I'm just going to address these two points: >> This is especially true re: Catholics. When my son was 6 years old, he >> pointed to a statue of Jesus in somebody's car and said he thought that >was >> idolatry and violated the commandment about graven images. > >This isn't idoltry either. Idoltry is when you worship the statue. >Worshiping of God/Jesus through the use of a symbolic item, such as a cross >or statue is different. Actually, every idol worshiping culture holds the idol to be a representation or symbol of the deity on earth. Islam (counting on type and devoutness) does not allow statues of any sort. Wicca holds that they're a physical symbol of the spiritual Goddess. In many ways, the use of statues in Christianity does form a problem. I believe that there are sects that do not allow any statues or representations at all.
>> And praying to >> the Virgin Mary and Saints strikes me as polytheism. > >I can't speak for Catholics, but as I understand it, they pray to the saints >to speak to God on their behalf and not praying to the saints to act in >God's place ... but I could be wrong. I believe that its a question of asking those who were spiritually purer to 'intercede' with God for the prayer. The problem comes in with the 'target' of the prayer. If its "St. Jude please carry my prayers before God so that I may win the lottery" then its basically ok. But "St. Jude, please let me win the lottery" is not. As a side note, this is one of the major problems in the occult when dealing with spiritual entities. Is lighting incense the same as sacrificing it to them, which is not allowed (mentioned in the Talmud)? Is asking them a boon the same as a prayer? Where's the line? This is a very important question because there are 'cults' of saints that treat them very much like deities themselves. ______________________________________________________________________ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
