Making idols replaces His Operating Instructions with our own vanity. The second most important Operating Instruction tell us not to make graven images. This clearly refers to the blind, deaf, and dumb statues that competing Operating Systems encouraged their followers to produce and to worship.
An idol is a symbol that is made by a human being on which thoughts and prayers are focused. Since The Unprogrammed Programmer cannot be directly sensed by most of us most of the time, idols are only designed to separate us from Him. An idol is a dead end street, programmed by a human to make a human-produced thing seem to be more important than it is.
Today, idols are not just the simple statues of the past. Idols worshipped today include “fairness”, “equality”, and various Imaginary Problems that claim the allegiance of those whose livelihoods are designed to profit from taxing and regulating their neighbors.
Idols are pretty much the same. There’s the ever-popular “You’re eating too much salt” idol. He’s accompanied by idols that say the same thing about trans-fat, sugar, milk, cholesterol, cream, hamburgers, grilled meat, and whatever else the idol-makers run up the flagpole.
Idolaters take turns. This week, the Salt Idol was raised, again. Last month, the Eat Less Sugar Idol enjoyed a brief period of worship. Next week, the Lower Cholesterol Idol may return. The makers of such idols vie for space with the Media Idol before whom all idolaters will make every conceivable sacrifice for mention.
