Re: Religion this week: Q & A about Hinduism
Glad you asked these questions and I will try the best of my limited knowledge to answer. To understand the answers you need to first comprehend two important basic ideas fundamental to Vedic and Dharmic concepts:
The Hindu understanding of nature includes God and several levels of demigods. The demigods all have specific attributes and purposes whereas the God (Paramathma) is nirguna (of no attributes). Please read my first post on this subject in this thread.
Vedas are supposed to be learnt orally from a Guru - they cannot be simply read and understood. That is the mistake I suspect you have made (or whoever you quoted from made).
I will explain this by taking your reference to Srimadh Bhagvad Gita -
Your reference to Srimadh Bhagvat Gita, Chapter 7, V 20:
Chapter 7 deals with ‘Knowledge of the ultimate Truth’ – In verses 20 to 22, Bhagvan actually explains how to do demi-God worship (no reference to idols, so I don’t know why you chose to quote this, but anyway, hope this sheds some light on you) as follows:7.20: Those deprived of discrimination by various desires impelled by their particular nature worship the lesser demigods adapting to the applicable rites and rituals 7.21: Whichever demigod a particular devotee desires with faith to worship, I surely sustain firmly that faith to him. 7.22: Endowed with that firm faith the devotee executes worship of this demigod and sanctioned by Me solely obtains that which he desired from that demigod.
Do you see the difference here? You made several mistakes here!
you looked at 7.20 and misread demigods as idols. These are different. Agni for example is a very highly placed demigod; a statue of Agni is the idol. People worship Agni not the statue of Agni
You failed to see where Bhagvan was leading you - take a look at 7.21: He says He will give you the necessary faith to worship the demigod of your choice (of your desire) - for example, if you want to move water from place to place, use a pitcher, NOT a bag. But if you want to carry books, use a bag, not a pitcher. The Bhagvan says He will give you that knowledge to know which carrier for which desire
And He tells you the impact in 7.22; and specifically tells you that each demigod worship is different and the so are the results but ALL of that is as sanctioned by Him.
In all the other references in your question, the mistakes or misreads you are committing are very similar.
I guess I need a prerequisite to your pre-requisite. I don’t understand the difference between your definition of demigod and idols, or “created things”. Because it seems in your clarification, that God Himself says worship other than me - a demigod. God says " I cannot fulfill your desire, something else can,that is, a demigod has more than what I can offer you"
effectively, isn’t it?