Is idolatry trying to raise something finite to a position of ultimacy? Is idolatry the elevation of the medium of revelation to the dignity of the revelation itself? Or something else?
In some aspects, it may be seen as the Ultimate feeling of inferiority.
Idolatry is EXTREME ADMIRATION FOR A PERSON, WORSHIPING to an extreme limit, which, in a way, is depending on something abstract, which may turn into psychological vulnerability, as stated earlier!
Sorry Prof , I studied in a school that was run by a Christian missionary, since my teenage years I wondered why was Jesus nailed !!!!!!!
May be he gave in ...
Idolatría
1.Práctica religiosa en la que se rinde culto a un ídolo.
2.Amor y admiración excesivos que se sienten por una persona o por una cosa.
Idolatry is giving undue reverence to undeserved spirits believed to be latent in human articial creations.
Idolatry is to give adoration to an idol or some idols, and do not give the due adoration to the true God.
The use of material images of various gods (idols) in religious worship has a long history and a central place in the polytheistic religions of the ancient world. The worship of these gods is strictly prohibited in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This practice is generally referred to as idolatry. In addition, the making of images of the one God along with the use of such images in worship is also considered idolatry within these three monotheistic faiths. In the ancient societies within which Judaism, Christianity and, later, Islam emerged, almost all aspects of life were touched by the presence of idols. For a Jew (particularly in the diaspora) or a Christian to faithfully negotiate one’s way through the activities of daily life in such a world required sustained attentiveness and resolve.
Over time, idolatry became more generally and metaphorically associated with ideas, motivations, beliefs and commitments that draw believers’ attention away from God. In some instances in Christianity, idolatry simply becomes a synonym for sin.
Although it is not common today for Jews, Christians or Muslims to worship fabricated images of their own or other gods, some of the ongoing philosophical and theological issues concern how God’s creation can manifest the invisible God. In what ways, if any, can the created world mediate God truthfully to humans? Can such things as icons be instrumental in the worship of the one God without that worship being idolatrous? In recent French phenomenological writing, some of these issues receive attention.
Although these concerns may seem distant from those of the Bible and Quran, they share a common recognition that idolatry stems from a failure of attentiveness, an inability or unwillingness to focus one’s attention and desire upon God in the face of myriad distractions.
Ref: https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/idolatry/v-1
Idolatry is faking but not lying.
Idolatry is the endowment of the idol with a significance that it does not have. Then we take ourselves in and say through the ritual of the act of worship (a figurative beating of drums and the usual sacrifice or two), in which the whole thing becomes so intense with meaning, that we are persuaded in ourselves that this thing must have a power or meaning that we have attributed to it. The human tendency is to work ourselves up into the condition of being frightened by something that becomes frightening and then it becomes powerful so that we are enslaved by our own creation. It is the primary way that the soul is corrupted. A world of truth must shine through by the taking away of the fake world we create.
Jacques Lacan writes something worthy to be noted, “It is the connection between signifier and signifier that permits the illusion in which the signifier installs the lack of being in the object relation using the value of reference back possessed by signification in order to invest it with the desire aimed at the very lack it supports" (Seminar V, 21.05.58., p.7).
Dear Kirk,
The notion of idolatry is an invention of Judaism. I really like the thesis of Jan Assmann on this question. His position has evolved over the years but it is very enlightening. Anti-idolatry is part of iconoclast and iconoclast is linked with the transitions from oral to written culture, from various mode of expression of the sacred to a focus on the written canonical text. It is not a coincidence that reform follow the printing press, return to written culture and a renewal of the iconoclastic. There is an dogmatic effect of the written, a tendency to subsume the imagination that accompany the predominance of the written in the culture. Christianity was originally a departure from this suppression of the exuberant imagination. This is a greek persian influence and a return to imagination.
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