And yet it appears Annalex does not shirk from that conclusion. Rather, he agreed with it in his post #4,585 by answering the question "...why does the Catholic church venerate, pray to and for all appearances worship the woman, Mary?" with his response --
Annalex: "'Cuz she's Mother of God? Just a wild guess."
Annalex didn't nitpick or whittle down the truth of his actions or beliefs by parsing words and I admire him for it (although I disagree with his conclusion.)
I personally do not bow down to idols or images. I may bow down before them but my heart is making reverence or prostration not to something I imagine is in the image.
See? There you go again. "I bow down 'before' idols; I don't bow down 'to' idols."
The end result of this prepositional switch is the same -- you are kneeling before gold and silver and wood and paint.
"Shall I fall down to the stock of a tree?"
Scripture says "No."
why do the people imagine a vain thing?
Apparently you've answered your own question in the next paragraph...
We don't read the Bible either.
My leaning in the Spirit is that it is just as wrong to honor Mary too little as it is to honor her too much.
She truly is the "Blessed Mother of the Incarnate Word" - but going overboard surely would not honor her, i.e. it would make her uncomfortable. The Scriptures tell me that she was and (I aver) remains, humble.
Well, your question was about appearance of worship. Did you ask me if Mary is God or if a statue or an icon is God I would have answered, again without parsing words, with a simple No.
A Catholic worships by offering sacrifice. Not by kneeling, prostrating, standing on the head or hopping around on one leg. This is why we go to Mass. When you see us offering the consecrated host to Mary, by all means, knock us dead.
In my background the difference between slander and error is knowledge and intention. An ignorant person might say something untrue in error, while a person who is informed would say the same thing but in that case it would be a lie. (This, interestingly is a distinction which is too subtle for Democrats.) Persisting in ignorance is also culpable, but that's another matter.
Similarly the difference between bowing down TO and idol and bowing down in the neighborhood of one while praying NOT to the idol but to God or a saint are importantly different activities. If painted wood were the problem we'd all have to go outdoors to pray, and make sure no painted would or dressed stone was in our line of sight.
If you see no difference between "before" and "to" then do you check around to/before make sure there's no painted wood nearby before/to you kneel to/before tie your shoelaces? How far away from painted wood does one have to/before be before/to it's safe? And would avoiding painted wood count as a "work"?
Somebody said "rend your hearts and not your garments," and others have cautioned against too great a reliance on appearances. But I understand you to say that one shouldn't take people's words seriously so maybe they meant we SHOULD pay attention to appearances and rend our garments and not our hearts. It would be "parsing" to/before pay too close attention to/before words like "genetic", "alchemical", or "materialistically". Once "material" means "immaterial" we have left discourse far, far behind.Is what they really mean, "I don't LIKE it! Make it STOP!"
In fact why let any meaning at all interfere with condemnation of those with whom we disagree? Let's just all give Howard Dean screams. No need for reason, thought, charity, or care -- just pure feeling. Not my cup of tea, but to/before each his or her as the case may be own.