On the Making of Idols
Often, when I write, I draw a prompt from a jar full of ‘universal concepts’ — things that ought to be recognisable to amajority of people. This includes biological traits, famous religious statements (e.g. The Ten Commandments), statements derived from The Barnum Effect, and loads more. The following is a stream of consciousness inspired by the prompt “Thou shalt not make idols.”
You must not make idols? What the heck does this mean. It means you shouldn’t imbue an object with the properties of the divine, right? Are idols things like statues of Christ and all that? Does that count as an idol?
Does it mean you should idolise people? You shouldn’t take people as being divine in nature? You shouldn’t attribute divine knowledge to randos. You shouldn’t venerate a king or a queen or a celebrity or anything like that. You shouldn’t say that this or that object or person has all the wisdom and cache of a deity?
In the Bible, this was one of the first commandments broken when Moses descended from Mt Sinai, right? He came down and found that a bunch of his people had made an idol of Baal, and they got smote for it.
You must not make idols, or worship false idols, I’ve heard it put that way as well. Why not? Well, because there is nothing on earth that can capture the full gravitas of the divine. Of the holy and creative spirit. You…
