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For Further Study

Icons as useful aids for attaining holiness
Lesson 27: On The Sacramentals (Baltimore Catechism) (Catholic Caucus)
Why We Need Sacred Art
Being Catholic: Sacred Things, Crucifixes and Crosses
Being Catholic: Sacred Things, Sacred Images: Statues and Other Icons
Being Catholic: Sacred Things, Relics and the Incorruptibles
Baltimore Catechism: On the Sacramentals (Catholic Caucus)

Catholic Ping!

How can any sane person justify bowing down and praying to a statue? The statue is a thing fashioned by a person's hands from some kind of earthly substance. It is clearly idol worship. Anyone looking in from the outside can clearly see that it is, but like an alcoholic who cannot see his own drunkenness, many Catholics cannot see that they are drunk with the worship of Mary, saints, statues and who knows what else. It is a heart issue but I am afraid that many wear their hearts on their sleeves for all to plainly see worship of other than Almighty God. Unfortunately like alcoholics they are the last ones to see it or admit to it. Those who witness what is going on from the outside do not hate, but hearts are broken because their neighbors are blind to their own sins.

Idol worship has a strong and demonic draw so therefore, mercifully, The LORD warned clearly and strongly against it. The ancient Israelites were guilty of bowing down to idols, but thought they could also worship Almighty God. They learned the hard way that The LORD, though patient, eventually rained down His wrath upon idol worshipers.

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Psalms 115:4 Their idols [are] silver and gold, the work of men's hands.

Psa 115:5 They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not:

Psa 115:6They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not:

Psa 115:7 They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat.

Psa 115:8 They that make them are like unto them; [so is] every one that trusteth in them.

Psa 115:9 O Israel, trust thou in the LORD: he [is] their help and their shield.

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Deuteronomy 4:15 Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day [that] the LORD spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire:

Deu 4:16 Lest ye corrupt [yourselves], and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female,

Deu 4:17 The likeness of any beast that [is] on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air,

Deu 4:18 The likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that [is] in the waters beneath the earth:

Deu 4:19 And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, [even] all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven......

Deu 4:24 For the LORD thy God [is] a consuming fire, [even] a jealous God.

You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth.

God is not prohibiting the making of pictures and statues

Well he certainly is...Right there in black and white...How could any person who can read deny such a thing???

God says don't make them...And if someone else makes them, do not bow down to them...God says don't do it...Period...