2. HOLDING SACRED THAT WHICH IS NOT SACRED

2. Holding Sacred that which is not Sacred ~ 74 ~ holy. The actual feeling of reverence for holiness, which should have been directed towards the Creator, finds its way instead towards some creature. The reason for this is God’s invisibility. Unable to see his Maker, man gives his attention to whatever else strikes him as most prominent in his immediate surroundings; he then begins to invest it with sanctity and to worship it as if it were genuinely holy. It is this psychology, which produced, in ancient times what is called polytheism in religious terminology, and nature worship in academic parlance. This basic urge to worship impelled man from within to revere something, which was holy. Consequently, he started worshipping anything, which made a great visual impact upon him, e.g. stars, rain, animals, plants, water and fire. The concept of an exalted God existed as the prophets had taught man. But this concept came to be distorted to mean that God “was the Lord in heaven who had withdrawn from the immediate details of governing the world. This kind of high God, a hidden, or idle God, had delegated all work on