Dont you consider Idolatry dogmatic if god is inconceivable? ?

[machiavelli]

We have many religions which have practice of doing idol worshipping. This creates a problem now. This stops people from asking further questions into nature of what God is . And pursuing the path to Enlightenment.  There are billions of people on earth who do idol worshiping and thinks god is some being sitting in sky separate from them who made the universe and all humans and animals.  This satisfy them and never allow them to ask further questions about what God really is , What I am? What is reality made up of? What I came here to do?

Religion function as organized template which stops people from asking question and even validating whether what their religion preach is even true or not. Whether their customs, traditions, rituals are superstitious or not. Their is great sense of attachment to their religion and they take it as faith no matter what is written in the religion. 

If god is truely inconceivable , infinite, cannot be described using words, languages or forms  then dont you think using idol to worship infinite formless god is very against the characteristics of what God really is? And then it stops people from asking further question into the nature of what god is and journey to enlightenment.

You see what religion is doing is laying down some mythology for people to believe in which satisfy people's question about nature. They thinks some god sitting in sky separate from them or a being having human features separate from them made this universe and whole reality . This stops their further quest into enlightenment.

And why do religions thinks that god looks like human? Why not universe? Why not some advanced alien being?

Why their is inclination of people in believing that god is separate from them and looks like human ? And should be worshiped through idols?

[Nahm]

Maybe that’s also as inconceivable, but still seeming conceivable. 

[Leo Gura]

If God is Infinite then he must love and allow millions of idols of himself to be built all around the Universe and to let people worship according to what most suits their limited minds.

You cannot outsmart what is. What is, is the highest Good. By tautology.

[The Blind Sage]

There are many tanrtic paths that involve the consecration of objects into deities and goddesses. It's not just a metaphorical 'worship'. What they're worshipping has been transformed into a device to raise your consciousness through mantras, various rituals, or maybe even direct pranic/life-force manipulation, etc. The 'gods' they worship are nothing more than tools. Maybe they will be very devotional to it, but that's just another device for spiritual growth; using a deity as a point of devotion. Like all world religions, it usually sprang from deep wisdom and mysticism but got hijacked by collective ego.

But of course, the majority of people that worship idols are dogmatic sheep. And even those that aren't, I'm inclined to think at least the majority of practitioners are tribalistic and stage purple-ish. Of course, I could be wrong. Just don't throw the baby out with the bathwater is all I'm saying.

 

[machiavelli]

38 minutes ago, The Blind Sage said:

There are many tanrtic paths that involve the consecration of objects into deities and goddesses. It's not just a metaphorical 'worship'. What they're worshipping has been transformed into a device to raise your consciousness through mantras, various rituals, or maybe even direct pranic/life-force manipulation, etc. The 'gods' they worship are nothing more than tools. Maybe they will be very devotional to it, but that's just another device for spiritual growth; using a deity as a point of devotion. Like all world religions, it usually sprang from deep wisdom and mysticism but got hijacked by collective ego.

But of course, the majority of people that worship idols are dogmatic sheep. And even those that aren't, I'm inclined to think at least the majority of practitioners are tribalistic and stage purple-ish. Of course, I could be wrong. Just don't throw the baby out with the bathwater is all I'm saying.

 

There are billions of people around the world who worships idols. And thinks god is someone sitting in sky who made humans and universe. They are backed with their mythological stories. My concern is it prevents people in reaching truth. If people will worship finite human form of god which is separate from them then how could they even inquire into real nature of GOD and reality? 

Isnt they are stuck as they God is some mythological figure which created earth and humans which is separate from them. They use to worship him using idols which is finite. It is penetrated into their subconsciousness for thousands of years that some sky being created universe. Which they worship using idols.

Where the scope of enlightenment in idol worshiping? In my belief idol belief restrain people into the quest of SELF. 

And root cause is mythology .

[machiavelli]

@Leo Gura You didn't understood the problem I was referring to.

All you said was correct from your/my point of view.

But think from point of view of billions of people who follow religion and worship some mythological figure using idols. Which they think is a being sitting in sky created earth and humans and entire universe. Which is backed up by mythology. It never allow people to ask basic question into nature of reality , nature of GOD , what they are in reality, what is consciousness , what is GOD?

People are satisfied by the creation stories written in their mythology and they venerate and worship them with whole heart. They even get offended when we question the validity of their gods. And can even kill people.

People worship idol and then continue to live their materialistic way of life. 

How can people discover who they are when they are stuck in Idoltary and their religions.?

[BipolarGrowth]

10 minutes ago, machiavelli said:

There are billions of people around the world who worships idols. And thinks god is someone sitting in sky who made humans and universe. They are backed with their mythological stories. My concern is it prevents people in reaching truth. If people will worship finite human form of god which is separate from them then how could they even inquire into real nature of GOD and reality? 

Isnt they are stuck as they God is some mythological figure which created earth and humans which is separate from them. They use to worship him using idols which is finite. It is penetrated into their subconsciousness for thousands of years that some sky being created universe. Which they worship using idols.

Where the scope of enlightenment in idol worshiping? In my belief idol belief restrain people into the quest of SELF. 

