Why do Abrahamic religions call Deity Worship as Devil Worship?

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question that came up is we practice deity worship but many religions are seen strongly against deity worship. So in fact they say that if you are worshipping a deity you are worshipping devil.
So why do some religions have such a strong negativity towards deity worship? Hare Krishna. Is it better now? So the principle of deity worship is that God has an original form which is described in scripture and then an image is made according to that description and God is invited to manifest. He appears in that form and that’s how we gain access to him and worship him.
For us as devout race or as those coming familiar with the spiritual culture due to the Vedic scriptures this reasoning seems very straightforward. But for many people this seems, for those who are not familiar, this seems quite difficult to understand because if you look at the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic religions mean Judaism, Christianity and Islam which accept Abraham as one of their main prophets. So in these religious traditions there is no description of the form of God and what was prevalent at those times was the worship of various imagined conceptions of God.
So there were different imagined conceptions of God, different ideas which were being worshipped. So there is no description of a form of God which is given in these scriptures and when those religious traditions emerged at that time there were imagined conceptions of God being worshipped in various forms. So their idea is that God, so now if there is no positive description of God given in these scriptures, how do you deal with that? So the way they try to deal with it is by saying that God in a positive sense is unknowable to us.
Who God is, God is so great that he is unknowable to us in any positive sense. And this is how they try to explain away the absence of positive information about God in their scriptures. And then the challenge comes that what about other people who seem to have some positive conception of God.
So they try to deal with that by saying that such conceptions are imaginary. So their idea is this is God who is completely unknowable, deep transcendental. And whatever conception which people have of God, that is a deviation from the reality of God.
So therefore, when people start worshipping some image, their idea becomes, the Vedic understanding is God is, yes God is transcendental. We cannot perceive him with our senses. He is beyond our senses.
But that God who is transcendental becomes accessible to us through the deity, as the deity rather, not just through the deity, as the deity. But their understanding is that God is transcendental. And because we don’t know anything about the form of God, so any representation that we make of God, that rather than being a manifestation of God, they consider that to be a competitor to God.
That means this representation, this image, which people are worshipping, that image is taking people away from the worship of the true God. And because of this conception, so their idea is who is the competitor to God, that is the devil, and Satan. So therefore, they say that if you are worshipping any form, that form is acting as a competitor to God.
And therefore, worship of that form is like the worship of Satan. And because of this, not only are they strongly against it, not only are they opposite, but they are violently against it many times. So, in the Chaitanya Chaitanya Tamra and other scriptures, we may hear stories of how there were Islamic rulers like Aurangzeb and others, Turkish rulers, Turkish invaders, who tried to desecrate deity worship.
And then many of the deities from Andhawa had to be taken to Jaipur. So, this is not an instance of one of religious fanaticism. This is, this antipathy to deity worship is integral to their worldview itself.
So, the violence itself may be done by some rulers, some religious rulers more than others. But if you read the Old Testament, you will see Old Testament is the sacred book of the Jews. The New Testament is the sacred book of the Christians.
If you see the Old Testament, whenever any Christian, whenever any Jew ruler conquers the kingdom, the first thing that they do is they go and bash all the images that are being worshipped over there. And that is told in a celebratory sense. In this way, all the false gods were laid to dust and then the glory of the true God was established.
So, now, in India, there are at the last count, 21 temples of Amitabh Bachchan and 7 temples of Madhavan Dixit. So, in these temples, actually speaking, there is a temple of Amitabh Bachchan in Kolkata which is called Kalyug Karam. He is called as Kalyug Karam.
And actually people offer 6 times bhoga in the temple to a particular, to this statue of this particular Bollywood star. Now, this is completely ridiculous. Yes, no matter how famous, how popular, how talented a particular Bollywood star may be, that person has got no connection intrinsically with the stone image of that.
So, now, if we don’t have to do it, but if someone goes and bashes up that image and say, you know, why are you worshipping someone like this? We won’t recommend it, but it’s not wrong because that is an example of worshipping a false god. So, in principle, what is taught in the Bible or in the Quran or in the Bible, Old and New Testament, if the only two alternatives were a god who is unknowable and false representations of God, then destroying those false representations of God is not necessarily wrong. But what about the third option that in some traditions, God may have revealed positive knowledge about himself.
And if he has revealed positive knowledge about himself, and based on that, the representation of God is done in deity form, then that worship is not competitive to God. That is the facilitator to God. God himself becomes accessible through the deity.
So, this possibility is something that these religious traditions often don’t consider at all. Because that would mean acknowledging the incompleteness of their revelation. That the positive knowledge of God is not given in those traditions.
And that positive knowledge is available somewhere else. Rather than acknowledging this incompleteness, they would dismiss all positive knowledge about God which is given in any tradition as a concoction. Now, Srila Prabhupada had a simple argument against this.
For example, Srila Prabhupada was asked that if Jesus is the son and the father who sent Jesus, that is Krishna, then why did Jesus not tell us about Krishna? Why do you say that Krishna, why should we consider Krishna to be God? So, Prabhupada, he answered this in a different way at different times. One time he said that Jesus just gave basic morality principles, moral principle, thou shall not kill. And what happened was the people at that time killed him only.
So, how much knowledge could he have given at that time? Not only that, further, if you see, there are descriptions of the attributes of God. For example, in the Bible it is said, I am the Alpha and the Omega of all things. That means I am the beginning and the end.
