As I write this article, the elections of 2008 are going on in USA. Daily news, reports, talk and video shows, reveal a very acute display of the phenomenon discussed in this article: the mentality of the idol worship.
The country’s mass media, which suppose (and assumed to be doing that) to provide informative reports on the campaign developments, in fact, participate in creating the idols to take over minds of the citizens. As this process is so clearly revealing the warnings of Torah, we need to dedicate more time on analyzing this phenomenon. We are not interested in parties and groups who actually drive this brainwashing machine by investing their money into it as this is beyond our topic and we are not taking sides in politics. We only want to see how images of idols are getting created in our times and how the ideas associated with these idols take over the minds of millions of people and thus influence people to make a certain choices based on … just that, image.
From author’s A personal conversation with a friend E. :
E: I just voted for O.
A: Why did you choose him?
E: He gives hope to people to make a difference.
A: Hope in which way?
E: Well, his speech is very good and he really promises…
A: I thought that all of them during election do just that – promises, why did you choose candidate’s O. promises?
E: He sounds really convincing. Besides, he is newcomer so he is not corrupted like those others who are old experienced bureaucrats.
A: could it happen that O. may be even more selfish bureaucrat than the other candidate ?…
E: We will see that but we need a change …
A: yes, but what makes you think that this change cannot be to the worst ? Did you verify candidate’s O. voting records? Did you check his known activity, did you read about his faith and about his spiritual mentor to know him better?
E: Well, I don’t really have time to check all that I just liked what I heard from news about O. …
A: Sounds like you made your choice based on nicely put TV shows which created a nicer look and feel of O. . I realized now that this is how country makes it’s choice at large…
This is how the idol for people’s mind created and how it takes over: First the idea – the person, the candidate been portrait in a very “consumable” ways with all the bells and whistles. The richness of wording to describe his advantages over the other candidate will easily replace any historical records which could be used to prove one way or another the real candidate. But people don’t require any proves. They simply don’t have time and besides, they got used to pick their choices from the mouths of the talk and TV show hosts, putting their full trust in one or another political commentators, TV show hosts or reporters… (“I don’t have time but he, the commentator, knows better”)
Classic case of the idol worship:
- Making a choice not based on any hard evidences or historical documents or known facts about the character or about viewpoint of the candidate.
- After making a quite baseless choice, then – a full trust in the chosen candidate no matter what comes up against him (the choice already made) – any news, damaging the chosen candidate is rejected without much analysis – thus a complete Faith.
- Clinging completely to the choice as trusted idea in any developments in the political life of the country. There are even established traditions how to “register” individual’s faith in a particular candidate – a bumper sticker reading ” Vote for … such and such”
Although you will not find here any idols made of the wood and stone, neither you will find sacrifices with burned animals, but don’t make mistake about it: there are plenty of TV and paper images made here to be engraved in average human mind which work the same ways as those 3,000 years ago. The same gravity of the dominant deity worshiped by a majority of population still influences any individual mind today just as it was 3,000 years ago. This “mental gravitational force” is created by mass media.
All elements of the idol worship are on display here: a complete Faith in somebody who created a favorable image in individual’s mind, large number of the population “worshiping” this candidate (thus a “gravitational force”), this Faith being a complete, without any reservation as some kind of Deity with imaginary powers assigned to him … and all the hopes of individual are tied to the invisible powers of this Deity / candidate. Whether this choice of candidate will prove to be as he was portrayed is beyond the point here – the mass mind control process of making a choice, – this makes this election process a clear example of the idol worship.
The great country, born by the wisdom and courage of the founding fathers whose Faith in God and love for people was based on Bible, now this country is falling into the abyss of wrongful selection of it’s corrupt leaders promoted by crafted images of idols posing on the screens and pages of mass media. The neglect of the Divinely Infused in humans craving for Truth and Justice is a synonym of neglect of God Himself, – brings people and a country as a whole to the collapse.
And it is certain that if ever you turn away from the Lord your God, and go after other gods, to serve them and to worship them, I bear witness to you today that destruction will overtake you. (Deuteronomy 8:19)
Idol Worship Navigation:
- Idol Worship Part 1 – Outline
- Idol Worship Part 2 – Understanding Nature of Faith
- Idol Worship Part 3 – Faith Based On Evidences Versus Baseless
- Idol Worship Part 4 – Elections in USA
