Idolaters are Pagans?

[Madhuri]

The attitude toward idolatry has always made little sense to me. I've been trying to make sense of it! So I've been reading online about definitions and explanations. Something that keeps coming up is that Idolaters are pagans. For instance:

Idolater
• (n.) An adorer; a great admirer. • (n.) A worshiper of idols; one who pays divine honors to images, statues, or representations of anything made by hands; one who worships as a deity that which is not God; a pagan.

Idolater
I·dol'a·ter noun [ French idolâtre : confer Latin idololatres , Greek .... See Idolatry .] 1. A worshiper of idols; one who pays divine honors to images, statues, or representations of anything made by hands; one who worships as a deity that which is not God; a pagan.

But according to what some on this site have explained and also from some religious sites, Idol Worshipping seems to be a bit different. This is an explanation that I thought was decent:

Most people today who have any concept of idolatry probably think of pagans bowing down and worshipping a strange-looking idol—a carved image or statue. That's part of what idolatry means, but since most of us today don't do that, how do God's commands against idolatry apply to Christians now?


In the King James Version of the Bible, there are three different words translated as "idolatry." Each one (teraphiym, kateidolos and eidololatria) has at its core the concept of serving or worshipping something other than the one true God.
The apostle Paul provides us with a modern application of idolatry in the middle of a sentence in his letter to the Colossians. He mentions "covetousness [greed, New International Version], which is idolatry" (Colossians 3:5).


So idolatry is not just venerating a statue, carving or painting. Idolatry occurs when we begin to value anything more than we value God. If we spend more time thinking about our hero than God, that's idolatry. If our every thought is about the latest gadget or our personal appearance, that's idolatry. If the first priority in our lives is our family, even that's idolatry.


When God said, "You shall have no other gods before Me" (Exodus 20:3), He wasn't just talking about the imaginary deities that seem so ridiculous to us today. He was talking about anything that usurps His place as number one in our hearts. The solution to this problem is as simple (and as difficult) as Christ's admonition in Matthew 6:33: "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness."
Everything else must come after.


(What is idolatry? - Bible FAQ)

So why are Pagans always picked on as being idolaters when really, according to the above definition, most people are?

 

[EverChanging]

I think greed is a better interpretation.

I have tried praying to different deities (to me, of course, they are all part of my psyche.) They each have a different feel, induce a different state, their own unique personality. But they all come from the same place. They're all me. They're all one.

A statue, an image -- I find these helpful. It's not the icon or the statue or the painting we worship, but a part of our psyche that the picture helps us zone into. It's like when I look at a picture of the one I love and adore. I may smile and feel love in my heart when I see his picture, but it's not the picture I love. It's my dear friend.

The deities are my friends. And they are me.

 

[The Neo Nerd]

I don't know of any pagan "paths" that worship idols.

However catholicism MAY be considered idolatrous because of their worshipping of/in front of statues of jesus or mary

-Q

 

[herushura]

Masonic Corrupted Jews worship towards the Idol "Hexagram" are Pagans

 

[EverChanging]

I don't know of any pagan "paths" that worship idols.

However catholicism MAY be considered idolatrous because of their worshipping of/in front of statues of jesus or mary

-Q

So long as the worship is going to Jesus and Mary (and yes, it is worship of Mary), it is not the statue or the image, but the object of adoration that receives the praise.

I am not a Roman Catholic, but I do worship the Virgin Mary. She has appeared in many cultures under other names than Mary, but the titles of Mary are common of other goddesses: Gate to Heaven, Queen of Heaven, Immaculate Mother....

She is an archetypal figure. I suppose I am drawn to her because her image was imprinted on my psyche at a very early age when a Roman Catholic friend of my mother's gave me a book about the Fatima story.

 

[Madhuri]

So long as the worship is going to Jesus and Mary (and yes, it is worship of Mary), it is not the statue or the image, but the object of adoration that receives the praise.

But that's the same for any religion as far as I know. Speaking as a Hindu, the statue is not the object or worship, God is.

 

[EverChanging]

But that's the same for any religion as far as I know. Speaking as a Hindu, the statue is not the object or worship, God is.

Correct.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

By wrapping "God" in definitions and expectations and lauding it above all other experiences, we worship something other than the true "God." I see that as idolatry as well.

Not that idolatry is a bad thing; human experience is full of idol worship. Whenever I call forth a pleasant memory to chase away a nightmare, I am using an idol as a magical device. My favorite copy of my favorite book, Bram Stoker's Dracula, is kept in a special box and brought out every Halloween season to read, using a special bookmark and often while imbibing special drinks like pumpkin spiced coffee or beer. (Licks lips thinking of Shipyard's Pumpkinhead Ale.)

