We are living. Take us away, there is no-one experiencing well-being.

People may experience lived well-being when reducing it to a conception-- that happens all the time. Beliefs, goals, worth etc. are sometimes envisioned in an abstracted way. The point is this is a dishonest. They are ignorant that's their living which amounts to well-being. When asked about their well-being, they are stumped (just as you were) because they don't understand it.

We are living. Take us away, there is no-one experiencing well-being. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Right. So then life cannot be reduced to concept, is that correct?

just as you were — TheWillowOfDarkness

Why so quick to judge? :)

I'd be careful here. Life is frequently a concept. It's a meaning we refer to and reason about all the time. Even living itself is a concept in this sense (I'm talking about it right now).

Life is not a concept. This means something different than "Life cannot be reduced to a concept," and is not mutually exclusive with it.

Why so quick to judge? :) — Agustino

I'm hardly being quick. Four or so years of your posting is quite a ripe age for these sorts of things.

I'd be careful here. Life is frequently a concept. It's a meaning we refer to and reason about all the time. Even living itself is a concept in this sense (I'm talking about it right now).

Life is not a concept. This means something different than "Life cannot be reduced to a concept," and is not mutually exclusive with it. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Well I stated my point clearly - so is it a true statement that "life cannot be reduced to a concept" or is it a false statement?

I'm hardly being quick. Four or so years of your posting is quite a ripe age. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Even an entire life may not be sufficient to know someone :)

Let's go back to the Kierkegaard quote with which this thread started. If I can bow down before a stone shaped idol, and still pray to the true God, that means that what makes something an idol depends on me - on my interiority - on my hidden inner life. Would you agree?

Likewise, someone can bow before the icon of the true God, and pray to an idol - because it's their interiority that makes the object an idol - they are making it an idol. How is this possible? How do they make it an idol? What about them makes it an idol? They pray in untruth ... What is untruth?

Is the Pharisee praying to God watching porn? Is he actually doing what the porn viewer is doing? He looks at the true God - but sees in the true God what he wants to see. The true God speaks what he wants him to speak - congratulating him for his righteousness. Who is the "true God"? It's the Pharisee himself - but the Pharisee does not see this. This remains hidden to him.

So what is an idol? An invisible mirror through which the self speaks to the self as if God were speaking...

Let's go back to the Kierkegaard quote with which this thread started. If I can bow down before a stone shaped idol, and still pray to the true God, that means that what makes something an idol depends on me - on my interiority - on my hidden inner life. Would you agree? — Agustino

If I take your meaning here, yes. Christ taught a change of heart. Jews were only getting the rituals, while they failed to live moral lives, which is why idolatry is a sensitive topic because a lot of Christians think it prudent to remove all symbols and such, which is going too far.

Likewise, someone can bow before the icon of the true God, and pray to an idol - because it's their interiority that makes the object an idol - they are making it an idol. How is this possible? How do they make it an idol? What about them makes it an idol? They pray in untruth ... What is untruth? — Agustino

This goes, again, with Christ's teaching of a turning over of the heart.

If I take your meaning here, yes. Christ taught a change of heart. Jews were only getting the rituals, while they failed to live moral lives, which is why idolatry is a sensitive topic because a lot of Christians think it prudent to remove all symbols and such, which is going too far. — Heister Eggcart

Yes! It's not the action, but the heart.

This goes, again, with Christ's teaching of a turning over of the heart. — Heister Eggcart

Indeed!

The next thing to investigate is how an object, an idea, a person, or anything else can become an idol - what about the relationship of the person with it causes the person to use it as an invisible mirror reflecting their own self back to themselves while hiding the process and making it seem that God is reflected back? What makes the Pharisee blind - spiritually - to his idolatry? And what makes the penitent tax collector worship in truth - authentically?

