The Issue of Idolatry in Abrahamic Religions

[Leonardo17]

The republic does become an idol for some people, where nationalistic paraphernalia gains function beyond it's practical or aesthetic use and becomes a focus for worship and signaling.  I wouldn't spend to much time flirting with the idea that god is just an idea in the company of islamists.  Not because I think it has no merit - I think that's exactly what gods are and what gives theistic religions the ability to manifest consequences in reality.  But for reasons of murder.  Combine those two, national and religious idols - and you get mujahideen.  Every nation and every religion has them.  It's not a bug, it's a feature.  It gives them a chip to bargain with both within their societies and outside of their societies.  Whether that comes in the form of intersectional (para)military support, or in dissident action to establish a perpetual minority rule under threat of death or damage to infrastructure.

That leads me handily into how I would explain any orthodox attempt to end democracy.  An abrahamic fundamentalist doesn't believe in democracy from the word go.  That's not how they think the world works, or even should work.  God isn't just an idea, he's The Man..and he makes The Rules...and this is the right and proper way to organize society.  The developed world is leaning into nationalism and authoritarianism in general - even outside of the religiously concerned™.  That zionists might be produced in these circumstances who are willing to both strangle democracy in their own society and utterly disenfranchise..say..palestinians....is like a clock ticking from one second to the next.

FWIW - you don't seem, to me, like you're in the same zipcode.  Your own magic book idolatry is probably just a latent effect of an islamic upbringing.  Background noise - not doing much of anything but making you seem confused and propagandized to an outsider.

Second paragraph:
 
You should read my last post in “Earth’s recent climate spiral 2.0”. You already know that my approach to spirituality is different from those who have a more traditional approach. So everyone is free to join whichever camp they want. If you are fear-based and have a limited understanding of things you can go there. And if you like new ideas and like to explore and experiment new ideas that can change the world as it is today you can come here.
 
But the issue is this. As people in the second camp we all agree that we as human beings have a destructive / fear-based entity in us called “the ego”. That ego needs limits. If it goes unchecked, it has the potential to turn even the most intelligent / creative people among us into complete monkeys (See Elon Musk for instance).
 
The philosophers of enlightenment were aware of this facts. So they created this ideal system in which all people were limited by the rule of law. All nations were limited by international law and “the Society of Nation” (or the UN in today’s terms). In which rulers were elected and all of them had limited powers so that we no longer have to rely on the “goodness” of a King that is appointed by God. But by representatives whose actions constantly being checked by bodies like the Supreme Court for instance.
 
If I understood correctly: The Israeli president Netanyahu wants greater presidential power by reducing to powers of the Israeli Supreme Court. And that’s why everybody in on the street.
 
Yet those who are in the first camp (bigots, fundamentalists, conservatives, whatever) these guys want that change to happen. If it was up to them, a monarchy or a “Hebrew Republic” would do.
 
And again: That’s what the ego does. It has this ability to make you perceive one thing as something else. And that’s the core of most true spiritual teachings.
 
And the ego likes idols. That’s because it perceives a true connection with God as a threat to its own hegemony over us.
 
So these are deeper subjects. But these are known in all major religious teachings. To people like me seemingly mumbo-jumbo stories in the Bible (for instance) are allegoric stories that are pointing to these deeper spiritual realities.
 
Yet, I don’t expect everyone to understand them. As I said, not knowing (or not being interested) is in most cases simply better than being misguided by some interpretation of religious texts claiming to be the only true / possible interpretation of it.

[Bucky Ball]

Here is the stance of the Quran as it is mentioned in the Chapter called AL-Anbyah in the Quran. The same story is also mentioned in the Bible.
 
