Musings on Idolatry and the {real} 2nd Commandment

[Anomaly]

[quote name='Eutychus' post='1043964' date='Aug 15 2006, 04:55 AM']
Yeah, sure, Jesus taught that a HUGE STRONG CHRUCH would be there upon His return....right?
It rather looks like, Jesus was saying, will there even BE FAITH, upon the earth when He returns?
Well, unlike some.....I don't consider "my denomination" to be anything more or less than a gathering of believers for worship and study.

And in the five years, I can count on one hand, the times that the Catholic Church has even been mentioned, and that was in passing, mostly in reference to the movie, the PASSION OF THE CHRIST.

Personal faith saves you, not your building or denomination. Nicodemus was given the answer, being in the Sanhedrin he was up to his eyeballs in "demonination"....yet did Jesus tell him to stay in "his church" or even leave "his church?"

No. Neither.

What Jesus told him, in a nutshell, is that you needed to be "born from above/again" in SPIRIT to be saved.
[/quote]Oh. So you are anti-denomination?

[CoffeeCatholic]

[quote name='Eutychus' post='1043701' date='Aug 14 2006, 03:15 PM']
No, do you?

Or as ex Catholics like to do, we turn to the bible and see if Veronica can be found there...shall we?
By the way...WHICH of the many competing TRUE VIEL's are we referring to?

Oh, yeah, forgot...one more thing. The iggerunts that believe such things....might want to know that there was NEVER A VERONICA, yeah, no such chick. It is a igguruntestesistes bastardization of VERA ICONIA, or "true image"

But hey, never let real history get in the way of a Catholic fable and fairy tale, right? Maybe a flying house that moves from here to there, or saints that walk into town carrying their severed head are where old Veronica hid that veil...you never know, now do you?
[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/09/Francesco_Mochi.jpg/180px-Francesco_Mochi.jpg[/img]
[/quote]

Yes, Veronica is in the Gospels during the passion sequences, she's just not given a name. The name we have may or may not be her real name, as there's speculation of it's origins meaning "true image" but none the less, she was there, she existed, and she has an image of Christ's face.

Also, what about Our Lady of Chestahova (sp?) painted in year 80 by none other than the gospel writer Luke. If that doesn't speak for itself, i don't know what will.

Finally, do you have any pictures in your house of your family, your mom, your kids (if you have them), or even any pictures at all? Why do you have these pictures? Do you think that your mother is inside of that picture which you have hanging on the wall of her? No! You have those pictures to remind you of your mother, to look at and say "my, i remember that time" or "I really love you mom". Same with sacred icons. They are simply "pictures" of holy people whom we wish to remember so that we can be reminded of something they did or who they were in order to live out more holy lives like them.

If you believe there's nothing wrong with having pictures of your family, or painting or art which you like and remind you of something (like those inspiration posters) then there is no reason for you to dislike Holy Art. That's like saying "I like to have pictures of random people who don't mean anything to me, but i'd NEVER have a picture of my own mother, that's idol worship"

God Bless! and Happy Feast of the Assumption!

[Norseman82]

[quote name='OLAM Dad' post='1042508' date='Aug 13 2006, 05:53 AM']
Akalyte pretty much put this one to bed.

The prohibition against graven images is in Exodus 20 and yet we find God commanding Moses to do this in Exodus 25.
Did God command Moses to violate His own commandments by commanding him to make golden cherubim?
[/quote]

And not only that, what about the seraph serpent that, by looking at it, would cure the Israelites from snake bites?

[Eutychus]

[quote] Yes, Veronica is in the Gospels during the passion sequences, she's just not given a name[/quote]

Sorry, you have Grimms Fairy Tales for Catholics confused with the bible.

Oh, I forgot, anything that ANYONE "believed" is now equal to the bible, all you need is a few confused Collyridians and Nicolatians from anytime within the first 500 years and you have AUTHENTIC Traditions, right? If you can find a doctored up, forgery, or gnostic tale work it in and baptise it as authentic.

OK, show me up, produce the BIBLE VERSE where Veronica { did ANYONE read the history where the name itself was NOT A PERSON, but derived from the IMAGE? }

I will stand corrected when the IMAGE ON THE CLOTH is produced in the NT Passion sequences, as you put things.

Tic toc....

[quote]And not only that, what about the seraph serpent that, by looking at it, would cure the Israelites from snake bites? [/quote]

Have you got a CLUE what the "serpent" was?

It was GOD HImself, forshadowing the coming of Jesus, where He would be hoisted on a cross, where BRASS { the Hebrew image for sin } was made SIN FOR US, and ACCURSED { by hanging on a tree }

Sheesh.

And what did the geniuses DO with that brass serpent? Like Catholics today, they made it into a relic, set a shrine up for it, burned incense to it, and used it for moxie power.

