Re: There is no Idol Worship in Hinduism
Peace denada
Thank you for posting this article, however, I can't help make some key observations. So here they are:
1) Idol worship must be wrong even according to the Hindus or else there wouldn't be all this self-sympathy and justification that the method of worship adopted by Hindus is actualy NOT idol worship.
2) Specifically I believe Hindus have not done enough to clarify the latent problems in idol worship to their own people. Some Hindus will still say today that their murti is God and they worship it, however, the reasoning given by the learned is that these are forms that are not God in themselves.
3) Different castes tend to have different murtis and this seems to be another way of controlling mindset and masses. Perhaps the puranas had this in mind?
4) Nothing has been mentioned here about prostrating to parents and other people such as gurus. Prostration is a form of worship.
5) The pagan idol worshippers of Makkah to which Islam calls idol worshippers, did not make their own idols and then worship them, they had set people to make them, they too had rituals and ceremonies and they bought and sold them as icons of trade.
6) Levelling the playing field - I believe the acceptability of idols/murti has been based on the dogma of the Hindu scriptures and how they have been understood. According to what little I know Hindus believe that God made creation from Himself. That all of creation is part and connected to God. Actually Muslims also believe in a connection to God, but we also at the same time assert a very distinct separation. That God has the unique power of Creating something from nothing - True Creation Power. To create bydrawing from oneself is a limitation in such an ability. However, the counter argument often states that One God is a limitation on the idea that He can be everywhere. For Muslims the directly objective rational constructs are not allowed to be compromised such that One cannot equal to Many. I guess evidence needs to be found in the Hindu scriptures that shows that God is above the Heavens. Also more research needs to be done nature of Creation itself.
7) I do believe idolatory is not acceptable to both Hindus and Muslims and for this reason more effort needs to be made to reconcile our differences. We need to get to the bottom of why or how the murti tradition had developed and whether there is a correlation between them and mind control of masses.