Quotes About Idolatry

When secular figures are turned into divinities, they way they are in Peian Yang or Stanford University - that I don't like.

To wail adamantly that a god exists is to kill that god or turn it into a plastic idol. To say that a god might exist is to vivify it with the meaning of mystery.

Christian theory is little else than the idolatry of ancient mythologists, accomodated to the purposes of power and revenue; and yet it remains to reason and philosophy to abolish the amphibious fraud.

Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The Heathens paid divine honours to their deceased kings, and the Christian world hath improved on the plan, by doing the same to their living ones. How impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust!

The Christian theory is little else than the idolatry of the ancient mythologists, accommodated to the purposes of power and revenue; and it yet remains to reason and philosophy to abolish the amphibious fraud.

Government by kings was first introduced into the world by Heathens, from which the children of Israel copied the custom, It was the most prosperous invention the devil ever set foot for the promotion of idolatry.

Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The Heathens paid divine honors to their deceased kings, and the christian world hath improved on the plan by doing the same to their living ones. How impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust!

There are no favorites at the Lord's Table. The only cure for factionalism, immorality, idolatry, and favoritism, then as now, is the gospel.

What a strange god to worship. I'm sure he's great at answering your prayers, as long as you want a stick fetching or a cat chasing away.

We call an obsession with having someone's approval 'co-dependency;' the Bible's word for it is idolatry. A country can be an idol. A family can be an idol.

Whenever we make an idol of anything, we presuppose that it has the power to give life. We confuse something given by God as a means of life with its being the source and fulfillment of life. False worship is so dangerous because it witnesses to human attention and energy being directed in ways that are bound to lead to mutual harm.

Idols evoke worship in us because we think they can save us from life's contingencies, mysteries, and finitude. Put another way, we make idols of all sorts of things—the stock market, a job, superstar athletes and performers, our families—because we think that by giving our allegiance to them we will make our lives secure and complete.

The logic of idolatry is ultimately self-and world-defeating, because the idolatrous impulse is born out of a deep distrust in God's love and care and a denial of the sacred character of the world. People embark on an idolatrous path when they believe that God's gifts are not sufficient or God's care is misdirected.

On the one hand, idolatry is a means by which we try to control God, to make worshiping him less of a sacrifice. On the other hand, the false gods we make—either by crafting them directly with our hands, or by conjuring them more discreetly in the way we invest our time, desires, skills, and passions—always end up controlling us. By their nature, false gods are vampires. They prey on, and draw their life from, the human spirit.

Man, or woman, is not made to be worshiped. We are not physically cut out for it. Life in the spotlight, on the pedestal, at the top of the world was a lonely, singular, desolate, soul-killing place.

Augustine [of Hippo] knew the power and the danger of idolatry and celebrity. And he knew the danger of both was first to permit the idolater to offload the duty of thinking onto their idol. And second to seduce the celebrity, in turn, into thinking his fans have nothing insightful to say. That treatment of a fellow human, a fellow christian, would be not the achievement of theology but the avoidance of it. And he went out of his way in his life and in his words to forestall such approaches.

A man cannot love himself; he can only idolize it, and over the idol delightfully tyrannize - without purpose. The great gift which the simple idolatry of self gives is lack of further purpose

Men to whom God is dead worship one another.

Genesis' saying that we are made in the likeness of God does not mean that God looks a little like us, with a face and a body, arms and legs, but that at the time of the creation of the first man and woman, human beings did not know or care about a tangible likeness, about the fact that they had bodies. The awareness of them is an invention of the human self, idolatrously preoccupied with wanting something to look at in the mirror.

These are hard times. Imperial death-pangs are never pleasant; and it seems we find ourselves in the midst of the geo-political playground when the empire is thrashing about in a vain attempt to maintain its idolatrous pursuit of wealth and power, seeking to be "great again," seeking to demonize those whose own violence it fears.

In spite of his many successes, he is denigrated for his extreme polygamy, having had 700 wives and 300 concubines according to the Bible. These women drew him towards sin and idolatry and made God angry with him, and this has been attributed as one of the causes for the division of Israel after his death.

It is curious how instinctively one protects the image of oneself from idolatry or any other handling that could make it ridiculous, or too unlike the original to be believed any longer.

Money was their God; work their religion.

I looked at some of the statues of Jesus; they were just stones with no life. When they said that God is three, I was puzzled even more but could not argue. I believed it, simply because I had to have respect for the faith of my parents.