stronger: Com'on guys. This is a no-brainer!
If you have a portrait of your mum at home,does that automatically mean she is an IDOL you are worshipping?
Let's stop mixing things up. Nothing wrong with having images or portraits as long as d only person u worship is God!

Atleast you know what your mum looks like.. But does anyone knows what GOD looks like.. Does anyone knows what jesus looks like? How about mary?

I believe it is mainly out of ignorance that protestants and non-Catholics say that, Catholics worship idols.
Since the protestants like quoting the bible, let me quote one too...
Remember when God told Moses to place in the Temple in the very presence of God, the Holy of Holies:
"...2 ANGELS of hammered gold …their wings spread upward..The angels are to face each other..-Ex. 25:18-20
So, God Himself wanted a couple of images of “things in Heaven” in the Tabernacle

And then we have the incident where the children of Israel were bitten by fiery serpents and …
Numbers 21:8 The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.”
Obviously, God has not forbidden art because He commanded specific kinds of art to decorate the Temple and to save the Israelites from snakebites.
He just didn’t want us to Worship these things
“You must not bow down to them or worship them”

Why does the Catholic Church have Art in Churches? I can think of 5 reasons.
1. Pictures and statues are like family photos in our houses of worship only we have images of the Family of God.
Doesn’t every house have family pictures?

2. As an aid to prayer and to keep us focused.

3. To remind us of those who set an example of heroic Christian living.

4. As reminders of Stories of Faith; to teach our children when a child asks, “Who is that?”

5. To tell the stories of our Faith to all the generations in the last 2000 years when Bibles were too expensive for individuals to own and most people could not read anyway. Did you know, even today 20% of the world population cannot read? But everyone can understand art.

source: This is from a protestant turned Catholic
http://bfhu./2011/10/19/another-protestant-tradition-catholics-worship-idols/

Somebody should answer this question
WHY DO ALTER BOYS/PRIESTS BOWN DOWN IN FRONT OF THE CRUCIFIX ??...

agabasam: no1 says d image of God d fada..... But dont 4get Jesus is God

Hehehehehe..i laugh in ibibio..
JESUS IS GOD
Ur own bible get as he be oo

Patdedon: When yorubas prostrate to salute, do you call that worship? Don't say what you do not comprehend, rather seek for clarification. I don't want to argue religion though.

Do yorubas prostrate to images or elders..*just asking*

Williamfors:
What is the origin of the myth?

“Images were unknown in the worship of the primitive Christians . . . The admission of images into the church in the 4th and 5th centuries was justified on the theory that the ignorant people could learn the facts of Christianity from them better than from sermons or books.”— Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, by McClintock and Strong, Volume 4, pages 503 and 504.
What does the Bible say?

“You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them.” (Exodus 20:4, 5, The Holy Bible —New International Version) The apostle John wrote to first-century Christians: “Little children, guard yourselves from idols.” —1 John 5:21.

Are images, as the churches claim, simply a means of approaching and honoring what they represent? “At first,” states The Encyclopedia of Religion, “images may have served primarily didactic [teaching] and decorative purposes; at least, they were defended on such grounds. But soon they came to fill admittedly devotional functions. This was especially true of the icons that became a prominent feature of Eastern Orthodoxy.” However, the prophet Isaiah rightly asked: “To whom can you compare God? What image can you contrive of him?” —Isaiah 40:18, The New Jerusalem Bible.

Compare these Bible verses: Isaiah 44:13-19; Acts 10:25, 26; 17:29; 2 Corinthians 5:7
FACT:

God does not approve of the use of images and icon

u mentioned orthodox, well this is what they think. http://www.tektonic.org/gk/icons.html.

Foxflames: I believe it is mainly out of ignorance that protestants and non-Catholics say that, Catholics worship idols.
Since the protestants like quoting the bible, let me quote one too...
Remember when God told Moses to place in the Temple in the very presence of God, the Holy of Holies:
"...2 ANGELS of hammered gold …their wings spread upward..The angels are to face each other..-Ex. 25:18-20
So, God Himself wanted a couple of images of “things in Heaven” in the Tabernacle

And then we have the incident where the children of Israel were bitten by fiery serpents and …
Numbers 21:8 The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.”
Obviously, God has not forbidden art because He commanded specific kinds of art to decorate the Temple and to save the Israelites from snakebites.
He just didn’t want us to Worship these things
“You must not bow down to them or worship them”

Why does the Catholic Church have Art in Churches? I can think of 5 reasons.
1. Pictures and statues are like family photos in our houses of worship only we have images of the Family of God.
Doesn’t every house have family pictures?