And God had to order a later king, to go to the shrine the { Catholic/like } Jews had, and DESTROY the brass image/serpent, to eradicate it,a and stop them from acting like modern Catholics.

Sheesh, AGAIN...

[quote]2 Kings 18:1 (KJV) Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, [that] Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign.

2 Twenty and five years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also [was] Abi, the daughter of Zachariah.

3 And he did [that which was] right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father did.
[color="#993300"]
[b]4 He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and [u]brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.[/u][/b][/color][/quote]

[cmotherofpirl]

2K 18:4He removed the high places, and broke the pillars, and cut down the Asherah. And he broke into pieces the bronze serpent that Moses made, for until those days the people of Israel had burned incense to it, it was called Nehushtan."

Yep, the new king tore down the areas where pagan worship and sex orgies were occurring, and destroyed the bronze serpent which had become a rival to God instead of a method of curing injury.
There is a huge difference between worshipping a piece of metal, and using a statue to remind us of our family in heaven. ..but you know that already. :

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='Eutychus' post='1043985' date='Aug 15 2006, 08:29 AM']
Oh, I forgot, anything that ANYONE "believed" is now equal to the bible, all you need is a few confused Collyridians and Nicolatians from anytime within the first 500 years and you have AUTHENTIC Traditions, right? If you can find a doctored up, forgery, or gnostic tale work it in and baptise it as authentic.

[/quote]

Of course you seem to have forgotten the part about the church coming before the "bible"[church being pillar and foundation, not a book] and the fact the church chose what books actually appeared in the NT. The bible came from the church not the other way around, so therefore the book cannot disagree with the church that put it together.

[Guest JeffCR07]

Eutychus, could you please reply to my most previous post.

[stbernardLT]

This guy dodges more questions than Bill Clinton.

[Norseman82]

[quote name='Eutychus' post='1043985' date='Aug 15 2006, 07:29 AM']
OK, show me up, produce the BIBLE VERSE where Veronica { did ANYONE read the history where the name itself was NOT A PERSON, but derived from the IMAGE? }

I will stand corrected when the IMAGE ON THE CLOTH is produced in the NT Passion sequences, as you put things.
[/quote]

OK, show US up. YOU show US the bible verse where it says we need to show you the bible verse.

[CoffeeCatholic]

[quote name='Eutychus' post='1043961' date='Aug 15 2006, 06:43 AM']

Thank you for reminding me of the Orhtodox claim to apostolic succession.
[/quote]

the Orthodox have more holy Icons than we do.

[quote name='CoffeeCatholic' post='1043975' date='Aug 15 2006, 07:47 AM']
Yes, Veronica is in the Gospels during the passion sequences, she's just not given a name.
[/quote]

I recant this. It had been a long time since I had read the gospel passion sequences.

Anyway, my first point still stands. there have been holy Icons for as long as there has been God.

What do you say about Our Lady of Chestahova? I would like to hear your comments on that. If Luke was wrong, then could that mean that the gospel of Luke was not divinely inspired (aka, the Bible's wrong)? How could someone so close to God make such a grieveous error?

[ReinnieR]

[quote name='Eutychus' post='1043964' date='Aug 15 2006, 05:55 AM']
Yeah, sure, Jesus taught that a HUGE STRONG CHRUCH would be there upon His return....right?
It rather looks like, Jesus was saying, will there even BE FAITH, upon the earth when He returns?
Well, unlike some.....I don't consider "my denomination" to be anything more or less than a gathering of believers for worship and study.

And in the five years, I can count on one hand, the times that the Catholic Church has even been mentioned, and that was in passing, mostly in reference to the movie, the PASSION OF THE CHRIST.

Personal faith saves you, not your building or denomination. Nicodemus was given the answer, being in the Sanhedrin he was up to his eyeballs in "demonination"....yet did Jesus tell him to stay in "his church" or even leave "his church?"

No. Neither.

What Jesus told him, in a nutshell, is that you needed to be "born from above/again" in SPIRIT to be saved.
[/quote]
yeah because i was talking about a building.

and of coarse i was talking about a denomination.

i believe i was talking about the church that Jesus Christ established.

church = ecclesia (that's greek) it means a gathering

and of course you're gonna think i'm still talking about a building

when i say gathering i don't mean a gathering of bricks or cinder blocks

i mean a gathering of the called ones. that's what the greek word ecclesia mean.

by church i meant the body of christ.

i didn't say anything about a building

you might not understand what the Body of Christ is

here let me help you

[quote]
1 Corinthians 12:12-27



12 As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ.

13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.

14 Now the body is not a single part, but many.

15 If a foot should say, "Because I am not a hand I do not belong to the body," it does not for this reason belong any less to the body.