Abraham questioned his father and his people, “What are these statues to which you are so devoted?”. They replied, “We found our forefathers worshipping them.” He responded, “Indeed, you and your forefathers have been clearly wrong.” They asked, “Have you come to us with the truth, or is this a joke?” He replied, “In fact, your Lord is the Lord of the heavens and the earth, Who created them ˹both˺. And to that I bear witness.” ˹Then he said to himself,˺ “By Allah! I will surely plot against your idols after you have turned your backs and gone away.” So he smashed them into pieces, except the biggest of them, so they might turn to it ˹for answers˺. They protested, “Who dared do this to our gods? It must be an evildoer!” Some said, “We heard a young man, called Abraham, speaking ˹ill˺ of them.” They demanded, “Bring him before the eyes of the people, so that they may witness ˹his trial˺.” They asked, “Was it you who did this to our gods, O  Abraham?” He replied ˹sarcastically˺, “No, this one—the biggest of them—did it! So ask them, if they can talk!”
 
https://quran.com/al-anbya
 
https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Parallelism:_..._the_Idols
 
I mentioned an extract of this Chapter directly in order to discuss its relationship with the anti-blasphemy actions that have started to spread in many places especially in the UK. Here is a good article on that:
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/protests-outs...00074.html
 
So my argument is that if you are a theist, you must know that God does not like idols. This is something that is mentioned in many places in all Abrahamic books.
 
So the second question is “What is an idol?”. In İslam we have about 99 names that are mentioned in the Holy Book to designate God or Allah. So anything that is not these 99 things all at once (at the same time) does not fall into the definition of God or Allah. So everyone knows that a statue that you may have bought as a souvenir in Nepal (for instance) is not God or Allah. So if you are a theist you do not worship that.
   Now in my definition, any extreme attachment to anything that is not “The power that arranges the movement of galaxies and stars” is a type of idolatry. That could be money, that could be anything in my life my house, my car, by body even my country, even my planet, all of the mosques of the world put together, a copy of a religious scripture, all the libraries of the world, basically everything.
 
    Real spirituality (as defined by one of my favorite Muslim Scholars) is a Matrix (Movie, 1999) philosophy. The main subject here is that “none of these is real / Only spirit / God is real).
 
So in my understanding (and I am not saying that people should not be protesting or reacting in any peaceful means when they feel attacked or insulted in some way) extreme attachment to any type of religious object is also a form of idolatry.
 
I believe that it’s not ok to make fun of religious figures and I have the right to express that thought wherever I like.  But the murder of the Teacher Samuel Paty in France in October 2002 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Samuel_Paty) for me is an act of idolatry. And so are all those protests mentioned in the article above.
 
Spiritual people are people who are focused on inner realities. People who are focused on external objects (as defined by the Quran itself) are just people “Who do thing because their ancestors were doing exactly the same thing”.
 
And this is the very reason while people hate dogmas and all sorts of dogmatic / Zealous belief systems. And I think this is going to be the main challenge of all theists during this century. I think we are being challenged to rectify – basically everything – about our belief systems.

Actually it's not mentioned in all Abrahamic books. 
The Hebrews had all kinds of idols in their capitol until around the invasions that sent them into Exile. They were polytheistic until around the time Isaiah told them to stop.
Yahweh had a wife/consort, -- Ashera. King Hezekiah was told the invasions were the result of the representations of all the other gods. And that was the case until around 500 BCE, when they were told to stop allowing the WORSHIP, (not belief) of other gods.

When the Northern Kingdom seceded from the South, the King in the North (was his name Jeroboam ?) set up a "mimic" of the temple in Jerusalem and instead of the two golden sphynxes on top of the arc, he set up Two Golden Bulls, (which is one of the reasons why, when the priests got around to writing the "story" of the Exodus, they slammed the idea of a "golden bull" which Moses finds when he came down from Sinai, (in the myth).

There is an important over-looked fact here, that there clearly is a transition from "idol-worship" to the use of artifacts which "symbolize the presence of" ... a god. By the time Jeroboam set up the Bulls, human thought had transitioned to the symbolic age.

The use of the words "idols" and "pagans" are pejorative terms (no longer used in academia), to slam the representations of what are believed to be *real* beings, and beliefs that are not held by those using those terms.

[Leonardo17]

Here is the stance of the Quran as it is mentioned in the Chapter called AL-Anbyah in the Quran. The same story is also mentioned in the Bible.
 
