. “In accordance with the cult of the emperor,” explains John Taylor in his book Icon Painting, “people worshipped his portrait painted on canvas or wood, and from thence to the veneration of icons was a small step.” Thus pagan worship of pictures was replaced by the veneration of pictures of Jesus, Mary, angels, and “saints.” These pictures that started to be used in the churches gradually found their way into the homes of millions of people, being venerated there as well.


Jesus told his listeners that God’s servants must worship “with spirit and truth.” (John 4:24) So when a sincere person seeks to know the truth about the use of icons in worship, he has to turn to God’s Word for enlightenment on the subject.For instance, the Bible contains Jesus’ statement: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) Paul declared that “there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, a man, Christ Jesus,” and that “Christ . . . pleads for us.” (1 Timothy 2:5; Romans 8:34) This takes on added meaning when we read that Christ is able to “save completely those who are approaching God through him, because he is always alive to plead for them.” (Hebrews 7:25) It is in the name of Jesus Christ that we should approach God. No other person, and certainly no lifeless icon, can substitute for him. Such knowledge from God’s Word can help anyone seeking the truth to find the way to worship “the Father with spirit and truth” and experience the blessings of this superior way of worship. Indeed, as Jesus said, “the Father is looking for suchlike ones to worship him.”—John 4:23.

Answer 10

Isn't it funny how catholics are always saying not to have false idols when they elaborately adorn most of their churches and the priests and cardinals and the pope all dress as if they are royalty? Are you telling me that catholics do not worship false idols?