Commentaries
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The idol is described by the concept of Authoritative Dictates. The idol possesses an existence outside and separate from the individual and possesses specific conceptual contexts for how the idol, should be treated and how the individual should behave toward it. These conceptual directives are learned and must be absorbed through education. These idols possess authority greater than the individual. In terms of the whole of the time one is employed in the activity of living, the time spent in actual worship, ceremony and education concerning the idol is very little. And the idol is usually not very complex, such that education concerning its intricacies over a lifetime is very little. Thus the individual in terms of the spirituality of Idolatry is very lazy, and not that much is really required. Spiritual Idolatry is defined or at least practiced as separate and independent from ordinary living, which is thought as too mundane for spiritual content. In contrast for the
spiritually conservative, all the activity of living and a lifetime is the engagement with Spirituality.
An iconoclast is one who detests and may or may not seek to destroy sacred religious images or idols. The reasoning may be that the iconoclast feels that dead, inanimate idols are considered to be of greater importance than living things. An iconoclastic act was the destruction of the giant Buddha statues carved in stone in Afghanistan. The reasoning given was that the western agencies wanted to spend untold amounts of money restoring and preserving these monuments, while at the same time many Afghani citizens were starving. The idols were said to more important than people.
IDOL (3 of 3)
COMMENTARIES