16 Or if an ear should say, "Because I am not an eye I do not belong to the body," it does not for this reason belong any less to the body.

17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?

18 But as it is, God placed the parts, each one of them, in the body as he intended.

19 If they were all one part, where would the body be?

20 But as it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

21 The eye cannot say to the hand, "I do not need you," nor again the head to the feet, "I do not need you."

22 Indeed, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are all the more necessary,

23 and those parts of the body that we consider less honorable we surround with greater honor, and our less presentable parts are treated with greater propriety,

24 whereas our more presentable parts do not need this. But God has so constructed the body as to give greater honor to a part that is without it,

25 so that there may be no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another.

26 If (one) part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy.

27 Now you are Christ's body, and individually parts of it. [/quote]

i'm not talking about a building

and i don't think i've made myself clear.

you mentioned the word denomination

i said CHURCH that JESUS CHRIST ESTABLISHED

he didn't establish a denomination.

he founded a teaching church.

the Catholic Church is NOT a denomination.


and plese show me in the bible where [i]sola fide[/i] can grant you salvation

that means faith alone

let me put it to you this way

Can you ( that means you Eutychus) show me (that means you'll have to look it up and paste the text here) in the bible (that's a collection of books that the Catholic Church declared inspired by God) where it says that faith alone (that's what i meant by sola fide) can grant you salvation (in your terms that means being saved)?

the bible that i'm reading tells me that faith alone can not.

[quote]

James 2:14-26

14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?
15 If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day,
16 and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well," but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it?
17 So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
18 Indeed someone might say, "You have faith and I have works." Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works.
19 You believe that God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe that and tremble.
20 Do you want proof, you ignoramus, that faith without works is useless?
21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar?
22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by the works.
23 Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called "the friend of God."
24 See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.
25 And in the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by a different route?
26 For just as a body without a spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.[/quote]

Edited August 16, 2006 by ReinnieR

[Socrates]

[quote name='Eutychus' post='1043961' date='Aug 15 2006, 04:43 AM']
The NAB has Exodus 20 and the Ten Commandments excised, specifically #2?
[/quote]

Exodus 20:3-5:[quote]Thou shalt not have strange gods before me. Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth. [b]Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them[/b]: I am the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me:[/quote]
This is clearly a condemnation of pagan idol worship; it forbids the making and worshiping of idols.

You are trying to falsely isolate 20:4, "Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth," to make this into a prohibition of making any kind of image.

However, as we have repeatedly pointed out (and you have repeatedly ignored), just a few chapters later, God commanded gold cherubs to be made for the Ark of the Covenant.
[quote]Thou shalt make also two cherubims of beaten gold, on the two sides of the oracle. Let one cherub be on the one side, and the other on the other. Let them cover both sides of the propitiatory, spreading their wings, and covering the oracle, and let them look one towards the other, their faces being turned towards the propitiatory wherewith the ark is to be covered.[/quote]Exodus 25:18-20.

And Numbers 21:8:[quote]And the Lord said to him: Make a brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: whosoever being struck shall look on it, shall live.[/quote]
Obviously, God is not against the making of any images, as He commanded images to be made. (Or are those passages excised from your Bible?)

This is the typical protestant tactic of pulling a verse from Scripture out of context, misinterpreting it, then blatantly ignoring those things in Scripture which clearly contradict this "interpretation."

[quote name='Eutychus' post='1043985' date='Aug 15 2006, 06:29 AM']
Have you got a CLUE what the "serpent" was?

It was GOD HImself, forshadowing the coming of Jesus, where He would be hoisted on a cross, where BRASS { the Hebrew image for sin } was made SIN FOR US, and ACCURSED { by hanging on a tree }
[/quote]
Hmm. Much like a crucifix, perhaps?

[quote]And what did the geniuses DO with that brass serpent? Like Catholics today, they made it into a relic, set a shrine up for it, burned incense to it, and used it for moxie power.[/quote]They worshipped it as an idol. And in my thirty years as a Catholic, I have never worshipped statues or images as idols, nor have I seen any other Catholics do this (though my Church does have statues and stained glass).

Sheesh.

[quote]And God had to order a later king, to go to the shrine the { Catholic/like } Jews had, and DESTROY the brass image/serpent, to eradicate it,a and stop them from acting like modern Catholics.

Sheesh, AGAIN...[/quote]
Or rather act like modern protestants, refusing to listen to God-ordained authority, and misusing what was given to them by God for their own purposes.

[Eutychus]

Soc man...

If you love your painted and plaster little goddettes and house gods...who am I to stop you, really?

Let's see here....the Jews, to whom the ten commandments were given, had 2000 years of struggle with this one, over and over they too had their "theologians" who taught that little asheroth poles and statues of the queen of heaven were OK...and each and every time God punished them for that.