Abraham questioned his father and his people, “What are these statues to which you are so devoted?”. They replied, “We found our forefathers worshipping them.” He responded, “Indeed, you and your forefathers have been clearly wrong.” They asked, “Have you come to us with the truth, or is this a joke?” He replied, “In fact, your Lord is the Lord of the heavens and the earth, Who created them ˹both˺. And to that I bear witness.” ˹Then he said to himself,˺ “By Allah! I will surely plot against your idols after you have turned your backs and gone away.” So he smashed them into pieces, except the biggest of them, so they might turn to it ˹for answers˺. They protested, “Who dared do this to our gods? It must be an evildoer!” Some said, “We heard a young man, called Abraham, speaking ˹ill˺ of them.” They demanded, “Bring him before the eyes of the people, so that they may witness ˹his trial˺.” They asked, “Was it you who did this to our gods, O  Abraham?” He replied ˹sarcastically˺, “No, this one—the biggest of them—did it! So ask them, if they can talk!”
 
https://quran.com/al-anbya
 
https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Parallelism:_..._the_Idols
 
I mentioned an extract of this Chapter directly in order to discuss its relationship with the anti-blasphemy actions that have started to spread in many places especially in the UK. Here is a good article on that:
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/protests-outs...00074.html
 
So my argument is that if you are a theist, you must know that God does not like idols. This is something that is mentioned in many places in all Abrahamic books.
 
So the second question is “What is an idol?”. In İslam we have about 99 names that are mentioned in the Holy Book to designate God or Allah. So anything that is not these 99 things all at once (at the same time) does not fall into the definition of God or Allah. So everyone knows that a statue that you may have bought as a souvenir in Nepal (for instance) is not God or Allah. So if you are a theist you do not worship that.
   Now in my definition, any extreme attachment to anything that is not “The power that arranges the movement of galaxies and stars” is a type of idolatry. That could be money, that could be anything in my life my house, my car, by body even my country, even my planet, all of the mosques of the world put together, a copy of a religious scripture, all the libraries of the world, basically everything.
 
    Real spirituality (as defined by one of my favorite Muslim Scholars) is a Matrix (Movie, 1999) philosophy. The main subject here is that “none of these is real / Only spirit / God is real).
 
So in my understanding (and I am not saying that people should not be protesting or reacting in any peaceful means when they feel attacked or insulted in some way) extreme attachment to any type of religious object is also a form of idolatry.
 
I believe that it’s not ok to make fun of religious figures and I have the right to express that thought wherever I like.  But the murder of the Teacher Samuel Paty in France in October 2002 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Samuel_Paty) for me is an act of idolatry. And so are all those protests mentioned in the article above.
 
Spiritual people are people who are focused on inner realities. People who are focused on external objects (as defined by the Quran itself) are just people “Who do thing because their ancestors were doing exactly the same thing”.
 
And this is the very reason while people hate dogmas and all sorts of dogmatic / Zealous belief systems. And I think this is going to be the main challenge of all theists during this century. I think we are being challenged to rectify – basically everything – about our belief systems.

Actually it's not mentioned in all Abrahamic books. 
The Hebrews had all kinds of idols in their capitol until around the invasions that sent them into Exile. They were polytheistic until around the time Isaiah told them to stop.
Yahweh had a wife/consort, -- Ashera. King Hezekiah was told the invasions were the result of the representations of all the other gods. And that was the case until around 500 BCE, when they were told to stop allowing the WORSHIP, (not belief) of other gods.

When the Northern Kingdom seceded from the South, the King in the North (was his name Jeroboam ?) set up a "mimic" of the temple in Jerusalem and instead of the two golden sphynxes on top of the arc, he set up Two Golden Bulls, (which is one of the reasons why, when the priests got around to writing the "story" of the Exodus, they slammed the idea of a "golden bull" which Moses finds when he came down from Sinai, (in the myth).

There is an important over-looked fact here, that there clearly is a transition from "idol-worship" to the use of artifacts which "symbolize the presence of" ... a god. By the time Jeroboam set up the Bulls, human thought had transitioned to the symbolic age.

The use of the words "idols" and "pagans" are pejorative terms (no longer used in academia), to slam the representations of what are believed to be *real* beings, and beliefs that are not held by those using those terms.

(Sorry for re-opening an old debate).
 
