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Idolatry Quotes

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Idolatry Quotes

“If I see God as nothing more than a caricature of history or imagination I cannot do anything less than make myself my own ‘god’. And once I realize that in doing so my rendition of being a ‘god’ is embarrassingly inferior to the very caricature I am mimicking, I quickly come to realize that maybe the only thing that can be ‘god’ is a God. And if that is the case, I suddenly find myself hounded by the stunning reality that God is not a caricature.”

GodRealityChristianJesusImaginationChristianityHistoryFailureEgoJesus ChristSelfishChristian LifeArroganceIdolsArrogantFailSelf CenteredNarcissisticIdolatrySelf CenterednessEgo CentricMimickingCaricature
Author:Craig D. Lounsbrough
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“Wasn't that what Jesus said: do what I do? He was here as an example for us to follow. Same with all prophets. Didn't the prophets tell us to be like them? That's what's wrong with Christianity. They make Jesus and the prophets into icons, take them off of earth, and put them in heaven to worship them, so they're no longer accessible. You've taken a reality and made it into a worthless idol. Christians talk about the idolatry of other religions, but when they no longer live principles and just worship the people who taught them, that's exactly what they're doing.”

PovertyHypocrisyIdolatryAsceticismChristian Nation2012American ChristianityDo As God Would Do
Book:The Man Who Quit Money
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“One class presses on another; for all are aiming to procure respect on account of their property: and property, once gained, will procure the respect due only to talents and virtue. Men neglect the duties incumbent on man, yet are treated like demi-gods; religion is also separated from morality by a ceremonial veil, yet men wonder that the world is almost, literally speaking, a den of sharpers or oppressors.”

WealthClassPropertyOppressionSecularismIdolatryClass Struggle
Book:A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
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“While we often recognize the need to learn how to face hunger and need, we aren't always aware that we need similar help to face wealth and abundance. It's not easy to face affluence every day without committing idolatry or succumbing to ingratitude. In fact, church history is filled with stories of sincere believers facing lowness, hunger, need, suffering, persecution, hardship, and death with Christ-honoring joy and faithfulness. But the stories of Christian fidelity in the midst of overwhelming abundance, provision, plenty, and wealth are fewer and farther between. This is why Jesus says that it is hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 19:23). One of the chief challenges for Christians in the West is to learn to face our unprecedented abundance with the strength supplied by Christ and not by the wealth.”

WealthMoneyGratitudeAbundanceIdolatryBudgeting
Book:The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts
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“What was in store for him was, at the core, far more than Legion: As he ran toward Jesus, his former lord tore to pieces; because in order to reach Him, he was forced forth by meekness. It's like he was poorer than poor (before meeting the Teacher - who managed to fit a camel through the eye of a needle). For this rich man'll shed his riches in time for the Kingdom, and dismantle all that'll cease him, keep him from Christ's freedom (or, in a manner of speaking, to be crowned in right season) - now his counsel is, for good reason, like treason to demons - in this example: How the One who wore thorns mines His people.”

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Author:Criss Jami
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“In 1961, a recovering addict was saved by the works of an uplifting novelist. Months later, the man found out his role model committed suicide one morning. Liar, he cried. It was like watching his hero say that heroes don’t exist and then flying away. What do books mean if the writer gave up? The reader decided to give heroism a try and wrote stories about how great life can be until he could convince himself of it. The experiment is still in the works.”

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Book:The Goodbye Song
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“Possibly the most debilitating deception of all is to create a god of my own making, fool myself into believing that this limp god of mine is the true God, and then construct the entirety of my life on this flamboyantly fictional character. Possibly the most devastating realization of all is when the real God shows up, and in the showing up all of this come crashing down.”

GodChristianSinFictionChristianityWorshipIllusionBibleDeceptionDeceitIdolsFalsehoodKingIdolatryFalse GodsFabricationThroneFictionalIdolBowWorshipingSinful False
Author:Craig D. Lounsbrough
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“Watu wa zamani katika Agano la Kale walikuwa wakiabudu miungu iliyotengenezwa kwa mawe na vinyago. Miungu hiyo haikuwa na chochote ndani mbali na kutengenezwa kwa akili na fikira za kibinadamu. Hii ilikuwa ni kinyume cha ukweli wa Kibiblia kwamba Mungu alimuumba mtu kwa mfano wake, lakini si mtu aliyejaa dhambi kumtengeneza Mungu kwa mfano wake. Kuabudu miungu mingine ni dhambi kubwa. Tii Amri Kumi za Mungu; hasa ya kwanza, ya pili na ya tatu.”

MindIdeasGodBibleStonesManGodsOld PeopleIdolatryOld TestamentMunguSinsFirstSecondBibliaDhambiAkiliBinadamuThirdKwanzaMiunguAgano La KaleA Great SinDhambi KubwaFikiraMitiTatuKuabudu MiunguMan In His ImageMaweMtu Kwa Mfano WakeObey Ten Commandments Of GodPiliTii Amri Kumi Za MunguVinyagoWatu Wa Zamani
Author:Enock Maregesi
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“When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you like them for who they are. And when you stop expecting material possessions to complete you, you'd be surprised how much pleasure you get from material possessions. And when you stop expecting God to end all your troubles, you'd be surprised how much you like spending time with God.”

