Thursday, June 28, 2007

Buying idol

buyingidols

I am in no position to judge nor to reason why people must resort to buying and acquiring idols just to prove their faith; just to prove that they believe in something or someone.

I was raised by Catholic parents, attended a Catholic secondary school (that spends most of the entirety of the semester praying the rosary, novena, 3 o'clock habit, angelus, going to first Friday mass, etc.). I live in a predominantly Catholic country (the only one in SE Asia)...so I should know.

But simply, I am amazed because I used to believe in them. Idols.

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7 comments:

drei said...

so ano religion mo ngayon? :)

great chatting with you the other day! :)

Anonymous said...

Ah, the joy of catholic schools! My secondary school only made us go to mass once a month (where I refused to take "Holy communion") and while we did pray in elementary school, our teachers kind of gave up on that in secondary school. (I remember one incident in the fourth grade where an interim teacher got mad at a friend of mine (who was a muslim) because she wasn't joining in on the "Hail Mary" and my friend started crying cause she didn't know the words and none of the other teachers had ever made a point out of it. God, I hated that school.)

pieterbie said...

You are right about my dresses photo. Should have cropped out the spot light.

Tell you something funny.
In the south of Belgium we have a casle that is devoted to a community of followers of Krishna.

We visited, I think my eldest was 5. He was rather noisy all the time. The devotee said: don't worry, we love children, and in the next room he will be confronted with the image of God. He will then fall quiet because of reverence (or something like that).

We entered the main prayer hall, standing on a table was a small doll with blue skin and black hair.

Tom asked: 'Is that God'?
The devotee answered: 'Yes'.
Tom laughed: 'That isn't God, it is cookie monster from Sesame Street'.
The devotee looked very sad.

Diong said...

I love your street photography!

Anonymous said...

Tena koe ehoa
I understand where you're coming from Rayts about faith and the ideology associated with it.
Does not having an idol lessen the cause and affect of faith or religion?
Would a god rather be thought of in any manner of mindful connectivity or as the personification of an idol?
The logic of humanity is so thin sometimes! I wonder if it wasn't for profits gained from the sale of idols would there be so many available as icons of worship and would that mean anything about the idisyncransies of man relative to hedonism and/or religion?
I mean how deep is faith really and what defines it as being something worthy of worshipping at any level of consciousness?
I guess everything has a price.... it would seem to me that being a believer does also.

Anonymous said...

I have crucifixes too and statues of saints. It's also part of our culture. I don't believe that the images themselves could work miracles or that all our prayers would be granted if we talk to them. It's just a symbol. The faith is deep inside of us. And it's the way we live which really embody our faith. Your street picture is fantastic Rayts.

Anonymous said...

drei,
wala. i believe in god. and i have faith. but i refuse to name him. so he's neither JC, Allah, or Yahweh. i don't claim that i belong to a certain religion either because i am not even a practicing Catholic anymore.

yea, nice chatting with you the other day. i am proud for your personal accomplisments. i hope everything goes well for you. you deserve it.

Lies,,
so you mean to say that the interim teacher doesn't even know that your friend is not even a Catholic?

people are burned when faith is imposed. we never question, we just follow. but the most sinful of all (i think) is making other people do something and just justify eveything by the word, faith.

Peter,
that was a very funny anecdote. it made my day. :-) well, at least Tom knows what a god really looks like even at that early age. and at least the little guy has a disposition already.

when i was 5, i believed everything that was said to me about god. that he would be mad and disappointed of me just because i was noisy and i don't sleep during late afternoons. or i won't go to heaven just beacause i ate my kid sister's share of the cookie.

diong,
naku salamat. :-)

ndiginiz,
personally i don't see anything wrong with having idols in the house. history and traditions say that even our early ancestors believe in them.

what i am against is, people who buy idols and treat them as gods. In the (real) Catholicism, idols are mere representations of "god" but they are not THE God. Idols are reminders, thus people mold them in what we think should god look like...so that we won't forget.

Toe,
yea, precisely. idols and other form of images are part of us. I agree with you one hundred percent. Idols are reminders. Never to be treated other than that. thanks for the appreciation Toe. ;-)

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