Compulsory worship a sure sign of a culture in decline

[Eldorado]

Though we often hear that depictions of the prophet Muhammad are forbidden in Islam, artworks bearing his image can be found in museums in Europe and the United States. He is on a bronze medallion in the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, holding a book.

He is in a Persian miniature in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, ascending to the heavens on a horse. And he is in many carefully curated private collections of Islamic art, appearing from time to time in the catalogues of prestigious auction houses when these artworks change hands.

The prohibition of images of the prophet, no matter how anodyne, is widely accepted today – but, as these examples show, it is a distinctly modern edict.

The religious justification for the ban is far less clear than its proponents believe: there is no such instruction in the Qur’an.

Guardian article at MSN

[+and-then]

The same can be said for the proscription on consuming alcohol.

https://questionsonislam.com/question/how-and-when-alcoholic-drinks-were-proclaimed-religiously-forbidden

 

[eight bits]

Are you sure you're in the right forum? The article seems to be about UK politics, especially how flag etiquette can be an expression of nationalist sentiment. The references to Islam don't seem well integrated into the overall argument.

Full marks for imagination, though, in laying the assassination of cartoonists side-by-side with snarky tweets about the size of a politician's office flag. Thanks to the author for pointing that out, it's a parallelism I might otherwise have overlooked.

[TigerBright19]

Ten Commandments

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image"

Yet Catholic churches are full of graven images of religious figures.  People kneel and pray to them and idolise them.  You don't get that in other churches.  The most bizarre thing is this commandment is apparently not even listed in the Catholic version of the Ten commandments.

 

 

[Hyperionxvii]

4 minutes ago, TigerBright19 said:

Ten Commandments

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image"

Yet Catholic churches are full of graven images of religious figures.  People kneel and pray to them and idolise them.  You don't get that in other churches.  The most bizarre thing is this commandment is apparently not even listed in the Catholic version of the Ten commandments.

Yep, there is that. I grew up around protestants, and even though I heard that term often, there were graven images everywhere in that culture. In the church, in the homes of the faithful...

I'm pretty sure they meant creating images of other gods and worshipping them. But still...

[+Hammerclaw]

Roman Catholic style worship is a syncretism of Roman polytheistic worship and Christian veneration, using the same form of symbolism of imagery and statuary.  

[Hyperionxvii]

2 minutes ago, Hammerclaw said:

Roman Catholic style worship is a syncretism of Roman polytheistic worship and Christian veneration, using the same form of symbolism of imagery and statuary.  

I always perceived the Catholics to be excessive with the ritualism, compared to evangelicals. 

In Brazil it branches off into several directions. Some of it, bizarre, it's sort of a mishmash of Catholic and Macumba. 

[+Hammerclaw]

38 minutes ago, Hyperionxvii said:

I always perceived the Catholics to be excessive with the ritualism, compared to evangelicals. 

In Brazil it branches off into several directions. Some of it, bizarre, it's sort of a mishmash of Catholic and Macumba. 

Just as Protestant Christmas is a mish-mash of pagan and Christian beliefs and folk mythology. Roman and Orthodox Christianity are the original expressions of the the Faith rising up out the polytheistic Roman Empire. Much of Christian forms and liturgy of worship, which carried over into Protestantism as well, were pagan rites and rituals co-opted and adapted to Christian worship. When Christianity had to adapt from private house-church worship to public church and temple worship, it used the means and forms at hand.