And root cause is mythology .

Yes, this is the case for MOST religious people. Ultimately even what you are saying about the true nature of God is still a type of idol regardless of your past direct experiences of the true nature of God. Whatever comes to mind when you think of that word is an idol of sorts. It’s more nuanced and developed than the religious idolatry, but it is still likely finite and contained simply by limiting factors of your current state of consciousness. Simply the word or idea “God” is itself the idol regardless of who uses it. The thing is you can be in direct experience of Infinity, and in that moment, the idol has been replaced with what it was actually pointing to. The point is, when you or I who have had direct experiences of the true nature of God think of God, we use it as a catalyst to bring our current direct experience closer to the awakened state. Religious people do the same thing, but they’re mostly wrong about what their idol is pointing to whereas any mystic is going to have a less intellectualized and more accurate route of connecting to that which is pointed to with the word God. There are still a minority of religious people, mostly those with a religious foundation but mystic-like aspect to their approach, who do come quite a bit closer to what the word God is actually pointing to when they have deep devotion to their chosen idol. In all cases, the idol stands as a means to come closer to God. That is the purpose of the idol. Everyone has a slightly different idol burned into their mind to represent God, but most are so far from the Truth that they often just lead to meager or even counterproductive results. 

[The Blind Sage]

You're right. Ideology keeps you paradigm locked. What I gather is that you're basically asking; how does one escape paradigm lock? But before we jump the gun, lets slow down a second. Every Tom, Dick and Harry wants instant solutions and answers. Not many are willing to really understand the problem at the roots first. So then, if you're sincere in what you're asking, I'd suggest you to spend time understanding why people get paradigm locked in the first place. And for that, you've come to the perfect place. Some of my favourite actualized.org videos:
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FtVLnmuJzg&list=PLWq2PmY0jhcpCShDDL_H4D3CDdw4Y9DXm&index=5&ab_channel=Actualized.org

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM-5NFY1C3c&list=PLWq2PmY0jhcpCShDDL_H4D3CDdw4Y9DXm&index=5&ab_channel=Actualized.org

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tLZ2a1uafk&list=PLWq2PmY0jhcpCShDDL_H4D3CDdw4Y9DXm&index=7&ab_channel=Actualized.org

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRgLWFzGodg&list=PLWq2PmY0jhcpCShDDL_H4D3CDdw4Y9DXm&index=10&ab_channel=Actualized.org

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVcxIamwO5g&list=PLWq2PmY0jhcpCShDDL_H4D3CDdw4Y9DXm&index=24&ab_channel=Actualized.org

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi_K402KU0A&ab_channel=Actualized.org

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9MS701rvoQ&ab_channel=Actualized.org

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9ODZLAAQsE&ab_channel=Actualized.org

Spiral dynamics series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23aDNBvn_2g&list=PLWq2PmY0jhcpz1T8_HCUrhuw0mRp1z7Aq&ab_channel=Actualized.org

P.S, just to reiterate, please do not commit the mistake of failing to make a distinction between idol worshipping and genuine tantric practices. Leo's got an amazing episode on the importance of making high quality, fine grained distinctions as well btw. Good luck brother.

 

[The Blind Sage]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

What is, is the highest Good. By tautology.

I take it then, the only question is: "To what degree are you conscious of what is?"

Correct?

[machiavelli]

33 minutes ago, The Blind Sage said:

 

P.S, just to reiterate, please do not commit the mistake of failing to make a distinction between idol worshipping and genuine tantric practices. Leo's got an amazing episode on the importance of making high quality, fine grained distinctions as well btw. Good luck brother.

 

What is tantric practice ? What is difference between idol worship and tantric practices? 

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, machiavelli said:

How can people discover who they are when they are stuck in Idoltary and their religions.?

Obviously religion as dogma is a cancer of the mind.

[machiavelli]

@Leo Gura So how can people come out of this trap? When we say dont worship humans or forms they get offended and thinks we are attacking their religion . 

Even the soo called spiritual masters are not doing true spiritual work like you do. 

They are not doing any liberation work and are keeping people under delusion of personal god.

Their are lots spiritual gurus in my country too. They call them spiritual masters but what they preach is glorification of their religion and mythology.

And I have found that most of them have this inate tendency to keep people in some umbrella term call religion. I dont know why they do so. Probably they think if people are liberated they will leave their religion or their religious customs such as rituals and festivals will end . 

 

Edited May 2, 2021 by machiavelli

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, machiavelli said:

So how can people come out of this trap?

That's what my videos are for.

[kieranperez]

The problem is not the knife. The problem lies in our relationship to it. Same goes for idols. Idols are phenomenal inventions by people for spiritual practice for a myriad of things. Concentration practice, deity yoga, tantra, etc. It’s also useful to consider how powerful inventions they were for pre literate cultures. Idols also can serve different purposes aside from just enlightenment. Idols aren’t a problem if you don’t take them as inherently true rather than as the inventions they are, and they were and still are powerful inventions that serve people. That’s why art is so powerful. Art you could say is really just a projection of a snapshot of a something that was in a human mind that was given form and made manifest that people then resonate with and connect with in their own unique way and their unique psychology. A painting, a poem or piece of literature, or an idol for that matter becomes a medium for deep connection that is unique and personal for each person. 

