Check this out:
buddhanet.net/ans6.htm
There are different types of worship. When someone worships a god, they praise him or her, making offerings and ask for favours, believing that the god will hear their praise, receive their offerings and answer their prayers. Buddhists do not indulge in this kind of worship. The other kind of worship is when we show respect to someone or something we admire. When a teacher walks into a room we stand up, when we meet a dignitary we shake hands,when the national anthem is played we salute. These are all gestures of respect and worship and indicate our admiration for persons and things. This is the type of worship Buddhist practise. A statue of the Buddha with its hands rested gently in its lap and its compassionate smile reminds us to strive to develop peace and love within ourselves. The perfume of incense reminds us of the pervading influence of virtue, the lamp reminds us of light of knowledge and the flowers which soon fade and die, reminds us of impermanence. When we bow, we express our gratitude to the Buddha for what his teachings have given us. This is the nature of Buddhist worship.
Again what we are talking about is postures and incense.
Lots of people light incense that are atheists.
From the Catholic perception whether the Church
condemns a Mary goddess cult or not like the
Collyridians mentioned above is entirely dependent
on who they profess Mary to be.
For Catholics adoration is an interior disposition. If
interiorly you are perceiving Mary as a deity your
disposition is disordered.
If you recognize fully that she is not part of the Trinity
and have no intention of making her so your disposition
is well ordered.
It has nothing to do with kneeling, incense, lighting
candles etc.
Like I said a person can perform all the correct
postures of piety and still interiorly be worrying
about the cost of his car repairs. Lol.
The Church professes that God is God the Father,
God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
Mary is only a saint. Now actually she is the queen of
saints the most venerated saint therefore queen of
heaven. But she is still just a saint like
Pope John Paul II or Francis of Assisi.
If you profess her to be anything else your views are disordered.
I’ll give you another example. I belong to a Marian order
meaning we believe Mary is our patron saint. We pray
rosaries while staring intently at the Exposed Eucharist.
We meditate and think about Jesus.
Our mouths say Hail Mary. This is well ordered.
On the other hand a few years ago a person brought
a statue of Mary from Manila and
claimed the statue was demanding morning offerings
of pineapples and bananas To keep her from destroying
the earth.
The Bishop condemned that group.