I Will Answer Anything You Dare To Ask

@will999 Well I hope you find your path spiritual path soon.. And im sure we will have many more discussions in the future..Take care of you and I wish you enough.

@Lynb1960 So that means no art then. This is the excuse ISIS used for their destroying of art and ancient treasures. So I guess you agree with them then.

@iagreed No of course I don't agree with them and the reason I don't agree with them is because I don't believe that it's right to kill in the name of their God which is exactly what they are doing... I personally believe in spirituality as it united all people... I was just quoting what it said in the bible and was giving my own interpretation to the words that was written in the text.. I find this world harsh and cruel and ISIS is just the head of the snake.

@will999 As much as I agree with what you have said here. we must also look at it in a human sense.. God did give us free will in which, yes perhaps Vincent's works of art are treasured in all their splendor and admired, are they really worshiped as in a "GoD like sense" or are they admired because they are beautiful? There is a thin line between admiring something because of its beauty and worshiping something. the christian artifacts that stand in the Churches around the world are put there as Idols and not artifacts, if they were artifacts then why not put them in another building where all can go and look and admire them for their artistic value. If you look at the Crucifix for example, people go to church to talk to God but in actual fact they are talking to a carved man that has been nailed to a cross which has been put up on the wall as a representation of Jesus (An Idol)... We as humans need to be able to see an image, we dont just go by pure faith..

@Lynb1960
Interesting take on it. I'd have thought they talk past the crucifix, to God - but the crucifix acts as a focal point.

I don't know the history very well, but perhaps the Old Testament strictures were devised by the Hebrew tribal elders to try to give followers the concept of a single God beyond man-made images, in a religion and social identity of their own separate from the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern, icon-rich, pantheons - and certainly separate from that of the Egyptians.

Yes, you could put Christian artefacts in a museum for appreciation simply as works of art and craft, but that would remove them from their context.

Mediaeval churches unified by the Vatican and using Latin liturgy were brightly painted and ornamented, and later more iconoclastic regimes sometimes removed or destroyed much of that art. That was based mainly on theology, but another strand came in with the Reformation and the development of Protestant and non-conformist sects.

The latter particularly, don't use excessive ornaments or icons in their own places of worship, but was there a more secular motive? Was it much more a reaction to the Catholic Church of the time, with its ostentatious displays of wealth? Certainly Luther campaigned against such money-raising schemes as Indulgences; and Methodism especially attracted poorer communities as "theirs" not needing or wanting excessively-decorated chapels they could not afford, to worship God.

@ArishMell Yes I agree with your points and do recognise all of them.. To me this is a very interesting topic that can be discussed at length..

@Lynb1960 Do you remember who published it?

@will999 Paul Arden wrote the book.

@Lynb1960 The Penguin Group published the book.