idolatry

4 definitions found

idolatry - Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :

  Idolatry \I*dol"a*try\, n.; pl. Idolatries. [F. idol[^a]trie,
     LL. idolatria, L. idololatria, Fr. Gr. ?; ? idol + ?
     service.]
     1. The worship of idols, images, or anything which is not
        God; the worship of false gods.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              His eye surveyed the dark idolatries
              Of alienated Judah.                   --Milton.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Excessive attachment or veneration for anything; respect
        or love which borders on adoration. --Shak.
        [1913 Webster]

idolatry - WordNet (r) 2.1 (2005) :

  idolatry
      n 1: religious zeal; the willingness to serve God [syn:
           idolatry, devotion, veneration, cultism]
      2: the worship of idols; the worship of images that are not God
         [syn: idolatry, idol worship]

idolatry - Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary :

  Idolatry
  image-worship or divine honour paid to any created object. Paul
  describes the origin of idolatry in Rom. 1:21-25: men forsook
  God, and sank into ignorance and moral corruption (1:28).
  
    The forms of idolatry are, (1.) Fetishism, or the worship of
  trees, rivers, hills, stones, etc.
  
    (2.) Nature worship, the worship of the sun, moon, and stars,
  as the supposed powers of nature.
  
    (3.) Hero worship, the worship of deceased ancestors, or of
  heroes.
  
    In Scripture, idolatry is regarded as of heathen origin, and
  as being imported among the Hebrews through contact with heathen
  nations. The first allusion to idolatry is in the account of
  Rachel stealing her father's teraphim (Gen. 31:19), which were
  the relics of the worship of other gods by Laban's progenitors
  "on the other side of the river in old time" (Josh. 24:2).
  During their long residence in Egypt the Hebrews fell into
  idolatry, and it was long before they were delivered from it
  (Josh. 24:14; Ezek. 20:7). Many a token of God's displeasure
  fell upon them because of this sin.
  
    The idolatry learned in Egypt was probably rooted out from
  among the people during the forty years' wanderings; but when
  the Jews entered Palestine, they came into contact with the
  monuments and associations of the idolatry of the old
  Canaanitish races, and showed a constant tendency to depart from
  the living God and follow the idolatrous practices of those
  heathen nations. It was their great national sin, which was only
  effectually rebuked by the Babylonian exile. That exile finally
  purified the Jews of all idolatrous tendencies.
  
    The first and second commandments are directed against
  idolatry of every form. Individuals and communities were equally
  amenable to the rigorous code. The individual offender was
  devoted to destruction (Ex. 22:20). His nearest relatives were
  not only bound to denounce him and deliver him up to punishment
  (Deut. 13:20-10), but their hands were to strike the first blow
  when, on the evidence of two witnesses at least, he was stoned
  (Deut. 17:2-7). To attempt to seduce others to false worship was
  a crime of equal enormity (13:6-10). An idolatrous nation shared
  the same fate. No facts are more strongly declared in the Old
  Testament than that the extermination of the Canaanites was the
  punishment of their idolatry (Ex. 34:15, 16; Deut. 7; 12:29-31;
  20:17), and that the calamities of the Israelites were due to
  the same cause (Jer. 2:17). "A city guilty of idolatry was
  looked upon as a cancer in the state; it was considered to be in
  rebellion, and treated according to the laws of war. Its
  inhabitants and all their cattle were put to death." Jehovah was
  the theocratic King of Israel, the civil Head of the
  commonwealth, and therefore to an Israelite idolatry was a state
  offence (1 Sam. 15:23), high treason. On taking possession of
  the land, the Jews were commanded to destroy all traces of every
  kind of the existing idolatry of the Canaanites (Ex. 23:24, 32;
  34:13; Deut. 7:5, 25; 12:1-3).
  
    In the New Testament the term idolatry is used to designate
  covetousness (Matt. 6:24; Luke 16:13; Col. 3:5; Eph. 5:5).

idolatry - Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 :

  129 Moby Thesaurus words for "idolatry":
     Amor, Christian love, Eros, Platonic love, accolade, admiration,
     adoration, adulation, affection, agape, allotheism, animatism,
     animism, anthropolatry, apotheosis, appreciation, approbation,
     approval, arborolatry, ardency, ardor, attachment, awe,
     bepraisement, bibliolatry, bodily love, breathless adoration,
     brotherly love, caritas, charity, congratulation, conjugal love,
     consideration, courtesy, deference, deification, demonolatry,
     desire, devotion, duty, eloge, encomium, esteem, estimation,
     eulogium, eulogy, exaggerated respect, exaltation,
     excessive praise, faithful love, fancy, favor, fervor, flame,
     flattery, fondness, free love, free-lovism, glorification, glory,
     great respect, heart, heathendom, heathenism, heathenry,
     hero worship, high regard, homage, hommage, honor, hygeiolatry,
     iconolatry, idolism, idolization, idolizing, kudos, lasciviousness,
     laud, laudation, libido, like, liking, lionizing, litholatry, love,
     lovemaking, magnification, married love, meed of praise, monolatry,
     ophiolatry, overcommendation, overestimation, overlaudation,
     overpraise, overprizing, paean, pagandom, paganism, paganry,
     panegyric, passion, patriolatry, physical love, physiolatry,
     phytolatry, popular regard, popularity, praise, prestige,
     pyrolatry, regard, respect, reverence, reverential regard,
     sentiment, sex, sexual love, shine, spiritual love, tender feeling,
     tender passion, tribute, truelove, uxoriousness, veneration,
     weakness, worship, yearning