Quote:
Originally Posted by Dj_Spectre
Alright, but this doesn't change the fact that Catholics worship and/or HONOR (keyword there) the people the statues represent, not the statues themselves. Again, get you facts straight.
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After great responses from Brother Alvin and Mr. Hall I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here, but I think it is a dead horse worth beating, as this issue comes up quite often.
God is quite clear when He says that He does not want us to make images that can be interpreted as a likeness of something that exists:
Exodus 20:4 - Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness [of any thing] that [is] in heaven above, or that [is] in the earth beneath, or that [is] in the water under the earth:
That is pretty straight forward. Is a representation of a Virgin Mary a likeness of mother of Jesus? I'd say so, wouldn't you?
It's even worse if you worship (or honor) that image -
Leviticus 26:1 - Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up [any] image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I [am] the LORD your God.
Again, God is very clear. Do not make any images, and whatever you do, do not bow down before such images. Do Catholic people bow before graven images? They certainly do.
Here is one example:
This is a Catholic church in South America (by which I do not mean Florida, this place is even more south). You can see a woman kneeling before a wooden statue of Mary - the image is quite small, so here is a closeup of the statue:
People bow, kneel, and pray before that image, they dress it up (I guess at some level they realize it's just a doll), bring gifts to the statue, and they used to burn candles before it (recently the candle burning operation has been moved to another building, because the priests finally realized that the touristic value of the site is more important than the faithful people's needs).
In addition, even though "Our Lady" of Copacabana, Guadalupe, Lourdes, Fatima, etc, etc, are supposed to be representation of one and the same mother of Jesus, each one of them has different specialties*, and people often pray to more then one - if that's not idolatry then I don't know what is.
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* Which is because they are not one and the same, but rather different disguised pagan goddesses. The same goes for half of Catholic "saints," as well - Catholics were quite good at incorporating pagan gods to their own pantheon. Again, idolatry at its finest.