In the Old Testament there is a prohibition against idol worship and against images of God. In Islam there is a prohibition against idol worship and images of God. In Christianity the same prohibition exists, however, the interpretation of what that means is quite different.
In Catholicism, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel there is a picture of a representation of God touching fingers with Adam, the transferring of life to Adam.
In Hinduism there are representations everywhere. The outside of Hindu temples that I’ve seen for instance, in Sri Lanka have idols piled on top of each other in a dome-like, more of a pyramid-like situation.
Protestantism, for the most part, after the reformation from the Catholic Church did away with images, did away with statues as the Catholic Church has, and if you walk into a Protestant Church, for the most part, all you’ll see is a cross. In some Protestant Churches you won’t see anything like that at all.
What’s the point? What is God? Why do we worship God? What is the reason for worshipping God?
Well, God cannot be represented by an image because God is formless. The word “formless” is a profound word. He is without form. It is beyond our ability to represent Him in some kind of graphic or physical way. Well, if He is beyond form, what is He and how are we connected to Him, and what is the benefit of our being involved with Him?
He is the manifestations of all that is good in existence, and what is good in existence is compassion and mercy and love and gentility and justice, and in Islam, ninety-nine of these qualities are considered the names of Allah. And they’ve been codified as a sort of compendium of what Allah is, of what God is.
Now, if we want to have a relationship with God, how do we have this relationship and why should we have this relationship? Why should we pray? What is the benefit of prayer? Does God need our prayer?
Prayer is a form of submission to a higher power. Prayer is an acceptance that a higher power exists. Prayer is also an acknowledgement that there exists beyond our being an understanding that is greater than us, and that we can become elevated into. So we pray why? We pray to become more. We pray to submit to what is more, and in that act we pray to attach ourselves to what is more, to what is bigger than we are.