I think it's associated with pagans in the way that all things non-Christian become pagan. Also, "pagan" referred to the country people who practiced folk rituals that often involved fetishes for local Gods or spirits to which offerings were made.

I have my own Pan fetish on the remains of a once-favorite tree that I offer grapes and raisins to.

 

[Thesavorofpan]

The attitude toward idolatry has always made little sense to me. I've been trying to make sense of it! So I've been reading online about definitions and explanations. Something that keeps coming up is that Idolaters are pagans. For instance:

Idolater
• (n.) An adorer; a great admirer. • (n.) A worshiper of idols; one who pays divine honors to images, statues, or representations of anything made by hands; one who worships as a deity that which is not God; a pagan.

Idolater
I·dol'a·ter noun [ French idolâtre : confer Latin idololatres , Greek .... See Idolatry .] 1. A worshiper of idols; one who pays divine honors to images, statues, or representations of anything made by hands; one who worships as a deity that which is not God; a pagan.

But according to what some on this site have explained and also from some religious sites, Idol Worshipping seems to be a bit different. This is an explanation that I thought was decent:

Most people today who have any concept of idolatry probably think of pagans bowing down and worshipping a strange-looking idol—a carved image or statue. That's part of what idolatry means, but since most of us today don't do that, how do God's commands against idolatry apply to Christians now?


In the King James Version of the Bible, there are three different words translated as "idolatry." Each one (teraphiym, kateidolos and eidololatria) has at its core the concept of serving or worshipping something other than the one true God.
The apostle Paul provides us with a modern application of idolatry in the middle of a sentence in his letter to the Colossians. He mentions "covetousness [greed, New International Version], which is idolatry" (Colossians 3:5).


So idolatry is not just venerating a statue, carving or painting. Idolatry occurs when we begin to value anything more than we value God. If we spend more time thinking about our hero than God, that's idolatry. If our every thought is about the latest gadget or our personal appearance, that's idolatry. If the first priority in our lives is our family, even that's idolatry.


When God said, "You shall have no other gods before Me" (Exodus 20:3), He wasn't just talking about the imaginary deities that seem so ridiculous to us today. He was talking about anything that usurps His place as number one in our hearts. The solution to this problem is as simple (and as difficult) as Christ's admonition in Matthew 6:33: "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness."
Everything else must come after.


(What is idolatry? - Bible FAQ)

So why are Pagans always picked on as being idolaters when really, according to the above definition, most people are?

I really like what you just said.

Well maybe Pagans are picked on because it's one of the easest forms of idolatry to recoginize and you know people arn't going to self-analyze themselves too look for idols in their life.

 

[Gentoo]

So why are Pagans always picked on as being idolaters when really, according to the above definition, most people are?

We're picked on for many other reasons, why not idolatry?

 

[brbubba]

But that's the same for any religion as far as I know. Speaking as a Hindu, the statue is not the object or worship, God is.

I think that's pretty clear about any religion. Idols, as far as I know, were always created as a representation of something far greater. Which is why I believe the bible literally means idols of any sort. Far be it from any Christian to admit to this though.

 

[Smoke]

I think people who get their drawers in a twist over statues and icons are rather silly and superficial. The concept of iconography is so simple that even a child can grasp it, and to refer to icons and statues as idols, at least in a negative way, seems almost deliberately obtuse.

The idolatry you need to worry about is when you think your ideas about God correspond to reality, or when you think the important things about God can be put down with ink and paper. That's when you've really got a problem with idolatry.

 

[Pegg]

The attitude toward idolatry has always made little sense to me. I've been trying to make sense of it! So I've been reading online about definitions and explanations. Something that keeps coming up is that Idolaters are pagans. For instance:

Idolater
• (n.) An adorer; a great admirer. • (n.) A worshiper of idols; one who pays divine honors to images, statues, or representations of anything made by hands; one who worships as a deity that which is not God; a pagan.

Most people today who have any concept of idolatry probably think of pagans bowing down and worshipping a strange-looking idol—a carved image or statue. That's part of what idolatry means, but since most of us today don't do that, how do God's commands against idolatry apply to Christians now?

They apply to christians just as much today as they ever did. To create an image and pray to it is an act of idolatry and that is exactly what christians do. Every time they pray to an image of one of their 'saints' or to the pope or when they bow before a statue of Mary or when they kiss the cross its an act of idolatry.

They dont view it as idolatry because they dont really know what idolatry is. But its no different to a hindu who bows before an image of Vishnu (?) or a muslim who bows before the 'Dome of the Rock' .... idolatry is when we give our devotion to anything or anyone other then God.

So why are Pagans always picked on as being idolaters when really, according to the above definition, most people are?

because the church's have made idolatry a part of normal practice so worshipers do not even realize they are doing it.

yes, the church's have a lot to answer for.