2. As an aid to prayer and to keep us focused.

3. To remind us of those who set an example of heroic Christian living.

4. As reminders of Stories of Faith; to teach our children when a child asks, “Who is that?”

5. To tell the stories of our Faith to all the generations in the last 2000 years when Bibles were too expensive for individuals to own and most people could not read anyway. Did you know, even today 20% of the world population cannot read? But everyone can understand art.

source: This is from a protestant turned Catholic
http://bfhu./2011/10/19/another-protestant-tradition-catholics-worship-idols/

He told moses to make a serpent he didn't tell him to make an image of him. moses didn't tell d pple of Israel to bow down for the serpent,he only told moses to tell the pple of Isreal to look at it..

People still make this ridiculous claim. Because Catholics have statues in their churches, goes the accusation, they are violating God’s commandment: "You shall not make for yourself a graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: you shall not bow down to them or serve them" (Ex. 20:4–5); "Alas, this people have sinned a great sin; they have made for themselves gods of gold" (Ex. 32:31).

It is right to warn people against the sin of idolatry when they are committing it. But calling Catholics idolaters because they have images of Christ and the saints is based on misunderstanding or ignorance of what the Bible says about the purpose and uses (both good and bad) of statues.

Anti-Catholic writer Loraine Boettner, in his book Roman Catholicism , makes the blanket statement, "God has forbidden the use of images in worship" (281). Yet if people were to "search the scriptures" (cf. John 5:39), they would find the opposite is true. God forbade the worship of statues, but he did not forbid the religious use of statues. Instead, he actually commanded their use in religious contexts!

Islam teaches all this from unset dat is why every muslim anywhere would fight wit his last blood if you try to introduce peganism into Islam

Deivid10: 4th to comment

and what was ur comment...smh

bbpreye.:


I guess u're catholic! The instruction was don't make any! Don't make any! The truth is bitter ooooh! Don't make, don't bow! Simple english.

i hope u don't have a picture

adaptor4all:
Do yorubas prostrate to images or elders..*just asking*

Do yorubas worship elders? Just asking too ..

Catholics should have asked if we bow down to the images of our parents or have them carved in the church to bow down and pray through them....

Catholics trying so hard to defend idolatry is bewildering.........

Ubenedictus: i hope u don't have a picture

Don't mind the hypocrite!!I am sure every one of them blabbing here have images of themselves or their loved ones in their homes.

God never said do not make images.What he said is do not make idols.Hope you know the difference between them

People who oppose religious statuary forget about the many passages where the Lord commands the making of statues.

For example: [b]"And you shall make two cherubim of gold [i.e., two gold statues of angels]; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. Make one cherubon the one end, and one cherub on the other end; of one piece of the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward themercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be"(Ex. 25:18–20).
David gave Solomon the plan "for the altar of incense made of refined gold, and its weight; also his plan for the golden chariot of the cherubim that spread their wings and covered the ark of the covenant of the Lord. All this he made clear by the writing of the hand of the Lord concerning it all, all the work to be done according to the plan" (1 Chr. 28:18–19). David’s plan for the temple, which the biblical author tells us was "by the writing of the hand of the Lord concerning it all," included statues of angels.

Similarly Ezekiel 41:17–18 describes graven (carved) images in the idealized temple he was shown in a vision, for he writes, "On the walls round about in the inner room and [on]the nave were carved likenesses of cherubim."
The Religious Uses of Images
During a plague of serpents sent to punish the Israelites during the exodus, God told Moses to "make [a statue of] a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and every one who is bitten, when he sees it shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent, and set it on a pole; and if a serpent bit any man, he would look atthe bronze serpent and live" (Num. 21:8–9).[/b]

One had to look at the bronze statue of the serpent to be healed, which shows that statues could be used ritually, not merely as religious decorations.
Catholics use statues, paintings, and other artistic devices to recall the person or thing depicted. Just as it helps to remember one’s mother by looking at her photograph, so it helps to recall the example of the saints by looking at pictures of them.

Catholics also use statues as teaching tools. In the early Church they were especially useful for the instructionof the illiterate. Many Protestants have pictures of Jesus and other Bible pictures in Sunday school for teaching children. Catholics also use statues to commemorate certain people and events, much as Protestant churches have three-dimensional nativity scenes at Christmas.
If one measured Protestants by the same rule, then by using these "graven" images, they would be practicing the "idolatry" of which they accuse Catholics. But there’s no idolatry going on in these situations. God forbids the worship of images as gods, but he doesn’t ban the making of images. If he had, religious movies, videos, photographs, paintings, and all similar things would be banned. But, as the case of the bronze serpent shows, God does not even forbid the ritual use of religious images.
It is when people begin to adore a statue as a god that the Lord becomes angry. Thus when people did start to worship the bronze serpent as a snake-god (whom they named"Nehushtan", the righteous king Hezekiah had it destroyed (2 Kgs. 18:4).