   I’m not very knowledgeable in these issues but I’ve seen many idols from the Arabian Peninsula in the Archaeology Museum of İstanbul that seem to confirm what you are saying. So let’s look at one of the oldest of these idols:
 

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The Seated Goddess was discovered in the site of Çatal Höyük (7400-6200 BC) / A UNESCO World Heritage site (yet there is nothing to see there if you go as a tourist ) by the Archaeologist James Melaart in 1967.


 
She is very similar to the Woman from Willendorf (30,000 – 25,000 BC):


 
 
 
What they have in common is exaggerated feminine traits (breasts, hips and vagina). For hunter gatherers this (probably) represented the life giving force of nature (Notice that the second statue does not have a human face, there are dot patterns instead of a face). So fertility is one aspect, the life giving force is the other aspect. That’s how I understand it.
 
There are also some wall paintings that were retrieved from the site of Çatal Höyük:
 

 
These are understood as paintings that are related to some magic rituals that are expressing the will of these Hunter-Gatherers to capture buffalos and other such animals. Like the Native American’s dancing to attract the Buffalo. See how the people are so tiny while the Bull is so gigantic. It definitely represents a force of nature rather than some ordinary animal. One of them is even leaping over the bull. This might be the root of the “Bull leaping game” in the Minoan civilization of Crete several millennium later. Also Çatal Höyük was not an early agricultural community. They are thought to have been hunter-gatherers who settled there because animal herds were very abundant in that region. So this is a "Buffalo Dance". A symbolic act to control the forces of nature rather than idolatry directed on a simple object (like a painting for instance).
 
So personally, I don’t know of any society that worshipped “just the object”. Yet Monotheistic religions don’t like that. In Hinduism there are pantheons of Gods with these sort of physical representations. People will make small offerings and will light incenses etc. It is true that Jews + Muslims do not like such behavior at all.
   Yet there is a deeper meaning to that. Look at this for instance:
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/21/asia/...index.html
 
A woman says “Bismillah” (We say that while undertaking a risky or particularly difficult effort for instance, It means “in the name of Allah”) before she eats a piece of pork. And the İslamists government fines her with 20,000 US dollars for that.
 
To me “idolatry” means over-identification with any aspect of the physical world. So if you are over identifying with some rules that were set by religion without understanding the meaning and aim of these rules when they were first issued, you are very definitely into idolatry.
 
Explainer: I can have stuff when I go visit someone and I am being offered this or that food. I won’t obsess with it. Still I have some duty toward my very own body. I need to respect it and keep it healthy (I think this is a common feature in most religions). So when I am on my own I won’t just rush to a fast food restaurant and order the (seemingly) most delicious food. I will take the time to see if I can find ordinary vegetable dishes that are being prepared in a heathy and hygienic manner. So Burger World is at the very bottom of my list. I will go there if there is really no other alternative.
 
   So we didn’t even come to the issue of pork here. But that’s the problem with these guys. They operate in Dogmas and the rules that were set accordingly with these dogmas. Which I see as a huge error. Which is why I believe that atheism is better in everyway than being imprisoned into that kind of very limited perspective.
 

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[Belacqua]

To me “idolatry” means over-identification with any aspect of the physical world. So if you are over identifying with some rules that were set by religion without understanding the meaning and aim of these rules when they were first issued, you are very definitely into idolatry.
   

Yes, I think this definition makes sense. And I think that even if we don't have the same religious beliefs as the writers of the Koran or the Old Testament, over-identification with mistaken things is a real worry. 

Probably you're familiar with the more modern concept of a fetish. People can have commodity fetishes, sexual fetishes, or religious fetishes, but they function pretty much as an old-fashioned idol. 

So for example maybe a person wants to be intelligent and sophisticated, but it's hard to actually have those qualities in oneself. So that person buys a watch or a car or something which makes him look as if he has those qualities. He has displaced something real and valuable onto a symbol, and made himself satisfied with that. Or you might want to be young and carefree, so you buy the brand which advertises itself this way, though you're still a slave to commodities.

Likewise with sexual fetishes, the original idea was that normal men want sex with women, but real women are scary, so the sexual desire is displaced onto shoes or something less threatening. 

In every case, a person wants a good thing but replaces it with a fake, because the fake is easier. 

I've heard some Christians speak of bibliolatry, in which literal-minded Christians worship the Bible itself and neglect the real meaning of the religion. They are so worked up over their commitment to the text that they forget to be good people. 