ExpectationsOptimismRealismIdolatry
Book:A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life
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“The professional iconoclast is such either because he does not understand the nature of images and rites, or because he does not trust the understanding of those who practice iconolatory or follow rites. call the other man an idolater or superstitious is, generally speaking, only a manner of asserting our own superiority. Idolatry is the misuse of symbols, a definition needing no further qualifications. The traditional philosophy has nothing to say against the use of symbols and rites ; though there is much that the most orthodox can have to say against their misuse. It may be emphasized that the danger of treating verbal formulae as absolutes is generally greater than that of misusing plastic images.”

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Book:Christian & Oriental Philosophy of Art Formerly: "Why Exhibit Works of Art?"
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“Idolatry is inherently paradoxical. Were we an ideally-flawed replication of the divine, free-thinking, history-repeating links in an outcast chain on a smaller, mortal scale, or is our imperfection a special dispensation? Are we a sly thought experiment? Shouldn't those we admire reflect this duality and our shared humanity — not a perfection that never was and never will be?”

PhilosophyHuman NatureExistentialismRebellionImperfectionLearning From MistakesIdolatryIntellectual FreedomShared HumanityHistory Repeats
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“We can make 'intelligent' missiles that can make war on one particular building hundreds of miles away, but we don't have an equivalent one that can make peace. Might that be because we have worshipped the gods of war, but have forgotten about worshipping the prince of peace? We can put a few men on the moon, but the few men who were standing between the Tutsis and the Hutus in Rwanda in 1994 had to be withdrawn for lack of funds and political will. Might that be because we have worshipped the gods of technology, the gods who boost our own national security--the gods we have wanted, i other words--and have forgotten the God who asked Cain, 'Where is Abel your brother?”

CompassionTechnologyWorshipIdolatryGods Of War
Book:For All God's Worth: True Worship and the Calling of the Church
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“We have glorified wealth and freedom so much that it is impossible for most of us to truly believe that a man can truly be happy in a shack or within the confines of a prison cell.”

BelieveHumorFunnyHappinessSpiritualJoySpiritualityWealthFreedomMoneyRichHumourWorshipGloryJokesHumorousSlaveryPrisonSlaveRichesHappyLiberationSatireMaterialismWealthyJailPrisonerIdolsAphorismConsumerismFreeJokeHilariousJoyousAphorismsIdolatryExaggerationGlorifyContentSlavesAphoristAphoristsShackMaterialPrisonersLiberateJailerPrisonsIdolPrison CellsConfineExaggerateConfinesJailsInflatedInflatePrison CellJailersJailedShacks
Author:Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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“Idolatry begins with a false separation of gift and giver. Rather than a momentary comparison for the sake of testing our affections, idolatry is a permanent separation for the sake of false worship. God divides things in order to gloriously reunite them. Heaven and earth, male and female, Trinitarian glory and its created beams—all of these are separated in order to bring about a more perfect and glorious union. On the other hand, sin just separates. It divides in order to destroy. It tears asunder and leaves the fragments scattered on the ground. The separation of gift from giver ruins our enjoyment of both.”

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Book:The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts
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“The world is restless today. There are many voices but there is no peace. Men are feverishly saying to a god manufactured to serve the social needs of man: 'Deliver me; for thou art my god.' They are trying to produce decency without principle; they are trying to keep back the raging sea of passion with flimsy mud embankment of self-interest; they are trying to do without the stern, solid masonry of the will of God. When will the vain effort cease? Shall we continue on our wanderings? Shall we continue to stagger like drunken men? Shall we still fashion a divinity that shall serve our utilitarian ends? Shall we amuse ourselves with idols? Or shall we return unto God?”

GodSinChristianityIdolatry
Book:God Transcendent
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“If your deepest feelings are reserved for something other than Almighty God, then that something other is an emotional idol... if you get more excited about material things than the simple yet profound fact that your sin was nailed to the cross by the sinless Son of God, then you're bowing down to Tammuz.”

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Book:All In: You Are One Decision Away From a Totally Different Life
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“Christian consciousness experiences itself in a curious sense as LIBERATED TO FAIL, without intolerable damage to self-esteem and without any reduction of moral seriousness. We are free to be inadequate, free to foul things up, and yet affirm ourselves in a more basic sense than the secular moralist or humanistic idealist (who can affirm themselves only on the basis of merits and accomplishments. We are free to choose and deny finite values, free to take constructive guilt upon us and to see it as an inevitable and providentially given aspect of our fallen human condition. All that we have said leads us to the pinnacle of this good news: In Jesus Christ we need no longer be guilty before God. It is only before our clay-footed gods that we stand guilty!”

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Book:Guilt free
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“Evil then consists not in being created but in the rebellious idolatry by which humans worship and honour elements of the natural world rather than the God who made them. The result is that the cosmos is out of joint. Instead of humans being God's wise vice-regents over creation, they ignore the creator and try to worship something less demanding, something that will give them a short-term fix of power or pleasure.”

EvilSinIdolatry
Book:Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church
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“It has often been said that the most common idols in the West are Power, Sex, and Money; with this I am not in any profound disagreement. However, inasmuch as these idols are connected to a larger vision of life, such as the American dream, or the inalienable rights of free people, they become part of a nation’s civil religion. I would contend, in fact, that the most alluring and dangerous deity in the United States is the omnipresent, syncretistic god of nationalism mixed with Christianity lite: religious beliefs, language, and practices that are superficially Christian but infused with national myths and habits. Sadly, most of this civil religion’s practitioners belong to Christian churches, which is precisely why Revelation is addressed to the seven churches (not to Babylon), to all Christians tempted by the civil cult.”

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Book:Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Following the Lamb into the New Creation
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