tomspug
Absorbant
Whether or not you like Christianity, one of the most profound commandments is, in my mind, the second one: the command not to worship idols.
But I've come to question over time the definition of worship. Where once I considered it something involving praise and prayer, I now attribute more to devotion. If you worship something, either an object or an action, it dominates your time. The more time you devote to something, the more value you are attributing to it: worship.
In a way, this is a kind of slavery, which I have come to understand was the warning against idol worship. Yes, God is a jealous God, but I have come to consider the commandments as being in our best interest. So take the worship of idols, if we performed such an action, how would that hurt us? My understanding is that its not only a waste of time to worship something that is dead (or imaginary), it also damages our ability to interact with reality. By creating a reality for ourselves that is based on falsehood (for example, believing that a statue or stone can grant you fertility or good crops), we fail to give credit where credit is due and likewise discredit, honor and dishonor, etc. Our value system itself, for what has and hasn't value, is impacted by a false premise.
Imagine if you believed that President Obama was planning on forming a union with Canada. The idea, the falsehood, is the idol (idol = falsehood). This untruth would significantly impact your expectations and opinions of the President, of which I can see no positive consequences.
What does this have to do with celebrity? Everything, in my opinion. Celebrity, by definition, is simply a celebration. Modern celebrity is elaboration. Instead of simply recognizing the qualities of an individual, we are more interested in the conclusions we would like to make, using celebrities as a sort of clay to mold them out of. You don't like a political ideology, so you super-focus your lens on only the qualities of a particular celebrity that you dislike. Case in point - Mike Huckabee.
Of course, we see this much more with Hollywood and the like, where we become convinced (either by ourselves or the media concerned) that a particular individual's life has significant meaning to us, so we devote our time and energy into discerning not only the qualities of the individual, but drawing conclusions about their character and qualifying their actions. We are SO interested in this process, that we aren't even that concerned with what is and isn't true but what we want to be true.
Not only is this process destructive, but the mere interest in it, to me, is morally WRONG. We are not fit to judge people on this level of intrusiveness, for one, and we are attributing to their ruin by doing so. Not only that, it is a self-destructive idolatry. Imagine what you COULD be doing, constructively, by showing this kind of devotion and attention to yourself, for one, not to mention your close family and friends. But of course, they do not have celebrity.
When did celebrity become something to be valued? All I can see is that it is simply attractive. We are attracted to celebrities because we would like to be one. We long for the attention, despite the fact that both God and men exist that can provide us with this attention: in REALITY. To escape from reality in this way, to me, is an exercise in self-ruin and therefore a sin, not to mention the fact that any escape into unreality distracts you from whatever relationship you might have with the Living God.
But I've come to question over time the definition of worship. Where once I considered it something involving praise and prayer, I now attribute more to devotion. If you worship something, either an object or an action, it dominates your time. The more time you devote to something, the more value you are attributing to it: worship.
In a way, this is a kind of slavery, which I have come to understand was the warning against idol worship. Yes, God is a jealous God, but I have come to consider the commandments as being in our best interest. So take the worship of idols, if we performed such an action, how would that hurt us? My understanding is that its not only a waste of time to worship something that is dead (or imaginary), it also damages our ability to interact with reality. By creating a reality for ourselves that is based on falsehood (for example, believing that a statue or stone can grant you fertility or good crops), we fail to give credit where credit is due and likewise discredit, honor and dishonor, etc. Our value system itself, for what has and hasn't value, is impacted by a false premise.
Imagine if you believed that President Obama was planning on forming a union with Canada. The idea, the falsehood, is the idol (idol = falsehood). This untruth would significantly impact your expectations and opinions of the President, of which I can see no positive consequences.
What does this have to do with celebrity? Everything, in my opinion. Celebrity, by definition, is simply a celebration. Modern celebrity is elaboration. Instead of simply recognizing the qualities of an individual, we are more interested in the conclusions we would like to make, using celebrities as a sort of clay to mold them out of. You don't like a political ideology, so you super-focus your lens on only the qualities of a particular celebrity that you dislike. Case in point - Mike Huckabee.
Of course, we see this much more with Hollywood and the like, where we become convinced (either by ourselves or the media concerned) that a particular individual's life has significant meaning to us, so we devote our time and energy into discerning not only the qualities of the individual, but drawing conclusions about their character and qualifying their actions. We are SO interested in this process, that we aren't even that concerned with what is and isn't true but what we want to be true.
Not only is this process destructive, but the mere interest in it, to me, is morally WRONG. We are not fit to judge people on this level of intrusiveness, for one, and we are attributing to their ruin by doing so. Not only that, it is a self-destructive idolatry. Imagine what you COULD be doing, constructively, by showing this kind of devotion and attention to yourself, for one, not to mention your close family and friends. But of course, they do not have celebrity.
When did celebrity become something to be valued? All I can see is that it is simply attractive. We are attracted to celebrities because we would like to be one. We long for the attention, despite the fact that both God and men exist that can provide us with this attention: in REALITY. To escape from reality in this way, to me, is an exercise in self-ruin and therefore a sin, not to mention the fact that any escape into unreality distracts you from whatever relationship you might have with the Living God.
