Why Catholic use idols and Protestant no ?

[shian]

Namaste,

who know why Chatolic (Roma) use idols and Protestant is no ?
are in Bible has said can make idols or something about accept idols ??

thank you

[chandu_69]

OmSriShivaShakti (http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/member.php?u=1178) appears to be hung up on aversion to Murthy(idol) worship.Sounds like a muslim?.I saw same objection of muslims in various forums.

[Spiritualseeker]

When I was a muslim I was deeply against Idol worship, but what I find in these images to be a great representation of the higher power. Especially so in hinduism in which these deities have different aspects that are very apparent in the images. These western religions in my opinion took away this art form and this symbolic demonstration of the divine. Islam goes so far as to even forbid drawing pictures of any living creatures with a face. This caused one muslim scholar Shaykh Nasir ud-deen Al-albaani to say that one needs to black out all of the faces that are seen in the newspaper before reading it. Quite rediculous if you ask me.

-juan

[Anicca]

Some Protestants have their own form of it, they will worship the bible as an idol


Same for the Jews with the Torah

[sunyata07]

Namaste shian,

It's an interesting topic. I've always wondered this myself, but I don't think there's a short answer to this question. As a former Catholic myself for almost all of my life, while I've seen plenty of statues and pictures of the Virgin Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus in nearly every home I've ever been to, never have I heard these things being described as "idols". The negative connotations of idolatry in the Bible mean the furthest these representations of the divine can be described might be "figurines" or "statues". But even some Protestants still use "idols", in pictures of Christ in Bible schools or praying hand figurines and angels and other Christian iconography. Protestants kneel before a bare cross, but just because the figure of a dying Christ isn't present, it doesn't take away from the fact that they are still bowing before an "idol" when in the middle of worship. The real reason the Church split up into separate divisions in the 14th and 15th centuries wasn't just owing to the "idolatry" in so many Roman Catholic traditions, there was also the issues of the selling of indulgences (being pardoned for sin at a fee), nepotism and simony etc. I can't quite possibly condense the Protestant Reformation in one answer, although it's really what's at the heart of why Catholics are so much laid back about depictions of Christ or Mary, unlike the Protestant Church.

I mean, once you think about it, it's impossible to think on something mentally without forming an actual visual image in our heads. Aside from the very very small percentage of people in the world with no ability for visual imagery whatsoever, when the rest of us hear a word, a prayer, a name of God and we see something. We have to - we're human. Wouldn't that mean that visualising something in our heads when we pray is idolatry as well? The whole argument itself seems contrary to our very nature in my opinion.