What About Bowing?

Sometimes anti-Catholics cite Deuteronomy 5:9, where God said concerning idols, "You shall not bow down to them." Since many Catholics sometimes bow or kneel in front of statues of Jesus and the saints, anti-Catholics confuse the legitimate veneration of a sacred image with the sin of idolatry.
Though bowing can be used as a posture in worship, not all bowing is worship. In Japan, people show respect by bowing in greeting (the equivalent of the Western handshake). Similarly, a person can kneel before a king without worshipping him as a god. In the same way, a Catholic who may kneel in front of a statue while praying isn’t worshipping the statue or even praying to it , any more than the Protestant who kneels with a Bible in his hands when praying is worshipping the Bible or praying to it .

Foxflames: I believe it is mainly out of ignorance that protestants and non-Catholics say that, Catholics worship idols.
Since the protestants like quoting the bible, let me quote one too...
Remember when God told Moses to place in the Temple in the very presence of God, the Holy of Holies:
"...2 ANGELS of hammered gold …their wings spread upward..The angels are to face each other..-Ex. 25:18-20
So, God Himself wanted a couple of images of “things in Heaven” in the Tabernacle

And then we have the incident where the children of Israel were bitten by fiery serpents and …
Numbers 21:8 The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.”
Obviously, God has not forbidden art because He commanded specific kinds of art to decorate the Temple and to save the Israelites from snakebites.
He just didn’t want us to Worship these things
“You must not bow down to them or worship them”

Why does the Catholic Church have Art in Churches? I can think of 5 reasons.
1. Pictures and statues are like family photos in our houses of worship only we have images of the Family of God.
Doesn’t every house have family pictures?

2. As an aid to prayer and to keep us focused.

3. To remind us of those who set an example of heroic Christian living.

4. As reminders of Stories of Faith; to teach our children when a child asks, “Who is that?”

5. To tell the stories of our Faith to all the generations in the last 2000 years when Bibles were too expensive for individuals to own and most people could not read anyway. Did you know, even today 20% of the world population cannot read? But everyone can understand art.

source: This is from a protestant turned Catholic
http://bfhu./2011/10/19/another-protestant-tradition-catholics-worship-idols/

That same God told Moses to build an image also told Moses and others not to bow and worship images.

Tell me the reasons why people pray in front of the images.
And also concluding prayers using the name of saints e:g Mary, Tansi etc instead of God almighty.

chukwudi44:

Don't mind the hypocrite!!I am sure every one of them blabbing here have images of themselves or their loved ones in their homes.

God never said do not make images.What he said is do not make idols.Hope you know the difference between them

We are talking about worship here...

If people bow down before the images or carvings of there parents both at home and @ church in other to get to GOD then that will be blatant idolatry....

And you know that is exactly what you guys do......

Bowing before a white womans image or moulding and praying through her,hoping she will convey your prayers to God...

I wonder which god sef.....

Whoever dat compares wat d 0P is asking here wit d potraits of ur dad and mum needs to go to mental home. Hw can u compare God and ur parents? Na so our level of understandin don reach in dis forum?
Hw many times do ur worship ya fada or moda? But u do dat each time u go to church. Pls dis is pure idolatry!!! Jesus neva worshipped d image of his fada and he publicly stated dat we should worship God in spirit and in truth.
I keep on asking..... Dat image u r worshippin was carved by who? A carpenter or ur man of god.
If u bow down to any idol in d name of christianity, u r on d same level wit amadioha or sango worshipper.

Listening To (There's No Church In The World-JayZ ft Kanye West)

ijawkid:

We are talking about worship here...

If people bow down before the images or carvings of there parents both at home and @ church in other to get to GOD then that will be blatant idolatry....

And you know that is exactly what you guys do......

Bowing before a white womans image or moulding and praying through her,hoping she will convey your prayers to God...

I wonder which god sef.....

The problem we Roman Catholic have is just that we don't read bible, all we do is go to Mass.

Am a proud Roman Catholic but I don't follow some of their teaches, just like images.

ijawkid:

We are talking about worship here...

