Verified answer

Our God is a holy, righteous and jealous God and will not tolerate apostasy. His relationship with his people is like a marriage and God is always faithful. He demands that we put him first in our lives. Today people put money, power and pleasure before God. What we desire and value in life then becomes our “god” and we devote our time and energy to that instead of to God – we idolise them.

All the various forms of modern idolatry have one thing at their core: self. We no longer bow down to idols and images. Instead we worship at the altar of the god of self. This brand of modern idolatry takes various forms.

First, we worship at the altar of materialism which feeds our need to build our egos through the acquisition of more “stuff.” This insatiable desire for more, better, and newer stuff is nothing more than covetousness. The tenth commandment tells us not to fall victim to coveting: "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor" (Exodus 20:17).

Second, we worship at the altar of our own pride and ego. This often takes the form of obsession with careers and jobs. As King Solomon put it, “For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless” (Ecclesiastes 2:21-23).

Third, we idolize mankind—and by extension ourselves—through naturalism and the power of science. This gives us the illusion that we are lords of our world and builds our self-esteem to godlike proportions. We reject God’s Word and His description of how He created the heavens and the earth, and we accept the nonsense of evolution and naturalism. 2 Peter 3:10-13 shows our focus should not be on worshiping the environment, but on living holy lives as we wait eagerly for the return of our Lord and Savior, who alone deserves worship.

Finally, and perhaps most destructively, we worship at the altar of self-aggrandizement or the fulfillment of the self to the exclusion of all others and their needs and desires. This manifests itself in self-indulgence through alcohol, drugs, and food. Those in affluent countries have unlimited access to alcohol, drugs (prescription drug use is at an all-time high, even among children), and food. Obesity rates in the western world have skyrocketed, and childhood diabetes brought on by overeating is epidemic. The self-control we so desperately need is spurned in our insatiable desire to eat, drink, and medicate more and more. We resist any effort to get us to curb our appetites, and we are determined to make ourselves the god of our lives. Worship of self is the basis of all modern idolatry.

Edit: I like what Jon Pike said - "Anything that becomes more important in your life than God is idolatry." Sums it up very well. Also, we can harbor secret idols in our heart without realising it. But God can't be fooled - he knows us better that we do. It's a sobering thought.

Perhaps it's the things we DON't list that should worry us, thinks like being judgmental of others and thinking we're right and they're wrong (spiritually speaking). Or placing our faith in a religious denomination and performing good works. Hmmm, there's more to this than first comes to mind. I think I need to do a bit of soul searching and repenting myself.

The cross was not used or worshiped by the early Christians.

Selfies; twerking; tweeting.

Yes: money, power, prestige, fame, drugs, alcohol, pornography, prostitution, crime, self-righteousness, food, and pride. Anything that becomes more important in your life than God is idolatry.

The Statue of Liberty........ The American Flag......

Describing the laws that God gave to the nation of Israel, the New Catholic Encyclopedia notes: “From various Biblical accounts it is evident that the true worship of God was devoid of images.” Consider these Bible verses:

“You must not make for yourself a carved image or a form like anything that is in the heavens above or that is on the earth underneath or that is in the waters under the earth. You must not bow down to them nor be induced to serve them, because I Jehovah your God am a God exacting exclusive devotion.” (Exodus 20:4, 5) Since God requires “exclusive devotion,” he is not pleased if we praise or worship images, pictures, idols, icons, statues, or symbols.

Jesus on the cross is an idol and Christendom's members venerate it unapologetically!

Yes, idolatry is everywhere, even on this forum. We are to get our life, our self worth and our very identity from Jesus Christ. To do otherwise, particularly judging others, is the most insidious form of idolatry there is.

Greed is idolatry. It is the worship of one's own self as a god.

Actually, any church with an abundance of iconography is certainly walking a very fine line.