So I suspect that some Muslims might be guilty of something similar -- freaking out over symbols and neglecting actual goodness.

[Leonardo17]

1) Fetish is a Freudian term. Like the man is seeing in his dream that his female cousin is offering him a pair of balloons this means that he is willing to have sex with his cousin but is unable to admit it to himself.
 

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   Sex-shops are full of such items, if it makes sense to anyone I think it’s perfectly cool.
 
2) That’s another nice example. If you have Russian backgrounds it is possible that your parents taught you to despise such things. That’s the way I was raised in the 80’s and 90’s too. I looked down on some idiots in my school who tried to impress us with their very expensive air pressurized shoes or Casio watches which contained air pressure measurement, water depth measurement, altitude measurement + several other type of function. In the late 70’s calculators where a symbol of prestige (like the newest Apple phones today). And we should not forget that all members of the Soviet Nomenclature had Rolex watches (all of them).
 
   I’m not a fanatic of such approaches anymore. My only opposition is that consumerism is destroying the planet. So if you have 4-5 electronic devices while you will be just fine with two of them, you may be in need to check your habbits.
 
3) “I've heard some Christians speak of bibliolatry, in which literal-minded Christians worship the Bible itself and neglect the real meaning of the religion. They are so worked up over their commitment to the text that they forget to be good people.
 
So I suspect that some Muslims might be guilty of something similar -- freaking out over symbols and neglecting actual goodness.”
 
- Absolutely. I met this guy in the store last day with a Muslim Holy Book under his left arm. I had to show him in a rather polite manner that I was not impressed. Because you are supposed to study that book (with the awareness that you are seeking to learn rather than an attitude of “I read it once now I know everything and I can impose this knowledge (!) on anyone else”). So we had our moment of disagreement
 
Back to the subject:
 
Right now someone who is “promoting nudity” or “making fun” of the headscarf can be fined between 3000 and 7000 US Dollars + 10 years in prison.
 
https://www.wionews.com/world/iran-passe...ode-638074
 
The reason why this post is here is that: What if I as a man am wearing something (anything) that is truly aimed at making fun of this political more than religious symbol or message they are trying to promote?
 
What if I choose to wore… like a British type flat-cap that day? What happens then?
 

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[The Grand Nudger]

You can use the term in that way - but fetishes are positively ancient and don't have to have anything to do with sex. The veneration of objects believed to have magical or supernatural potency.

Like magic books. The reason that abrahamism forbids idolatry, fetishes, and totems, is that they're competition for it's own idols, fetishes, and totems. Think of it like this. The big crucifixion sculptures in churches and cathedrals? Those are idols. The magic books littered all over the place? Fetishes. The crosses people wear around their necks, totems. You can probably come up with islamic analogs for each in your own experience.

[Leonardo17]

  The subject is very wide. If we start studying this subject in scientific terms we could write something as wide as a university thesis on this.
 

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   In more practical terms, I like having little statuettes around me. I see no harm in that because they are rather positive elements and I do not worship them. I know people who use crystals more extensively. And I know there is a whole science to it. Crystals are believed to store energies and promote spiritual and physical well-being. In India they have Dyalinga’s. That is, huge stones that are believed to be charged with positive energy which are believed to have positive effects on anyone who enters the temple.
 
   Now back to our subject: In ancient Egypt they believed that the Kha or life force of a deceased person could enter some of the statues. And there was a Muslim mystical person who warned me on that kind of thing. In his view, a small statuette of Apollo that I may have bought in some tourist avenue was absolutely harmless. Still, if the statue was dedicated (as in the Egyptian example above), this would mean that it has the potential to intervene with my own energies and therefore be harmful to me. I am not an expert on such issues but I tend to believe these things when they come from someone I see as “knowledgeable”.
 
   But you cannot compare that to a statue of the Virgin or a Christ dying on the cross. Of course, we as Muslims are technically not allowed to pray to this icons. Although many of us do not see a problem with offering a prayer (in our own way) inside Christian holy sites. And this isn’t a very big issue either.
 