If people bow down before the images or carvings of there parents both at home and @ church in other to get to GOD then that will be blatant idolatry....

And you know that is exactly what you guys do......

Bowing before a white womans image or moulding and praying through her,hoping she will convey your prayers to God...

I wonder which god sef.....

ijawkid:

We are talking about worship here...

If people bow down before the images or carvings of there parents both at home and @ church in other to get to GOD then that will be blatant idolatry....

And you know that is exactly what you guys do......

Bowing before a white womans image or moulding and praying through her,hoping she will convey your prayers to God...

I wonder which god sef.....

Did joshua and the people of isreal commit idolatory when they carved images of the winged creatures and bronze serpent? What the hell do you understand by worship? Please no double standards and hypocrisy here

Youngzedd:

The problem we Roman Catholic have is just that we don't read bible, all we do is go to Mass.

Am a proud Roman Catholic but I don't follow some of their teaches, just like images.

It is either you follow the church's teaching or you cease to be catholic.Besides no where in the bible is images outlawed rather what is outlawed is idols and not images

mejai: Whoever dat compares wat d 0P is asking here wit d potraits of ur dad and mum needs to go to mental home. Hw can u compare God and ur parents? Na so our level of understandin don reach in dis forum?
Hw many times do ur worship ya fada or moda? But u do dat each time u go to church. Pls dis is pure idolatry!!! Jesus neva worshipped d image of his fada and he publicly stated dat we should worship God in spirit and in truth.
I keep on asking..... Dat image u r worshippin was carved by who? A carpenter or ur man of god.
If u bow down to any idol in d name of christianity, u r on d same level wit amadioha or sango worshipper.

Oga no vex, but you should read through the posts before commenting. Abi u just wan comment? Have you ever seen God's image in a catholic church?
The problem with people like you is that they don't listen, they only want to talk.

Images and idol are not synonyms.Idols refers to images that are worshipped.once an image is not worshipped it is not an idol.God never said do not make images and that's why he directed moses,joshua and solomon to make images in the temples all he said was do not worship them and the last time I checked catholics do not worship images

Can someone (a catholic ) pls tell us why they petition Mary to pray for them? Will like to see scriptural backing on this. If I remember clearly Jesus said no one comes to the father except through him. So where does praying to Mary come from?

solomon201: Can someone (a catholic ) pls tell us why they petition Mary to pray for them? Will like to see scriptural backing on this. If I remember clearly Jesus said no one comes to the father except through him. So where does praying to Mary come from?

I wonder oo. Next thing they'll say now is dat when ur mother asks u for sometrhing that u will give her. They forget dats not wat d scriptures say

forkinsonlolo: God doesnt have an image. no one has never seen God before, stop associating partner with God

bt i tot we were made 4rm God's image n likeness.

Not just catholics I say christainity in general ; Prayer shaw, special oil from isreal, holy water, mantle,cross from calvary tree, hand-cloth, going to Jerusalem praying in Jesus tomb, worshiping minister of God, they are now so many, christains have to open their eyes so many idolatery. Just try and watch TBN for a day and you will understand what I am talking about.

solomon201: Can someone (a catholic ) pls tell us why they petition Mary to pray for them? Will like to see scriptural backing on this. If I remember clearly Jesus said no one comes to the father except through him. So where does praying to Mary come from?

Please stay on the topic or form another thread to discuss that

solomon201: Can someone (a catholic ) pls tell us why they petition Mary to pray for them? Will like to see scriptural backing on this. If I remember clearly Jesus said no one comes to the father except through him. So where does praying to Mary come from?

catholics often pray THROUGH CHRIST OUR LORD and we belive alsoas its stated in d bible dat our life does not end here because d soul of d just man rests with d lord so just like u can ask any xtian to pray 4 u we ask mary and d saints to pray because they are not dead but have life in christ. D bible also said dat' when we die we will be like d angels'. So if d angels are happy and rejoicing when a sinner repents dat shows dat they are aware of everythin hapenin on earth. Pls read ur bible

alajor:
I wonder oo. Next thing they'll say now is dat when ur mother asks u for sometrhing that u will give her. They forget dats not wat d scriptures say

catholics don't pray 2 mary or saints...dey only ask dem 2 intercede. Wen jesus worked his 1st miracle hw did it happen? Wen dey said dey had no wine he told dem his hour haz not yet come...dey had 2 beg mary to intercede 4 dem 2 her son...and jesus did as work d miracle 4 dem...
If u don't understand d chatholic faith ask some 1 to enlighten u den running ur mouth anyhow...