Consequences of Worshipping other Gods

[YEARNING4TRUTH]

I had this very inquisitive kid in my Catechism class last year and well she had a lot of great questions that I had completely no idea how to answer, but this particular question really stuck with me for some time and I was just wondering if any of you can help me answer this question. “What are the consequences of worshipping other gods; false gods for that matter”. I have somewhat of an idea to what they possibly are, but it’s hard for me to put it into words. Oh and if you guys, and gals, can provide some references from the Bible, or other credible Catholic resources to support your claims, that’d be great!

 

[Nelka]

I had this very inquisitive kid in my Catechism class last year and well she had a lot of great questions that I had completely no idea how to answer, but this particular question really stuck with me for some time and I was just wondering if any of you can help me answer this question. “What are the consequences of worshipping other gods; false gods for that matter”. I have somewhat of an idea to what they possibly are, but it’s hard for me to put it into words. Oh and if you guys, and gals, can provide some references from the Bible, or other credible Catholic resources to support your claims, that’d be great!

Hell if you die unrepentant!

 

[Origen52]

From the catholic catechism

Invincibly Ignorant

The Church recognizes that God does not condemn those who are innocently ignorant of the truth about his offer of salvation. Regarding the doctrine in question, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (quoting Vatican II document Lumen Gentium, 16) states:

This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church: Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience—those too may achieve eternal salvation. (CCC 847)

Vatican II document Gaudium Et Spesteaches similarly on the possibility of salvation:

All this holds true not only for Christians, but for all men of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way. For, since Christ died for all men, and since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery. (22)

This teaching is consistent with Jesus’ own teaching about those who innocently reject him: “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin” (Jn 15:22).

 

[Jon_S_1]

I had this very inquisitive kid in my Catechism class last year and well she had a lot of great questions that I had completely no idea how to answer, but this particular question really stuck with me for some time and I was just wondering if any of you can help me answer this question. “What are the consequences of worshipping other gods; false gods for that matter”. I have somewhat of an idea to what they possibly are, but it’s hard for me to put it into words. Oh and if you guys, and gals, can provide some references from the Bible, or other credible Catholic resources to support your claims, that’d be great!

More information is necessary.

If you know about the one God / Christianity and you decide to worship other gods/idols, then you are an idolater and blasphemer. As a rule such people who persist in this cannot be saved.

But on the flip side, lets say there is a some guy in India, in a very remote place, and he has no knowledge of the one God, no knowledge of Jesus or Christianity, and so he worships sincerely in the religion of Hinduism. He worships multiple gods and sincerely tries to live his life serving God as he understands God to be.

The church has taught that such a person, if they also have perfect charity, * could * be saved. We pray and hope such people would be. But since we have no assurance they would be, we must fervently try to evangelize the world with the saving message of Jesus Christ. Through Baptism and walking with Christ in faith, we are saved.

 

[BlueKnight]

Best aproach is to use is scripture and focus on Israel as the historical example then make parallels to other societies and countries and tie up with the United States.

Jeremiah is a good start. The statues that they called the queen of heaven. Also the altars in high places that the wicked kings erected. The places where the temple prostitutes would sacrifice their babies to moleck. And of course the golden calf. Note the bull is the symbol of American wealth and prosperity and is a type of idol. “Bull market”. Try to mention that those false prophets who prophesied falsely did so to curry favor and get along with the established authorities, while those who spoke from god were a thorn in the side of society and often killed or were punished and likely ostracized (unless the people were holy - Samuel vs Jeremiah).

From my experience people can meditate only on things from the heaven they focus on. So secular scientist can’t go beyond the first heaven or earth. Spiritualists, new agers, satanists can’t go higher thenthensecond heaven. And those who seek Christ they can focusentheir hearts upon the third heaven and understand things better in the lower two. Of course you can’t mention that. Gifts from god like dreams and visions require third heaven experience and understanding. Those from the first heaven focus will consider dreams and visions as foolishness. Second heaven focused people will get the wrong interpretation. Well I’m going off topic sorry.

Anything but focusing on the living God of the third heaven could be considered idol whorship. You can also be your own idol.

 

[ready]

I had this very inquisitive kid in my Catechism class last year and well she had a lot of great questions that I had completely no idea how to answer, but this particular question really stuck with me for some time and I was just wondering if any of you can help me answer this question. “What are the consequences of worshipping other gods; false gods for that matter”. I have somewhat of an idea to what they possibly are, but it’s hard for me to put it into words. Oh and if you guys, and gals, can provide some references from the Bible, or other credible Catholic resources to support your claims, that’d be great!

Just look at what happened to the Israelite idol worshippers who worshipped the Golden Calf. Each and every one of them was killed by God. If we worship idols, we will die spiritually in this life, and eternally in hell in the next life. God bless you.

 

[AndrewRuki]

Peace be with you Brother/sister YEARNING4TRUTH.

You have got a lot of advise from this thread.

Allow me to break down some of my own for you.

First, What are the false Gods?
They can be any thing, concept or even persons, who we believe are more powerful than any other.
e.g. Money/wealth, Power/Prestige, Influence, connections

Second, How do we worship them?
We worship them, not by prostrating ourselves before them nor offering up incense to them, but just by believing that they can do ANYTHING in our lives.
The one who said “You can buy anything with Money” is already worshipping money as a false God. The one who said “I can do everything with my own power” is worshipping himself/herself and his/her position as a false God.

These do have power, but not greater than God.

The Sin here, is placing all these ABOVE the Lord our God and saying that they are more powerful than God.

When the time of crisis comes our way, we will depend solely on our false Gods and realize that they are as powerless as they can be. This will be our Hell. I hope that at this time, we all realize the One and True God and turn to Him.

I hope this makes sense to you.

Dominus vobiscum.

Andrew