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How Can I Commit a Little Idolatry?
Dear Enabling Stranger Who Gives Bad Advice: I’ve always been just a teensy-weensy bit tempted to cross the line, and harmlessly flirt with others. I mean, a part of me really wants to live a little dangerously, but I am afraid to go too far, to risk the good relationship I already have. I’d like to just dip my toe in, perhaps explore where the lines really are. Can I do that and still be faithful? – FOMO
Dear FOMO: The great thing about lines is that they are not really there. You can always nudge a toe over the line, and say that you weren’t really doing anything wrong! Rationalize that behavior! Be true to yourself!
Think about it this way: Yes, we all know that G-d is a “jealous god” and all that. But the world is full of temptations! And none of them are really cheating. Being pro-planet is not idol worship! Not at all! It just shows sensitivity to the earth, which everyone already knows is quite sensible. When you recycle a can, or sort your garbage or give yourself a vasectomy or ban cheap energy sources to make electricity prohibitively expensive for much of the third world, you are not worshipping Gaia the Earth Mother! That is just silly talk! Those actions are all obvious, after all: we all know that poor people should not have access to cheap energy. And recycling everything is also an obviously good idea, even if there is not a single serious study that shows it is.
Don’t forget also being friends with superstition! Yes, I know we have G-d and all, but Pascal’s Wager applies to superstitions just as much. After all, whatever your religious beliefs, nobody is going to stand out in the middle of the street during a thunderstorm and scream, “There is no Thunder God!” I mean, we all know there is no Thunder God. But why risk it? Don’t tempt Fate. Knock on wood. It is not as if G-d will mind. Probably. Possibly.
The key thing is to worship G-d – but cover your bases. Be sure to be progressive about all things Organic, Natural, and Sustainable. When G-d said He was jealous, He did not really mean about things that aren’t really other gods. I am sure you’ll be fine. Just like your wife/husband would be totally cool with you spending lots of time being especially nice and friendly to a member of the opposite sex. You are just trying to make someone else feel appreciated.
So go ahead! Recycle! Be Sustainable! You are merely hedging your bets, “having a bit on the side.” There is no better way to do it than to recycle plastic and get that vasectomy when it is on sale. Being Green is not religious at all. G-d has nothing to be jealous of.
Buy Organic!
[an @iWe and @eliyahumasinter cooperation]
Published in General
Good post.
I’ve become very sensitive to “Earth Mother” worship. I really don’t like it, even in what appear to be casual references.
As an example, there’s a John Denver song that I like called It Amazes Me, most of which seems pretty good, but it has this one line: “But our Father watches over us, our Mother will provide.”
Well, no. Gaia will not provide.
I appreciate you pointing this out, iWe.
There are so many ways that idol worship can invade our lives without our knowing it! Anything that we are especially attached to, or that we think we can’t do without creates the possibility of inappropriate worship. I mean, there are my chocolate chip cookies! But seriously, I try to contemplate my attachments periodically because they can compromise my relationships to so many other things–or beings.
My mother-in-law’s fried chicken was golden-calf-level.
Is Gaia worship really the most common idolatry? What about political or social beliefs? What about nationalisms?
Gaia worship underlies nearly all of pro(re)gressive thought and action. With a minor assist of Baal (or Moloch), depending on how you count the left’s obsession with abortion. Gaia worship, also known as Global Climate Change, has captured nearly every government on the planet – well, the ones that matter anyway.
Don’t worry. I will. Well, I won’t be completely, 100 percent sustainable because all things come to an end. But I’ll favor sustainability in tax-and-spend policy, managing my retirement income, agriculture, waste management, and many other things.
Just because John Maynard Keynes said, “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof…”
Wait, it was Jesus who said that, not Keynes. Keynes said, “In the long run we are all dead.”
Maybe I’ll go to Bible Gateway and do a search for the term “future” and settle this matter once and for all.