   What I am talking about here is different. In exodus 20:5 it says: “You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God…”
 
   In fact there is a whole set of deeper meaning to that which are beyond the subject of this topic. But the very simple way in which I understand this is “Do not take something of this world and start to see it as the Ultimate Reality”
 
   So this includes dogmas in the first place. Or all the superficial / most noticeable elements of any religion. A huge problem that we have in developing countries in which education systems are non-universal and often a privilege of the better-off classes is this: People are starting to misplace religion. Religion starts to be used as an education device, as a political ideology, as a substitute for reason, a substitute for medicine, a way to demonstrate stuff to other people, basically religion turns into everything except religion itself.  
   So limited minds are creating idols, fetishes, totems everywhere. The Church of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul is a totem for instance. You may check is in Wikipedia. It was built some 1500 years ago by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian. It’s a great monument which is very important in historical terms. But the Political Islamic-minded government had to turn the Museum back into a mosque. And you can extend this to the over-implication with the female body, the consumption of a set of food and beverages, your showing up to the Friday prayer (so everybody can see you), a restaurant closing its doors during the holy month of Ramadan so everybody sees how pious they are…
   So I don’t know if there are parallels in more developed countries. But I tend to see very similar things in India for instance.
   In my culture in general, people will not always adhere to this, but they will still repeat on a mind level that objects, superficial / visible elements or idols do not really matter and therefore cannot be our standard in evaluating anybody’s faith or devotion. So that’s what I’m trying to explain here.
    And in spiritual terms: Exodus 20:5 is a very powerful allegory. Let me explain my own understanding of this image before I wrap this up: To me Sex is not a bad thing. It is a part of our nature I do not and have never seen “sin” in a bodily function as simple as sex. Still: If you take sex and hedonism and turn it into your source of happiness or the primary object or goal of your life you may end up being disappointed. Because you may end up discovering that it is a limited thing that cannot fulfill your inner search for something greater. And this works for money, cars, art or even science and philosophy. You can “hang out” with the various elements of this world (that is your right) but you cannot expect anything of this world to give you full and entire satisfaction because as a spiritual being you are not of this earth.
 
   So I know this last paragraph is a little “deep”. But I want you to see the depth of our issues as spiritual men and women. That’s how serious we are and that’s the sort of thing we are dealing with within ourselves. Therefore it’s perfectly safe to say that someone who is involved with “other” aspects of religion is either deceiving you or is being deceived in their own way.
 
   I personally do not mind about that either. But Abrahamic books (including the Quran) are very violent against people who are deceiving others and are being deceived in that way. Look at the second part of Exodus 20:5
“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,”
 
   This is but one example. The Quran is also full of such affirmation. I had an atheist friend who once told me “There is simply too much violence in the Quran”.
 
   Well, My theory: Maybe the message here is to be very vigilant (I mean for us believers) on such issues. Maybe God is very serious on this and does not want people to be “deceived with God”. Maybe that’s the meaning of the Jews being punished for having built this “Golden Bull”.
 
   As I said, real religion is all about deeper meanings. You have to take the time and be involved and ask the right questions etc. You can’t just take a “magic book”, put it in your arm-pit and go out in the street and start telling people “Thou shalt do that, Thou shalt not do that” etc. like a 5 year old kid dressed like superman who things no one else can be any better than him.
 
    As spiritual people, we are supposed to observe such people and to see how the ego has its way of doing things, thinking it’s in perfect control, while being a total deception to itself and others.
 
   So very simply said: Don’t be impressed. Not anyone who is dressed like a pastor is truly a pator (Fr. L’habit ne fait pas le moine)

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[The Grand Nudger]

There isn't a whole, or a partial, science to crystals. You're right that they're not idols, they're often employed as fetishes and totems...but here's the question I have-

Why would it be bad if you -did- worship them? So god is a jealous god. Is he going to hurt you if you want to see other people? As for whether or not you can grab a magic book and then start harassing passersby on a street corner...yeah, you can do that, it happens with some regularity.

[Bucky Ball]

 

I think you're mistaken. That's just a woman from Orange County having a "spa" day.

[Leonardo17]

 

I think you're mistaken. That's just a woman from Orange County having a "spa" day.

No Sir, If Belisarius didn’t sell it and replace it for a fake she is right here in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations