Why God not gods?
The great prophets of the Old Testament are particular lucid and ironical in exposing the intrinsic illogicality of idolatry. And everybody, reasonable or exaggerate from the Hebrew to the Greek Iconoclasts, and from the Moslem Caliphs to the English Roundheads , has always applied, rightly or wrongly, what I may call this a joke of the Old Testament; that mere idolatry is idiotic in itself. Why is idolatry wrong? Above all, why is idolatry funny? The Hebrew Prophet saw the logic and point of the case with the clearness of any Greek. It is funny because it is not only an incongruity but an inversion. It was stated in those ancient days, in the one unanswerable formula: “They worship the work of their own hands”
I had never …show more content…
While I was in the Sierra, I could not believe what my eyes saw, when a person takes a piece of clay and start designing a human, animal or an extraordinary creature with his hands, and while he does that he repeat to himself, this was not my creation, but it came from the heavens, suddenly his mind would stop functioning in the correct logical way. As Chesterton said, “The moment after the masterpiece is completed, the relationship between the master and the master piece are mystically revered. The last and newest thing in the world becomes the first and oldest; and sometimes in some vague the way, the maker of the universe: the makers of his own maker.”
But Israel fails in accomplishing the will of God, and they fall several occasions into idolatry. One of the occasions when the people of Israel fall into futile thinking was in the time of 1st Kings 18. Elijah tried to revive the drowsy intelligence of the people of Israel by screaming with all the strengths of his lungs to the people of Israel, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” The reaction of the people said nothing, not even a single word!! The situation was alarming because their silence meant that they did not know what to
The great prophets of the Old Testament are particular lucid and ironical in exposing the intrinsic illogicality of idolatry. And everybody, reasonable or exaggerate from the Hebrew to the Greek Iconoclasts, and from the Moslem Caliphs to the English Roundheads , has always applied, rightly or wrongly, what I may call this a joke of the Old Testament; that mere idolatry is idiotic in itself. Why is idolatry wrong? Above all, why is idolatry funny? The Hebrew Prophet saw the logic and point of the case with the clearness of any Greek. It is funny because it is not only an incongruity but an inversion. It was stated in those ancient days, in the one unanswerable formula: “They worship the work of their own hands”
I had never …show more content…
While I was in the Sierra, I could not believe what my eyes saw, when a person takes a piece of clay and start designing a human, animal or an extraordinary creature with his hands, and while he does that he repeat to himself, this was not my creation, but it came from the heavens, suddenly his mind would stop functioning in the correct logical way. As Chesterton said, “The moment after the masterpiece is completed, the relationship between the master and the master piece are mystically revered. The last and newest thing in the world becomes the first and oldest; and sometimes in some vague the way, the maker of the universe: the makers of his own maker.”
But Israel fails in accomplishing the will of God, and they fall several occasions into idolatry. One of the occasions when the people of Israel fall into futile thinking was in the time of 1st Kings 18. Elijah tried to revive the drowsy intelligence of the people of Israel by screaming with all the strengths of his lungs to the people of Israel, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” The reaction of the people said nothing, not even a single word!! The situation was alarming because their silence meant that they did not know what to