idol·a·try /-tri/
 偶像崇拜,邪神崇拜,盲目的崇拜
 I·dol·a·try n.; pl. Idolatries
 1. The worship of idols, images, or anything which is not God; the worship of false gods.
 His eye surveyed the dark idolatries
 Of alienated Judah.   --Milton.
 2. Excessive attachment or veneration for anything; respect or love which borders on adoration.
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 idolatry
      n 1: religious zeal; willingness to serve God [syn: devotion, veneration,
            cultism]
      2: the worship of idols; the worship of images that are not God
         [syn: idol worship]
 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).