Tag: idolatry
Getting rid of Idols
What idols are in your life? Do you recognize them all? Here, we can all use an “illumination.” For idols are many — and very sneaky, as well as entrenched: seemingly normal. Very often, we justify them. There are idols of self: ego, vanity, selfishness. (Do you put your interests above those of others — in ways large… Read More ›
We are all inclined to idolatry
My thesis is now clear: in my opinion the root of our trouble is that our habits of thought and the drives that proceed from them are basically idolatrous and mythical. We are all the more inclined to idolatry because we imagine that we are of all generations the most enlightened, the most objective, the… Read More ›
We are the Champion Idolaters of all History
Reading the Vulgate I run across the Latin word simulacrum which has implications of a mask-like deceptiveness, of intellectual cheating, of an ideological shell-game. The word simulacrum, it seems to me, presents itself as a very suggestive one to describe an advertisement, or an over-inflated political presence, or that face on the TV screen. The… Read More ›
Technology was made for man, not man for technology
It is precisely this illusion, that mechanical progress means human improvement, that alienates us from our own being and our own reality. It is precisely because we are convinced that our life, as such, is better if we have a better car, a better TV set, better toothpaste, etc., that we condemn and destroy our… Read More ›
We are the champion idolaters of all history
Does it not occur to us that if, in fact, we live in a society which is par excellence that of the simulacrum, we are the champion idolaters of all history? No, it does not occur to us, because for us an idol is nothing more than a harmless Greek statue, complete with a figleaf,… Read More ›
Without God, man falls into idolatry
Vatican City, Jun 15, 2011 / 01:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- “When God disappears, man falls into the slavery of idolatry,” Pope Benedict XVI said at the June 15 General Audience in St. Peter’s Square. This phenomenon, he said, is clearly “shown by the totalitarian regimes of our time and with various forms of nihilism,… Read More ›