on idolatry
Oct. 4th, 2013 01:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormsewerSo, I was thinking about idolatry. It's one of the Ten Commandments, and Muslims take it so seriously that some fly into a murderous rage if people depict God or Mohammed at all.
Why?
Because God said so, yes, but why should God say so?
I actually think there's rational thinking behind it (or was, at one time). The point is to highlight the danger of mistaking the symbol for what it symbolizes, in letting yourself be lulled into thinking that you understand the literal aspects of the symbol and therefore understand the ineffable things that symbol refers to.
Interestingly, Buddhism, which in its doctrine is much more explicit than most about not erroneously concluding that your perception of reality is equivalent to objective reality, doesn't have a specific prohibition against idolatry.
I mean, none of this seems to help overly much in teaching people that a map is not the territory, since a commitment to not being idolatrous quickly becomes a psychological idol itself, but it's not a totally unreasonable thing to ask.
Have you ever picked and held a rose from R, O, S, E?
You say the Name. Now try to find the reality it names.
Look at the moon in the sky, not the one in the lake.
If you want to be free of your obsession with words
and beautiful lettering, make one stroke down.
There's no self, no characteristics,
but a bright center where you have the knowledge
the Prophets have, without books or interpreter.
–Rumi
Why?
Because God said so, yes, but why should God say so?
I actually think there's rational thinking behind it (or was, at one time). The point is to highlight the danger of mistaking the symbol for what it symbolizes, in letting yourself be lulled into thinking that you understand the literal aspects of the symbol and therefore understand the ineffable things that symbol refers to.
Interestingly, Buddhism, which in its doctrine is much more explicit than most about not erroneously concluding that your perception of reality is equivalent to objective reality, doesn't have a specific prohibition against idolatry.
I mean, none of this seems to help overly much in teaching people that a map is not the territory, since a commitment to not being idolatrous quickly becomes a psychological idol itself, but it's not a totally unreasonable thing to ask.
Have you ever picked and held a rose from R, O, S, E?
You say the Name. Now try to find the reality it names.
Look at the moon in the sky, not the one in the lake.
If you want to be free of your obsession with words
and beautiful lettering, make one stroke down.
There's no self, no characteristics,
but a bright center where you have the knowledge
the Prophets have, without books or interpreter.
–Rumi
