Re: There is no Idol Worship in Hinduism
Psyah - why do you need a specific statement in the Puranas to understand anything? Unlike Islam where people seem to seek a specific sanction for each and everything, we don't.
If you go through various Vedas, Vedantas, Puranas and Suktams, you are bound to find a variety of statements about Oneness of God, Formfull/formlessness of God, importance and non-importance of rituals and worship, and methods of transcending all including all these.
My point to you on my post you quoted is simply that you cannot assign that learned Hindus and learned Muslims are alike only based on whether they believe in one God or formlessness of God or not.
It does seem fair to conclude that the Vedas and the Gita want to impress upon all that there is but one God and that it is foolish to fight over what form that God takes or doesn't take.
Also keep in mind - the concept of brahman and the Hiranyagarbha - the actor and the vessel - from which all emerged is different from what we generally mean by God.
Finally - how is God bound by Dharma? it is a fair question; there are many many ways to elaborate thus but here are a few that come to the top of the mind:
in some Hindu thought, creation, sustenance and termination are the duties of Brahma (different from brahman and brahmins), Vishu and Shiva; this is now generally believed so
Indra is worshipped as a God, more prevalently in the past, less so now - the number of legends where he has gotten into trouble with his Dharma
Above all, the very Brahma, the creator is replaced in cycles (giving rise to the concept of a Brahma era consisting of n number of yuga cycles, with each cycle being made of 4 yugas, each yuga being 100000 times the square root (or some such similar formula) of some constant etc.....