Protesters Greet Ganesha, Art Dedication

Seven comments on this post so far. Add yours!

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  fortboise on June 11 at 8:07 a.m.

  Nice sign, except for the fact that “veneration,” “idols,” “worship” and “demons” don’t actually apply.

  But hey, nice to see parochial bigotry is alive and well up there.

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  mrd on June 11 at 8:15 a.m.

  I don’t remember, which CDA residents were going to worship this idol? I don’t see a whole lot of difference in this “artwork” and cartoons that had little “devils” in them when I was a kid. Seems like we make issues out of non issues all of the time.

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  idahogie on June 11 at 8:21 a.m.

  From the guy’s sign, it would appear that he is protesting the St. Francis statue just as much as the one of Ganesha. I wonder what his opinion on that is.

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  lovetohateme on June 11 at 11:06 a.m.

  Fort, I think you’re misinterpreting the sign. Ganesha is not a demon under Hindu beliefs, and this guy isn’t saying that. He’s saying that he believes this is an idol (an image or representation of a god used as an object of worship), and that the veneration (adoration, worship) of it is the equivalent of worshiping a demon. So from his perspective, the message of his sign is accurate. It falls apart, however if you believe the statue is not an idol. By the strictest definition, a physical representation of a god is only an idol if people worship it, and of course everyone has a slightly different thought on what constitutes worship.

  His stated Bible verses aren’t entirely applicable to his message.

  1 Corinthians 10:9 - We should not test the Lord, as some of them did-and were killed by snakes.

  Out of context, this is meaningless and could be interpreted in many ways. You need to read verses 6-9 to really get the idea being expressed here. And also to realize that this is a list of warnings, lessons from the history of the Israelites. Testing the Lord is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s done throughout the Bible by many important figures. Gideon and the fleece is a good example of testing God.

  His choice of Psalm 106:34 is very odd. It states: “They did not destroy the peoples as the Lord had commanded them…”

  In context, it makes much more sense. Reading Psalm 106:32-39, you get a much more complete picture of what happened to the Israelites because they strayed from their beliefs and adopted others’ beliefs into their worship practices. Of course, reading further into the chapter gives even more insight into what happened, but those verses cover a reasonable amount.

  The Revelation 9:20 reference is the most applicable of any he gave, but again, only effective for those who actually believe in the Bible anyway, and likely not applicable to anyone except people who are actually worshiping the statue, which I have to believe, most people are not.

  It baffles me that these people are blind to the fact that they support the raising of Christian icons in public places, and defend those when various crazies want to take them down. But then they become the crazies, behaving exactly the same way when someone tries to put up a piece of art representing a figure from another religion.

  This protest is unreasonable, and only serves to make people think Christians overreact to minor non-issues. That doesn’t serve any purpose whatsoever. If anything, it has drawn more attention to the statue than it otherwise would have had.

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  detroitdude on June 11 at 1:59 p.m.

  “The veneration of idols is the worship of demons.”

  Sure, if you take the Bible to be the utmost spiritual truth on this planet. And wait a minute….doesn’t EVERY respective religious holy text say the same thing in one way or another? You could have Hindu’s protesting the same thing if they decided to bring a statue of Jesus in on the cross.

  Most Hindu’s, and most people in general, regardless of faith are able to look at something and not think it automatically blasphemous. Art is art, and the beauty of art is that it is left up to the viewer to interpret how much significance they put into it.

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  fortboise on June 11 at 4:57 p.m.

  Seems like we’re saying the same thing, lovetohateme, although you said it in a more interesting and detailed way.

  Thanks for looking up the chapter and verse, something I don’t typically do, because one non sequitur is pretty much as good as the next, and as you say, “out of context, this is pretty much meaningless.”

  True believers deny the context of the Bible as a matter of course. (An arbitrary and contradictory collection of literature inerrant you say?) To the extent that there’s supernatural Truth in there, it wouldn’t matter if one “believed in the Bible,” right? To the extent there’s religious Truth in it (which is to say useful advice for a moral life), which I think there is, it also doesn’t matter whether you “believe,” just what you do with your beliefs.

  If you use them to pen incoherent and pointless protest signs, well, what Shakespeare said, in Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5.

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  Eyes & Ears on June 12 at 10:35 p.m.

  How many of those protesters sinned in the way of lust by checking out some of the good looking gals walking around in bikinis. Hypocrites.

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