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I stare at the world, and I see people putting focus on things, elivating them to a God like status, and worshiping them, making them false religions. Now, these are things no one thinks of as religions, so bare with me here. These are things people trat as such, and since we live in a society that has an anti-religious message, these are more dangerous then any false belief, but they are not religions. To begin

Selfishness is not a Religion
The biggest one, people turn them selves into God. Another message of society is that human beings are the only thing that matters, so people turn selfishness into a religon, who's key belief is Why do unto others, when you can do unto you? Be carefull, for more people are affected with this all encompassing selfishness then they relise.

Drugs and Booze are not a Religion
Life is hard, life sucks, its going to be hard more offten then its going to be easy. People generally fall into two catigory's, those who accept this, and those who seek an escape from reality. Unfortionetly, more people are falling into the second catigory, who escape through drugs, or alchol, or perscription pills(That's a big one).

Sex is not a Religon
Oh God, the sex. When the girl I was in love with died, my reaction was to go out and sleep with any thing that moved. Of course, it took nearly a year to pull my self out of it, and admit this was my way of dealing with pain, and pray to God to forgive me. If the only thing matters is pleasure, as we are told by the world, then Sex is quite literaly God, as Sex is the ultimate phsical pleasure. Am I saying don't have sex, no, gosh no. Just, don't obsess.

What do all these have in common, besides the aproval of the world? They all lead to your eventual death.

Ahhh.. the much hated False Idols...

WHATS YOUR FALSE IDOL?

In times of the Bible, it referred to Idols not only as Statues, but as anything in our life. What is it that we worship? What do we have to do every day? If any of you are human like me, sometimes I go days without reading the Bible, or even praying. And allot of that has to deal with Idols in my life.

Anything can be an idol, an example for me would be smoking; If you were active here a year ago you would have read a thread about how I was suffering without my idol. I became grumpy, agitated, and al around a butt head.

Not to mention my anger at my family. That was a giant Idol that I had to overcome in my life. I spent allot of time devoted to hating my family and not on God. Besides, I was murdering my family in the eyes of God; because I hated them when I was commanded to love them.

Video games? Yeah, I will admit Video Games have become a bit of a problem; I like to play the old school Mario Bros. then to do my chores of even study the Bible. The internet in general has been a problem, some of you can agree to that notion. How many times do we log on and not pray? We spend countless hours just cruising MySpace or FaceBook and get nothing done. I am guilty all of the time. I have only as of late been determined to figure out where I am.

Sometimes even relationships can be an idol. For myself, I am stuck in that current position. I don't necessarily mean dating relationships, but also friendships. Is there someone in your life that you just want to hang out with them that you neglect things? Or you do things you probably shouldn't do just to please them? Maybe you have a friend that isn't the best example in your life. And yet you follow their lead without meaning to. For me, it’s a friend that always talks about people behind their backs. It isn’t right, and yet I don’t do anything to try and stop her, or tell her otherwise.

God instructs us many times in our life to get rid of our idols. The Old Testimate is heavily coated with the Israelites being told to get rid of them. They were God's chosen people, and as Christians so are we. Shouldn’t we follow the same instructions God gave them? There is a few verses in 2 Timothy that I think does a great illustration on the subject.





First let’s look at the first part of that piece of Scripture: Verse 20 says that “in a large house there are articles of not only gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some for noble purposes, some for ignoble.” Now, ‘Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit’ (1 Corinthians 6:19). So that ‘large house’ is our lives. We have things in our lives that we are really proud of, those are the ‘articles of gold and silver’. We also have things that sometimes aren’t so nice; that’s would be ‘also of wood and clay’. All things can be used to glorify God. But the good things in our lives we use for ‘noble purposes’, and the bad we use for ‘ignoble’. Ignoble means not very good. And so if we use them for not very good purposes, it isn’t pleasing to God. In my Bible, it’s called New American Standard Bible, NASB, and it says that they were to “honor and to dishonor’. So are we honoring God with the things in our lives?

Next, let’s look at verse 21: “If a man cleanses himself from the latter; he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.” So right here it tells us that if we get rid of the idols in our lives then we will be an instrument of noble purpose, or an instrument of honor. Don’t we want to honor God? Isn’t that the goal for us as Christians? So if we get rid of those things that God isn’t too happy with in our lives then we can be made ‘useful to the Mater’. I know for me that I want to be useful to God. Because I know that He doesn’t need me, but it is I that need Him.