[lmfao]

https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof91cgju/page/n15/mode/2up Pages 3-16 (numbers in scanned book rather than in toolbar UI) are really good here. Jung basically talks about why symbols, religions, primitive tribal lore and mythology exists in the first place. The basic premise of what projection is. 

Religious formulae, symbols and algorithms designed to channel people's experience of the transcendent. They are intended to represent and explain the power of the divine for people, whilst also protecting them from the dangers of direct contact with the unconscious without tradition/symbols.
He references the stories of christians mystics who had deeply intimate contact with the unconscious, and almost went mad. But they used dogma to regain their sanity.

But the symbols are polished smooth of anything tangible, elaborated on too much, people don't have the actuality of them. Everyone experiences the unconscious in their own way, but these symbols seek to encompass and standardise all. In trying to encompass all, it becomes vague and meaningless, no actuality. 


Christian symbols losing their meaning for people, the same way The Gods of Rome and Greece also lost their meaning for people. Protestants enacted a form of iconoclasm but are in the same dilemmas nonetheless. Meanwhile the east has plenty of unexhausted mana to the western mind

Are we better off avowing our poverty of symbols, or begging another culture for theirs, only to grow disillusioned of those too? 

Edited May 3, 2021 by lmfao

[diamondpenguin]

Honestly if you think about. Worshipping some idol like jesus is just plain stupid. Like, have you even met jesus? Do you know hes really a nice guy?  what has jesus done for me that I should care about him so much? Obviously I'm pushing my prejudices, but that's because I'm fundamentally evil and so are you. If I wasn't evil I'd be dead, and so would you. 

Edited May 3, 2021 by diamondpenguin

[Proserpina]

For a lot of people Jesus is a reachable symbol for love. You use the blood of Jesus on anything to imprint love. You 'worship' Jesus to imprint him on your mind. Nothing else comes close to the symbol for them so they tell you 'he's the only true son of God'. The only thing that works. 

[machiavelli]

7 minutes ago, Amit said:

Idols are beautiful, a sculpture puts so much creativity into a stone and create an art, while worshipping it,  worshippers are trying to reflect their own into the beauty of it and this transcending to their higher self. So this is never an issue. For example, there are religions such like Islam where idolatry is banned, but just see how much violence, rapes, kidnappings Islam causes by creating millions of bigots supporting each other in tandem. Because the Quran makes them a bigot even though it's a book and not an idol. 

You have not understood what problem I was referring to. I am not talking about creative aspect of idol. 

Idol can only be a barrier to reach ULTIMATE TRUTH. 

How can you even step into journey towards knowing self, knowing GOD, knowing reality when religion and its mythology has given you certain basic framework on how personal god created the world which are separate from us and lives in sky. ? And then worship them using idols.

In my view idolatry is what stops people in even reflecting about god. 

God is formless , inconceivable , infinite, Void, Emptiness , Love. Can you express which is infinite love using form?

Can you express which is formless using idol?

can you express which is infinite using idol?

How dogmatic it is. 

[machiavelli]

21 minutes ago, Amit said:

How did you conclude that an idol worshipper thinks God lives in the sky? 

 

You must be a hindu who is defending idol worshiping.  Go and ask billions of people in your country about their belief of god . 90% of thinks god looks like human having 10 heads or 4 hands holding weapons . They belief in their mythology and thinks these sky beings created humans and universe . I can gurrantee you that most of the people in your country believe these gods created them. Just go and do survey of your city .

They even get offended if somebody say something about their gods. And root cause is your mythology which prevents people in even coming out of this religion trap. They keep propagating myths and superstitions in the name of religion.

30 minutes ago, Amit said:

32 minutes ago, Amit said:

 

Nah, you are aware of just the half truth.

 

Yes it is dogmatic.  I have been into spirituality since 12 years and know what I am saying.

33 minutes ago, Amit said:

God is also form, conceivable, filled, fullness, finite love and can be expressed using form. 

 

So is plants, rocks, mountain , air, walls , wood etc.

You are accepting god is everything so why do you want to worship a finite form? That too when you know the god you are worshipping is none other than YOU. And its infinite. 

Do you want to worship finite form when you are infinite? 

It becomes dogma when you propagate myths and make people believe in those mythology . 

When billions in your country believe man made gods and worship them using idols then how come it is greatest tool in spirituality which makes people fall in trap of religion.

Look you need to have a clear distinction between religion and spirituality . Dont mix both. Spirituality has nothing to do with your religious cult. Spirituality is crumbling away of untruth. It is complete eradication of what we imagined to be true. 

Religion is dogma. Spirituality is not.

[machiavelli]

@Amit " Its your stupid opinion" . What a reply .

Go and ask your billions of people who are stuck in man made mythology. And the amount of supersition in your country is beyond anything one can imagine. Unnecessary rituals and traditions in the name of personal god. How can you think one will be able to know the truth when they are stuck in their religion?