Desirable God?

Download or read book Desirable God? written by Roger Burggraeve and published by Peeters Publishers. This book was released on 2003 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The human fascination with images, and the idolatry or idolization of images as the source of desire, passion and terror, is treated in this book. The first part enters more deeply into religious idolatry, past and present. It treats the biblical, the early-Jewish as well as the Christian views on monotheism and the prohibition against images, as source of authentic humanism or as source of intolerance and violence. In the second part, the focus shifts onto a number of contemporary, profane idols and gods: the nationalist fascination for one's own land and people, and the fear or hate towards foreigners; the rampant preoccupation with (genetic) health, in a context of body culture and aestheticization, of which the postmodern sport idols have become the great 'icons'; the current image- and screen-culture and all forms of audiovisual exorcisms; and last but not least the ongoing process of economization and globalization, with an expanding culture of 'branding' logos.