I think the secular world does not make much distinction between religious values. From the secular view it is all the same. Not much more than a waste of time. [Except for the Kant Fries school and Hegel to whom religious value is highly significant.]
But in the Old Testament a distinction is made between different kinds of religious value.
For example in Deuteronomy we find [Perek 13] the paragraph concerning the מסית ומדיח one who suggests the worship of another being that is not the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob.
The verse says that if one person, even a close family member says to you "Let's go and serve some other god," then that person must be put to death.
I did about a year's amount of work on the Gemara in Sanhedrin which deals with the issue of idolatry in order to get the subject straightened out in my mind and I pretty much came to the conclusion that worship of human beings counts as idolatry just as much as worship of sticks and stones.
So cults that worship people I think should be avoided. This obviously was the point of the Gra when he put his signature on the letter of excommunication.
But in the Old Testament a distinction is made between different kinds of religious value.
For example in Deuteronomy we find [Perek 13] the paragraph concerning the מסית ומדיח one who suggests the worship of another being that is not the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob.
The verse says that if one person, even a close family member says to you "Let's go and serve some other god," then that person must be put to death.
I did about a year's amount of work on the Gemara in Sanhedrin which deals with the issue of idolatry in order to get the subject straightened out in my mind and I pretty much came to the conclusion that worship of human beings counts as idolatry just as much as worship of sticks and stones.
So cults that worship people I think should be avoided. This obviously was the point of the Gra when he put his signature on the letter of excommunication.