And if you see in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says, I am the beginning, I am the middle and I am the end. So, if we look at the attributes of God that are described in the Bible, or for that matter in the Quran and in the Bhagavad Gita, the attributes of that one transcendental being are remarkably similar. So, the conception of God in essential attributes in these traditions is strikingly similar.
Now, so Prabhupada’s point was that, okay, if you don’t accept Krishna as God, you present as a better conception of God. If you have a better conception, you will accept that. So, we have an objective definition of God in terms of, God is a person with six opulences.
No religious tradition will say that our God is ugly. No, God is beautiful. No religious tradition is going to say that God is weak.
No, God is strong. So, God has these defining attributes. He is beautiful, he is strong, he is wise, he is famous, he is renounced.
So, he has all these attributes. Now, six attributes as we know. And then, so this is like an objective definition of God.
For example, if somebody comes into this room and says, I am the President of America. What do you mean President of America? What is it for? What is the attribute that you have? But if someone comes in and that person has the authority to activate the American Army, the American Navy, the American Air Force, that person has the power of the President of America, then we can say, okay, these are the symbols, these are the markers of the President of India or the President of America. And this is a person who has those markers.
Therefore, we can say, this person is the President of America. So, Srila Prabhupada similarly says that these are the six opulences of God. And then here is a person who exhibits these six opulences.
Therefore, why don’t you accept him as God? And even if someone says, okay, but why is this not told in our tradition? So, then the question comes up, you know, are we interested in God or are we interested in the religion? Say, for example, there are some students studying, say, Computer Engineering in India. And then that student comes to know that the best Computer Engineering knowledge is available in Massachusetts in America. Now, A, that student has studied in some college in India, say, Engineering College, Pune.
Then the student will say that, oh, I will study Computer Engineering only in Pune Engineering College. I have not studied anywhere else. If somebody starts arguing like that, oh, I will study only what is taught in my college, not taught anywhere else.
Then they will ask this question, are you interested in knowledge? Or are you interested in college? The purpose of the college is not an end in itself. The purpose of college is to acquire knowledge. Similarly, religion is not an end in itself.
The purpose of religion is to help us know God and to help us love God. So, if in one particular religious tradition, positive knowledge of God is not available, in another religious tradition, positive knowledge of God is available, then why reject the knowledge that is there in another tradition? If we reject that, then we are showing that we are more interested in religion than in God. So, their antipathy towards deity worship comes from a misunderstanding about the nature of God as is revealed in the Vedic tradition.
So, that means, whatever destruction of the forms was done at their times, that was valid. Yes, there were concocted forms we worshipped and that was destroyed, that’s okay. But there is an unwarranted extrapolation from that.
And unwarranted extrapolation is that all forms worshipped anywhere are concocted forms. And that is why there is this strong antipathy towards deity worship. But not only from the point of view of the positive description of God that is given, but also from the point of view of the advanced level of love of God.
So, if you look at the love of God that is evidenced, that is demonstrated by saints, whether it is in the Christian tradition or in the Vaishnav tradition, in the Bhakti tradition, we will see that it is remarkably similar. The great saints, they talk about how we do not want any worldly pleasure, we simply want to love God, we simply want to devote ourselves to God. So, like that, those sentiments of selfless love and not just the sentiments, a life of utter devotion to God and giving up of everything else for the sake of God, that is demonstrated, say, in the Christian tradition by certain saints, there is St. Francis of Assisi and other saints who have demonstrated that.
And similar exalting level of love of God is demonstrated in the Bhakti tradition by saints who have worshipped deities. So, if deity worship were a concoction, then how would people come to such an exalted level of selfless love for God? And that selfless love, again, we are talking about objective characteristic in terms of people are utterly detached from the world and completely focused on God. So, to give an example to illustrate this point, suppose, say, there are different forms of treatment, there is allopathy, there is Ayurveda, there is naturopathy, there is homeopathy.
Now, if an allopath says, Ayurveda, the whole thing is just bogus. But suppose there is a disease, suppose somebody has got cancer, now there is an objective standard of what is the diseased state and an objective standard of what is the healthy state. So, now if by taking Ayurvedic treatment, a person who had cancer gets cured, then even after seeing the evidence that by this Ayurvedic treatment, the patient becomes cured.
If the allopath says, Ayurveda is a concocted form, it is pseudomedicine, it is pseudomedicine, then that is like whatever Ayurveda prescribes, it is all bogus, it is all false prescription. Then it is like, this is a case like prescription wrong, patient cured. There is one diagnosis, prescription is wrong, but if the prescription is wrong, how is the patient got cured? So, like that, people in the Abrahamic tradition may say, this deity worship is all, it is worship of the devil, it is concocted.
They say, it is not worship of God, it is worship of the devil, it is prescription wrong. But patient is cured. People are developing similar love of God, we as bhaktas may say, we say that the love that the saints have developed and the bhakti tradition has developed is more than what is developed in the Christian tradition also.
But even if we do not go in that competitive zone, of religion is one of man’s share, but still, there is an exotic level of love of God developed, even in the bhakti traditions by the worship of the deities. So, in this way, when I give this elaborate answer, this is not just for our understanding, but if some Christians who just ask this question, we need to be able to answer them intelligibly. And the summary is that, because there was no positive representation of God available, information about them, so whatever misrepresentations were there, they were violently rejected.
But if there is a tradition which uses a positive representation of God, positive knowledge about God, then open-mindedness means accessing that knowledge and enriching oneself devotionally and moving forward towards developing love of God. Thank you. Are there any other questions?