What's wrong with worshipping a golden calf?

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He told his disciples to eat bread and also not to forget him, believe it or not that passage does not seem to imply an indication that a ritual must be performed. 2000 years later people go to the church every Sunday to eat a white circle that's probably made of paper or something...

Humans are primates. Primates are visual creatures. We have always made representations of our gods. They've generally attempted to show something about the nature of the said deity. The golden calf, if it existed, was most likely a representation of Horus; he was often represented as a young bull-calf, a symbol of the strength of the newborn Sun.

The Abrahamic religions barred 'idols' to differentiate themselves from the religions of the tribes and peoples surrounding them. Because they shunned these peoples, they never bothered to find out the rationale behind why those people used religious images. It was easy to assume that 'the heathen in his blindness bows down to wood and stone' when perhaps, in the heathen's own mind, what was happening was rather more sophisticated. And if you believe the heathen's view is valueless compared to your own, you're not going to bother to find out what he really believes. And if you shun his rituals, you're going to make up your own ideas about what he does as well.

I've met Christians who categorically state that Catholics 'worship' statues of the Virgin Mary, that Buddhists 'worship' Buddha as a god, and that Wiccans 'worship' images of Satan (hey, look, he even has horns!). When offered information that tells them what members of these faiths truly believe, these people invariably reject it in favor of their own biased versions.

One can look at idolatry another way. Reality is big enough that no one symbol or metaphor can ever completely represent it. If you start to mistake the necessarily limited symbol for the unknowable Reality (e.g. thinking that because God is depicted as a Father, that God is actually male, with all that that implies for human gender relations), you're heading for trouble. The irony is that the Protestant churches that have been most admantly opposed to images have mostly adopted another form of idolatry: they believe that the sum total of God is found not in a manmade image, but in a book.

There is nothing wrong with worshiping a golden calf. I will accept your gifts at any time. I prefer American dollars if you have them.

I think only 1/8 of `1 percent of the people who visit this thread got that...but it makes perfect sense to people that know...

God:

I like the smell of burnt meat but what I really crave is VIRGINS.

If you really want to please me then cut the heart out of virgins.
Or throw them in the volcano.
Or feed them to the sacred crocodiles.
Or burn them in a giant "wicker man".

Give me more innocent virgins and I will see that you have a good harvest and win at war.

That is what they say, if you push them on it. They are still "graven images."

By the way, the Catholics and Protestants have different enumerations of the 10 commandments. For the Protestants,



is a commandment unto itself. For the Catholics, this gets buried under



which, for Protestants, is a completely separate commandment.

I have seen Catholics bowing down before graven images.

Your education on religion must have come from Cecil B. DeMille, because you've obviously never read the original script. Chet haEgel (the sin of the Golden Calf) was all about rejecting G-d as the liberator, merely because the people miscounted when Moses was supposed to come down from Mt. Sinai (40 days/nights from the day after the giving of the Law on Shavuot, NOT 40 days/nights FROM Shavuot) and were afraid he wasn't going to come back. This happened on the 17th of Tammuz (hence the original reason for this fast day). Furthermore, this had nothing to do with wandering in the desert for 40 years. That was because of Chet haMiraglim (the sin of the spies). 10 of the spies sent out gave reports of a terrifying land that would swallow the Israelites up, whereas Caleb and Joshua said it would be conquerable and to trust G-d. That the people trusted the 10 spies represented the truest rejection of trust in G-d, even after all He had done to liberate and sustain the Israelites in the wilderness. G-d got angry again, but Moses tempered him again. From this, G-d decided that the generation of Egypt wasn't ready to take the land, that a free generation raised outside Egypt would be more obediant and trusting. The date of this was Tish'ah b'Av, a date that would resonate throughout Jewish history as the saddest day of the year. The only way Chet haEgel and the declaration of wandering in the wilderness for 40 years are even remotely connected is that their dates of commemoration mark the beginning and climax of the Three Weeks mourning period in the Jewish year, a period marked by more interconnected events (on the 17th of Tammuz, the Romans breached the walls of Jerusalem, and on Tish'ah b'Av, both the First and Second Temples were destroyed). This past Tuesday marked the 1,961st commemoration of the destruction of the Second Temple. May it be rebuilt speedily in our days as a global job in which Jew, Christian, and Muslim would work together.

Well done! Sounds like you really know your stuff.

Actually I have an official Jewish bible with Hebrew on one page and an English translation on the next.

Either way god promised to lead people to the promised land then he made them wander around the wilderness until they were all dead.

Do you think if god had told them in the first place they would have gone?

The forty year march in the wilderness killed off the older generation (mostly. Joshuah survived)). The youngsters born during the wandering never knew slavery so they did not yearn of the flesh-pot of Egypt. It was this new generation that inherited the Land of Promise.

The older generation, the Israelites who were slaves in Egypt and the "mixed multitude" that came with them did not have the mentality or the courage to found a new nation.

ruveyn

Perhaps not but there is no getting around the fact that god promised them the "promised land" and then screwed them over.

If I were into cow worship I'd sing:

"This cow is an awesome cow
It's milk will never taste foul
It's moo makes me laugh out loud
This cow is an awesome cow!"

Vexcalibur, at least by Church of England rules the Communion wafers have to be made with wheat (although I think these days they do gluten-free versions). They're thin and papery like that so they can be swallowed whole, because the superstition, and it is exactly that, grew up that actually chewing the 'body of Christ' was a sin. Try to swallow the flat unleavened breads of 1C Palestine, or for that matter a modern-day matzoh, without chewing and you'd probably end up meeting God rather sooner than you expected.

I like the story of the guy who died at Culloden who was given the last rites on the battlefield with whisky and oatcakes...

Lol the Exodus is so full of dubious things . For example Yahweh himself made the pharaoh say no repeated amount of times... If it wasn't for Yahweh making the Pharaoh say no, only a couple of plagues would be needed and no need to let it go into genocide (whatever else you'd call killing all firstborn of a race)...

Nothing like the Judges book though: What about God "selling" their people as slaves whenever he saw his people sinning (for example by marrying women from another race o_O). Meh.



The funniest thing of all is that probably the disciples chewed the bread during that scene.

Yeah, that ticks me off too. The Pharaoh had given up several times but god "hardened his heart"

Later in the story Moses asked god why he screwed the pharaoh and god replied "So that people could see the sport I had with him"

If god loved everyone then why didn't he just appear to the pharaoh and say "I am the one and only god and I want you to do this..."

No, instead he chose to destroy the pharaohs country and kill thousands of people.

Isn't god a great guy?

It's probable no one would worship a powerless god. No point. So God had to destroy enough people to scare hell out of the world. Same thing Harry Truman did with Hiroshima. That's what makes superpowers or supernatural powers.

Jesus and Buddha didn't go around smiting people and they have done pretty well attracting followers.

If Harry Truman is an example of a "strong leader" Then Genghis Khan, Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot must have been truly GREAT leaders.