I. Catholic Fundamentalists have found that it helps to describe spiritual realities more realistically by thinking of idols as viruses. The desire for an idol comes from something that short-circuits the mind, inserting a barrier between the programmed hierarchy of Programmer and we programmed creatures.
II. When we think of the earliest idol-maker, we can imagine a man carving a little statue, putting it on a shelf, and asking it to help him. Did the first such happening come from a thought that the carver had on his own, or did some outside agency give him the idea?
It’s hard to imagine some hard-working Stone Age person saying, “Instead of taking care of my family, flocks, and fields, I will spend a dozen hours precious daylight and make myself a queer-looking little statue and put it on a shelf and pray to it.” It took the Devil, himself, to convince Eve to eat the apple.
We do know that The Programmer hates idols. Idols interfere with the proper operation of the free-will beings He had programmed. Idols take away the joy people would have in knowing Him. The first four of the Ten Operating Instructions that Moses brought down from the mountain condemned the thought that programmed entities (people) should program for themselves things that would separate them from The Programmer.
40% of The Programmer’s instructions are specifically anti-idol:
1. You shall have no Gods before me.
2. You shall not make yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything in heaven or on earth beneath
or in the waters under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them.
3. You shall not utter the name of The Programmer to misuse it (as an idol).
4. Remember the Sabbath, and keep it holy.
The Programmer told us repeatedly that did not want anything coming between those He loved, whose highest duty it was to love Him. Idols, to Catholic Fundamentalists, describe what we may understand more fully as computer viruses. To many of us, “viruses” better describe the willful corruption of operating systems than “idol-worship”.
The Programmer left six additional Operating Instructions. They are, in their nature, anti-idol, but not as specifically so. It’s important for our eternal well-being to never forget that nearly half of His instructions tell us to be sure that we worship and obey only The Programmer.
That lesson, from Exodus, is repeated again in Revelations, when He makes it clear that the marks of the beast are to be avoided at all costs.
Catholic Fundamentalists think it’s prudent, as we go through our days, to uproot and destroy whatever idols and viruses there are in our minds that distract us from Him. Prayer helps get more powerful spiritual Programming Assistants to help cleanse our minds and hearts of whatever separates us from Him.