So how do we get rid of our idols? Well there are a bunch of things that can be done. First, you should pray to God. And ask him to help you always to focus on him. You can also make better choices. And maybe talk to your parents, and let them know that you want to be made an ‘instrument of honor’ for God. Talk to them and say that this is what I put before God. Sin hates to be seen. That’s why we don’t like to get punished because our sin doesn’t like to be noticed. If you drag the sin out into the light, it will lose all power. And the first step to that is cleaning out the ‘instruments of dishonor’ in our lives.

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The worship of idols can be traced to early parts of civilization long before Christianity was even conceived. The Aztecs Incans, Mayans, made sacrifices (usually human) to these idols in order to appease them. It isn't something new. Just human nature. We have to worship something doesn't matter what it is and it can be outside the basis of our set religion if we have any. Of course without civilization this can awry and we would go back in time and de-evoloutionize and go back to using humans for sacrifices. What I'm trying to say is that its natural.

Now I disagree with Saint Angel. And I'll break it down or make it the attempt.

1) Myspace is not an idol. It's something we do when we're bored. If you think its bad as an idol. Then canel your account and stop going to it. Gaia is also an idol. You spend most of the time on here doing what? What do you think you're accomplishing? Trying to convert the masses? I am on here because I am a vice-captain of a guild and I do belong to two freebie art guilds and my job is to fill out requests and it helps my art skills improve. Do I worship Gaia? No. Do I joke about it? Yep.

2) Video games aren't idols. How can they be? Sure I am a gamer. And I spend at least 4 hours (sometimes 6) but that's because I'm OBSESSED with it. Again it gives me something to do. Do I worship video games? No. Do I joke about worshipping games or the characters? Yep.

3) Relationships.........*blinks* Dude I seriously should smack you. How can you worship an idea or a quality. If you don't appease them then you're going to be a loner. Sometimes you just have to swallow whatever pride you (and don't say you don't cause that's a total lie) and do what they say. You want to make your friends happy, right? You don't want to see them cry, right? If you do then you are really messed up. Do I worship my friends as an idol? No. I look up to one of them as a sensei, a teacher. Do I joke about it? yes.

So what you're saying is that we should give things up. The thing is. If we did do this then we would have a pretty boring shitty and meaningless existence. Wouldn't we? Without technology we would still be here sitting thinking the world is flat and people would still be dieing of diesease we have found cures for.

But if it seems to you that I worship these things then you seriously need some help. And I'll be happy to give it to you. ^___^v

I don't honestly believe in the bible. I believe in the ten commandments and thats about it. Simply because the bible contradicts itself. Love thyself as thou wouldst love thy neighbor. And then it takes about how gays are sinners. It also talks about oppressing women and how women should listen to men and become their slaves. This goes against my personal beliefs as a women's rights activist. That and I don't think God intended for women to be treated as less than human. He wanted us to have something more in life. Or that's what I believe abyways.

Y'know, I agree. To an extent.

A lot of things can become idols for people. But that doesn't necessarily mean they are idols for everyone who uses them.

Oh and Saint, that wasn't much of a pwnage. And rubbing it in someone's face is rude.

I admit, putting pwnage was a childish thing. But it was in response to your arrogant tone. And the pompous underlaying of your chosen words.

And its by Faith that I believe. And I find your reasoning slighly contradictory. Christians are to be Christ-like. How are you to be that when you have no reference as to what that is.

I'm not directing this to you but I would rather be a arrogant than ignorant.

And how do you know that Christ was pure? He could have been the most horrible person. It's only speculation seeing as how we don't actually know for a fact as to how he lived. The bible is the piece of proof that we have that he existed at some point of time. The only proof and only literal depiction. Now I know of some people who act very not so Christ-like. If you look at the pro-lifers and anti-gay marriage pro-deporting illegal immigrants. Everything they say seems so not Christ-like. They spew nothing but hatred towards the other groups. I don't think God nor Christ himself could've planned on that. Nor do I think the apostles ever though that this would ever happen.

Now I don't believe in most parts of the bible. I have said that I do believe in the Ten Comandments because its basic common sense and logic. However if I were to read the bible I would highlight and annotate it and see which parts contradict the others. (Basically analyze it).

But of course that has to do with how I was raised. I was raised to question everything and that includes religion. Not follow it blindly. If you think I offened you with my last thought than I'm sorry. I am making a general statement based on my observations.