I'm willing to bet that a fair majority of you are at least familiar with the 10 Commandments- the set of "laws" given to Moses from God for people to live by. I know they're followed by Christians as well as Jewish people, I'm not certain of what other religions use them as guidelines for everyday living, but they seem to be well known. In case you aren't familiar with them here is a quick refresher:
I'd like to focus on #2- thou shall not make any graven image and not bow down to them, nor serve them. Thousands of years ago people would make statues of their gods, bow down to them, worship them, but God didn't want us to do that. We're to worship him and only him and my understanding of the 2nd commandment is that we're not to worship statues or other man made idols.
So why is it that when you go into a Catholic church there are statues of Mary, Joseph, and any number of saints, with candles and prayer stalls set up before them? Why do we pray to certain saints for certain issues? For example, my nonnie (mother's mother) had me pray to St. Anthony every time I lost something as a child.
Isn't this worshiping false idols? Isn't this directly going against the 2nd commandment? My mother's explanation is that these are God's helpers and we pray to them so that they'll talk to Him for us. Ha! I'm not buying it! I believe we should put away the pictures and statues and focus on the One True God- pray to Him and only Him in our time of need. He doesn't need "helpers."
What are your thoughts?
Do you believe in praying to saints? If so, why?