The First Commandment is clear:
“I am the LORD your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them.”
God didn’t want His people to be the slaves of big government. He set them free from Egyptian control.
The Egyptians had many graven images. Each idol represented, or was, a deity. The deities had priesthoods. Throughout Egypt, a demanding horde of priest-bureaucrats and their families had to be supported. The Egyptians enslaved anyone they could to provide for those behind the statues.
God did not want His people to be slaves. He didn’t want them forced to worship idols and support idol-makers. Shortly after they were free, however, they made a calf, out of gold. That began the process by which they w0uld have idols, and be re-enslaved.
Idols used to be statues. Now, they’re ideas. Recently, a famous idea-idol was “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity!” The people who put up that idol oversaw the slaughter of half the young men in France.
A variant of that idea-idol was “Take from each, according to his ability. Give to each, according to his need.” The people erected that idol wiped out a hundred million people.
Today, a powerful idea-idol is, “Evil, greedy humans are killing us all with Pollution and Global Freezing/Warming.” That idea was, and is, widely worshiped. It was used to justify not getting rid of malaria-carrying mosquitoes with DDT. As a result, those behind the Environmental idea-idol killed a billion poor people. That same idea-idol is an ongoing excuse to impose taxes and regulations that make life difficult. They even make it hard for young people to afford houses and have children.
The environmental idea-idols are among the most successful that any idol-maker has ever made. Those behind the enviro-idols are happily wiping out generations of people who will never be.
Idol-makers used to make statues. Now, idol-makers enthrone bad ideas. The earthly purpose is the same: to give idol-makers the power to kill, enslave, regulate, and tax.
Idol-makers have a spiritual purpose, as well: To get people to turn from God and lose their immortal souls.
