The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.
The system of idolatry, invented by modern christianity, far surpasses in absurdity anything that we have ever heard of.
I take leave of Prome and her towering god, Shwa Lan-dau, at whose base I have been laboring with the kindest intentions for the last three months and a half. Too firmly founded art thou to be overthrown at present; but the children of those who now plaster thee with gold will yet pull thee down, nor leave one brick upon another.
The Hebrews took for their idol, not something made of metal or wood, but a race, a nation, something just as earthly. Their religion is essentially inseparable from such idolatry, because of the notion of the 'chosen people'.
Any conception of a god that is less than sovereign is an idol and no god at all.
Idolatry, then, is always polytheism, an aimless passing from one lord to another. Idolatry does not offer a journey but rather a plethora of paths leading nowhere and forming a vast labyrinth.
Never think that you need to protect God. Because anytime you think you need to protect God, you can be sure that you are worshipping an idol.
In politics, as in religion, there are devotees who show their reverence for a departed saint by converting his tomb into a sanctuary for crime.
1st Baron Macaulay
When men make gods, there is no God!
Ordinary love is mere animal attraction. Otherwise why is the distinction between the sexes? If one kneels before an image, it is dreadful idolatry; but if one kneels before husband or wife, it is quite permissible!
Culture's essential service to a religion is to destroy intellectual idolatry, the recurrent tendency in religion to replace the object of its worship with its present understanding and forms of approach to that object.
True religion is not about possessing the truth. No religion does that. It is rather an invitation into a journey that leads one toward the mystery of God. Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers.
Many people think that the Bible is the authentic word of God and they worship the Bible, making it an idol.