And finally, after being beaten by God enough, they finally concluded that the REAL meaning is use NO IMAGES of God for religion, pagan, OUR GOD, Jesus or any in heaven.

Ever wonder WHY the entire NT has NO description of the physical Jesus? They were Jews, they knew that Jesus WAS GOD and they then made NO statues, no paintings, not even describing him phyically {pre resurrection } in the entire book.

So, if you NEED your little dollies to help you pray, fine with me, after all, I AM NOT the one that will condemn you to the fourth and fifth generations for doing so.

Have fun!

[Socrates]

[quote name='Eutychus' post='1044915' date='Aug 16 2006, 06:17 PM']
Soc man...

If you love your painted and plaster little goddettes and house gods...who am I to stop you, really?

Let's see here....the Jews, to whom the ten commandments were given, had 2000 years of struggle with this one, over and over they too had their "theologians" who taught that little asheroth poles and statues of the queen of heaven were OK...and each and every time God punished them for that.

And finally, after being beaten by God enough, they finally concluded that the REAL meaning is use NO IMAGES of God for religion, pagan, OUR GOD, Jesus or any in heaven.

Ever wonder WHY the entire NT has NO description of the physical Jesus? They were Jews, they knew that Jesus WAS GOD and they then made NO statues, no paintings, not even describing him phyically {pre resurrection } in the entire book.

So, if you NEED your little dollies to help you pray, fine with me, after all, I AM NOT the one that will condemn you to the fourth and fifth generations for doing so.

Have fun!
[/quote]
Nice little rant there . . . not sure what it has to do with anything, but that's okay. Your rants are always amusing.

I still don't see a response to the points about God [b]commanding[/b] the making of the gold cherubim and the bronze serpent.

Is your God who forbids all images the same God who commanded the making of those images?

And you still haven't shown where in the Bible it prohibits making images of Jesus. Sounds like vain, unbiblical doctine to me.

As for the Gospels not giving physical descriptions of Jesus, can you find detailed physical descriptions of [b]any[/b] people in the New Testament?
But I suppose you'll interpret this to mean that any physical descriptions ("word images") of people constitutes idolatry? (Would make police work a little hard, come to think of it - can't describe the suspect!)
Or perhaps the Evangelists had more important things to say than describe everybody's hair, eye-color, height, body-build, etc.

Actually we do have this description of Christ during the Transfiguration. [quote]And he was transfigured before them. And his face did shine as the sun: and his garments became white as snow. [/quote]Matthew 17:2
(That's a bit more physical description than Matthew typically gives of people.)

Guess you'd better get rid of that image of the sleeping brain you use, lest you be condemned! (Does anyone else find Euthychus' "sleeping brain" avatar very appropriate? )

[Eutychus]

[quote] I still don't see a response to the points about God commanding the making of the gold cherubim and the bronze serpent.[/quote]

Exegesis isn't your strong point, is it?

OK, I will dumb this one down for you, all the way.

God makes rules for US, not Himself. D'oh, yeah, wow, shocking, isn't it?

Perhaps an illustration would be in order, you do what an analogy is don't you?

OK, in the TEN COMMANDMENTS is a command, "DO NOT MURDER"...right? That is there, clear as day, and everyone agrees with that one, as far as I know, that command is still listed in the top ten by all believers, of whatever stripe.

Now, fast forward only 40 YEARS from God's giving of that GENERAL COMMAND. You are Joshua, standing on the east bank of the River Jordan, reviewing your "marching orders from God" speaking to the assembled troops. And it is given "when we cross the River Jordan, God has COMMANDED us to *** MURDER *** every man, woman, and child from the listed groups we encounter in the promised land."

Yeah, note the term is not FIGHT AND DEFEAT, but SLAUGHTER THEM ALL, infants included.

So, here we have the conrundrum. God told them, MURDER was one of the ten commandments, and forbidden. Yet only 40 years later, God HIMSELF tells them to murder all the Jebusites, Caananites, Hisvites, and the other "ites" they encounter, leaving not one alive, even hours old newborns, ALL are to be put to the sword.

Now, we apply "Roman Catholic Logic" to this problem, using the 2nd commandment rule that where God allows or commands something, that means it overrides the commandments to us.

So, by extension, since God commanded Murder of his enemies, we are to do the same, right? Therefore, since we can find an EXCEPTION to God's general rule { make a cherubim for the Ark } that negates the entire command. And therefore, MURDER is allowed.

Cannot you see, that God MADE THE RULES, and when HE WANTS TO, for HIS PURPOSES, HE can break them. But that does not give US the right to do so using that as our excuse.

Sheesh. This is pattycake exegesis for a properly trained evangelical or pentecostal with a years worth of bible study under his belt. Why does this one so test the skills of the Roman Catholic wannabe apologists?