The next thing to investigate is how an object, an idea, a person, or anything else can become an idol - what about the relationship of the person with it causes the person to use it as an invisible mirror reflecting their own self back to themselves while hiding the process and making it seem that God is reflected back? What makes the Pharisee blind - spiritually - to his idolatry? And what makes the penitent tax collector worship in truth - authentically? — Agustino

Idols are easier to commit one's time and eyes to because they're manifested in material. Honesty, loyalty, love, contrition, and so on are all virtues that are beneath the surface. You can't walk into a statue of love like you can a golden cow.

Consider that I give a ring to my wife-to-be. What does that mean?

If you smash it, what have you smashed and what have you not smashed? — Agustino

A ring? Good choice!

It is not possible to mock a ring. At least, I have never seen a ring mocked, and cannot imagine how one would do that.

Nor do I think it could be smashed. I think the only way for the would-be smasher to destroy it would be for them to make their way to the cracks of Doom at Orodruin, and cast it in there.

A relevant review.

One thing about idolatry: you have to believe in God in order to commit this sin. If you think there is no God, then there is no "idolatry". God proclaimed Himself to be without a form that we could look at and worship. This formlessness, however, is not a feature of many other theistic religions. Many Hindus, for instance, believe that the god actually exists as the idol or statue. That's where god is.

So... the message is: have no images of God, and no other gods, imaged or not. (Palestine was rife, apparently, with Baal temples on high places, images, and so forth. So was Egypt rich in concrete forms of the gods).

Calling things 'idols' that we like a lot (sex, drugs, rock and roll, money, prestige, whatever...) isn't idolatry, really. Elevating these things to idolatrous status is stretching it. There may be a problem being engrossed in accumulating money and prestige, but that comes under the category of distractions and short-term goals. You can not serve too masters at once -- you can't serve God and mammon at the same time. But again, that assumes one believes in God. No god, no mammon.

When I was much younger and still believed in religious things I took these commandments literally.
Which meant worship of Jesus was a sin, because he was a man and not god.
And that the symbol of the crucifix was also a sin against god.

I think the most consistently anti-idolatory spiritual teacher was Krishnamurti. He understood how the mind can make idols out of anything it thinks important and then puts on a pedestal. Then you invest that idol with all kinds of significance, all built on some 'idea' you've got, and then attach emotions to it - bingo, idolatory. It doesn't consist of literal stone idols with sacrifices, millions of people have been sacrificed before the 'idols of the mind'.

I'm asking you practically, for you, what does it mean that your life is about love? What makes your life about love? If I look at your life, what in it makes me think "this is about love"? — Agustino

Probably nothing practically, I don't know. Rather as a Christian is not a good person, but a sinner, and climbers can often be found at the foot of the mountain rather than the peak.

When I have given her the ring, was it just the ring that was given? — Agustino

When I have given a ring, it was a commitment. And when the ring was thrown away, it was the rejection of that commitment. There is an understanding of the symbolic meaning, but ritual is not idolatry.

Probably nothing practically, I don't know. Rather as a Christian is not a good person, but a sinner, and climbers can often be found at the foot of the mountain rather than the peak. — unenlightened

So if nothing practically makes your life about love, then it really isn't about love at all is it? It's one thing to try and fail, and another not to try at all. So if you did mean that you're trying and failing, what is it that you're doing that means that you're trying? If someone looks at your life from the outside, would they say "this man's life is about love"?

When I have given a ring, it was a commitment. — unenlightened

The ring was a commitment? What is the relationship between the ring and the commitment? When does the ring become by analogy an idol?

You can not serve too masters at once -- you can't serve God and mammon at the same time. But again, that assumes one believes in God. No god, no mammon. — Bitter Crank

No, all that it assumes is that one must have a master in the sense used Biblically. Even if there is no God, one must have a master.

