Icons, what gives?

What's with worshipping a painted wooden panel as holy, or a statue? How about relics? How is this not polytheism?

BTW, the body has two types of cells that shape bones. They are most active when a bone breaks or is otherwise injured. One type, the osteoblasts, produces new bone tissue. The other type, the osteoclasts, destroys existing bone tissue.

Anyway, I don't really care, not deep down. But Religion, for reasons to be determined, is a major force in history. Fortunately not as major as it used to be. If WWI was a massively stupid blunder, the various religious wars, rebellions and bouts of persecution and repression, were outright insanity. Literal insanity: people were fighting over something that doesn't exist.

Good news is no one is worshiping icons, statues, or relics so you don't have to worry about polytheism. The simplest and easiest way of thinking about icons, pictures, and statues is to look at them as our family pictures. We have pictures of grandma and other important members of our family. We might also feel sentimental towards their favorite desk or a piece of jewelry that was theirs. Some people back in the day used to even take a lock of a loved one's hair.

It is true for reasons to be determined that religion is not as major a force in culture as it used to be and maybe that is why these non-religious wars have caused the most deaths, horrific crimes, and bloodshed than all the other religious wars combined. True insanity has been demonstrated only when people believe their is no God.

I kneeled to my icon back in the day.
Grateful Dead use to FM radio broadcast their New Years shows every Dec 31.
I would kneel down to my stereo below the TV, hit record on the tape deck as the show started and pray no power outage for the next 3 hours :-)

Quote: FrGamble

Good news is no one is worshiping icons, statues, or relics .

Bad news is, it sure looks like they are.
Go into some Catholic old ladies home
where she has a big shrine with Mary
in the middle and surrounded by statues
of saints and and she kneels to it 10
times a day, crossing herself and playing
with the rosary, sure looks like she's
worshiping idols.

Quote: FrGamble

Good news is no one is worshiping icons, statues, or relics so you don't have to worry about polytheism.

As sorry as I am to tell you this, I've seen people worship icons. It happens all the time. Hell, you can't go most places with a blue-collar workforce and not see a plethora of icons of Mary. I mean icons as I've seen them defined in history books, in particular during the iconoclastic era od the Byzantine Empire.

And I've heard much about the worship of relics, too, like pieces of bone, blood, artifacts, etc.

Quote:

Some people back in the day used to even take a lock of a loved one's hair.

And don't think I don't regard that as creepy <shudder>

Quote: FrGamble

It is true for reasons to be determined that religion is not as major a force in culture as it used to be and maybe that is why these non-religious wars have caused the most deaths, horrific crimes, and bloodshed than all the other religious wars combined.

It seems you expect me to defend non-religious wars. I'll burst your bubble and tell you this: few wars are defensible in a moral sense. Fighting in self-defense is moral, even in war. Initiating a war very seldom can be called moral.

You may want to look up "The War Prayer," by Mark Twain. Just because a war is not religious in nature doesn't mean religion isn't involved.

Evenbob, I don't know if you would be so kind as to remove that video I find it very offensive. Imagine if someone had an image of your beloved great-grandmother who was the greatest person in the history of your family and whom everyone loved very much and someone desecrated, mocked, and destroyed it. By the way the statue is not of Mary, but it is of St. Theresa of Avila. It is so sad and staggering the anti-Catholic ignorance.

Quote: Nareed

As sorry as I am to tell you this, I've seen people worship icons. It happens all the time.

I'm sorry to hear that as well. It certainly has nothing to do with authentic Catholicism.

Quote: Nareed

You may want to look up "The War Prayer," by Mark Twain. Just because a war is not religious in nature doesn't mean religion isn't involved.

Wow! What a fantastic poem thanks for sharing it with me. It makes me realize, as you said, what role religion has even in these atheistic brutal wars. I shudder to think what would have happened if instead of religion's power being weakened it was not present for the wars of the 20th century. I have a feeling none of us would even be around today to consider it.

Quote: FrGamble

Wow! What a fantastic poem thanks for sharing it with me.

You're welcome.

If you're interested, there's a rather good reading of it tacked on an episode of the Audio Guide to Babylon 5 podcast.

Unfortunately you lost me after that.

Quote: FrGamble

Evenbob, I don't know if you would be so kind as to remove that video I find it very offensive.

It's a meaningless statue, why doesn't the
minister have the right to hit it with a
hammer if it belongs to him? Are you
upset because you think it's real?

Here's a better video. This is inside a
church as they carry a new idol to the
alter. Listen to the blood curdling screams
from the congregation, it's like they think
it's a living thing. That's idol worship.