Idols are easier to commit one's time and eyes to because they're manifested in material. Honesty, loyalty, love, contrition, and so on are all virtues that are beneath the surface. You can't walk into a statue of love like you can a golden cow. — Heister Eggcart

Yes, I think you are partly correct. But then, not all idols, as Wayfarer adds, are material - there are also immaterial idols. So what is the commonality between the two? The commonality is clearly in how the person relates to the object, whether this is a physical or a mental object. So why does a person relate to an object such that the object becomes an idol? How does the person make the object into an idol?

Some thoughts on the topic:

Idols are images that arise from the stories and teachings of religion, they act like words & stories as symbolic what is believed. So in a sense the images, sculptures paintings which are common to all religions (even Jewish, though here God is not portrayed it does portray somethings, like the Ark of the Covenant, which are symbolic) arise from their dialogues and writings. The majority of the ancient Greeks put more sense of reality into their statues of the gods, perhaps treating them as direct conduits to the gods.

Pauanias:

When he [Theagenes] died, a man who had been one of his enemies while he was alive came to the image [memorial statue] of Theagenes every night and flogged the bronze as though he were causing pain to Theagenes himself. The statue finally put an end to this hybris by falling on the man and killing him, but subsequently his children proceeded to prosecute the image for murder. So the Thasians dumped the statue into the sea, following the judgment of Drakon, who, when he wrote laws dealing with homicide for the Athenians, banished every non-living things if any of them, in falling, happened to kill a man. After a time a time, however, when the earth yielded no crops to the Thasians, they send envoys to Delphi, and the god responded by telling them that they should receive back their exiles. But although in obedience to this advice they received them back, they obtained no relief from the famine. Therefore they went a second time to the Pythian priestess, saying that, although they had done what was commanded them, the wrath of the gods was still upon them. Thereupon the Pythia answered them: ‘You leave unremembered your great Theagenes.’ And they say that when they were at their wits’ end as to a means by which thy could rescue the statue of Theagenes, some fisherman, after putting out to sea in search of fish, caught the statue in their net and brought it back to the land. The Thasians set the statue up where it originally stood, and they now have the custom of worshipping him as if he were a god.” (6.11.2-9)

So then idols not as a deification of inert matter, but as the rectification of religious languages into images with shared meanings among the faithful, made to act as intermediaries between man & god.

Yes, I think you are partly correct. But then, not all idols, as Wayfarer adds, are material - there are also immaterial idols. So what is the commonality between the two? The commonality is clearly in how the person relates to the object, whether this is a physical or a mental object. So why does a person relate to an object such that the object becomes an idol? How does the person make the object into an idol? — Agustino

Because the truth can be elusive, and objects help to root what is uncertain or veiled in a more coherent and visible reality. In Christian theosophy, I'd consider transubstantiation to be at the pinnacle of this religious tendency.

It's also more comfortable for people to channel their belief into objects because, after all, we are, at least in part, objects too. As I've said before, it's easier to conceptualize love or some other ideal into an object, such as a golden calf, a Buddha, or even Jesus Christ. However, as you've probably noticed, there exists a grey area between what is worship and what is idolatry. I remember when I was younger, having taken a few airplane flights and feeling a bit overwhelmed every time, I wanted to get a small crucifix so that I could hold it. Why? Rather simply, I wanted something other than myself to help channel a presence of calm in those situations Yet, I wouldn't consider that desire to be particularly out of the ordinary. Even so, we'd agree that the Israelites praying to golden bull out in the desert is pure nonsense (Yahweh at least agrees with me). So, what's the difference between my thinking about holding a little crucifix in my grasp and someone who prays to a bull? Both of us have the intention of angling ourselves more toward God, but somehow there's a breakdown in perception between the two.

So if nothing practically makes your life about love, then it really isn't about love at all is it? — Agustino

Perhaps not, dude, I'm saying how I feel, where I am looking, not listing my achievements.

When does the ring become by analogy an idol? — Agustino

I don't think it does. Perhaps you need to start speaking for yourself here, instead of interrogating me, because I don't know what you're getting at.