Idolatry

===Americas===
[[File:Inti Raymi2.jpg|thumb|[[Inti Raymi]], a winter solstice festival of the [[Inca people]], reveres ''[[Inti]]'' – the sun deity. Offerings include round bread and maize beer.<ref name=parkerstanton501>{{cite book|author1=Janet Parker |author2=Julie Stanton |title=Mythology: Myths, Legends and Fantasies |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p7dR2w1Wv2sC |year=2007|publisher=Struik Publishers|isbn=978-1-77007-453-8 |page=501 }}</ref>]]
Statues, images and temples have been a part of the Traditional Religions of the indigenous people of the Americas.<ref name=morill79/><ref name="Seaman2013p140">{{cite book|author=Rebecca M. Seaman|title=Conflict in the Early Americas: An Encyclopedia of the Spanish Empire's Aztec, Incan, and Mayan Conquests|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IXKjAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA140 |year=2013|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-59884-777-2|pages=140–141, 251}}</ref><ref name=cole77>{{cite book|author1=Michael Wayne Cole|author2=Rebecca Zorach|title=The Idol in the Age of Art: Objects, Devotions and the Early Modern World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IUKBQfzKlIYC&pg=PA77|year=2009|publisher=Ashgate |isbn=978-0-7546-5290-8|pages=77–81}}</ref> The Incan, Mayan and Aztec civilizations developed sophisticated religious practices that incorporated idols and religious arts.<ref name=cole77/> The [[Inca Empire|Inca culture]], for example, has believed in ''[[Viracocha]]'' (also called ''Pachacutec'') as the [[creator deity]] and nature deities such as ''[[Inti]]'' ([[Solar deity|sun deity]]), and ''Mama Cocha'' the goddess of the sea, lakes, rivers and waters.<ref>{{cite book|author=Alan L. Kolata|title=Ancient Inca|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RpELeDbp7BQC |year=2013|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-86900-3 |page=164 }}</ref><ref name=littleton726>{{cite book|author=C Scott Littleton |title=Gods, Goddesses, and Mythology|url=https://archive.org/details/godsgoddessesmyt02litt |url-access=registration |year=2005|publisher=Marshall Cavendish |isbn=978-0-7614-7565-1 |pages=726–729 }}</ref><ref name="Roza2008p27">{{cite book|author=Greg Roza |title=Incan Mythology and Other Myths of the Andes |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vGuHuTzEXM4C |year=2008|publisher=The Rosen Publishing Group |isbn=978-1-4042-0739-4 |pages=27–30 }}</ref>

[[File:Telamones Tula.jpg|thumb|The Aztec Tula [[Atlantean figures|Atlantean statues]] (above) have been called as symbols of idolatry, but may have just been stone images of warriors.<ref>{{cite book|author=Benjamin Keen|title=The Aztec Image in Western Thought|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G63OWSXfZBkC |year=1990|publisher=Rutgers University Press|isbn=978-0-8135-1572-4|pages=239–240}}</ref>]]
In [[Maya civilization|Mayan culture]], ''[[Kukulkan]]'' has been the supreme [[creator deity]], also revered as the god of [[reincarnation]], water, fertility and wind.<ref name=littleton797/> The Mayan people built [[Mesoamerican pyramids|step pyramid temples]] to honor ''Kukulkan'', aligning them to the [[Sun]]'s position on the spring [[equinox]].<ref name=littleton843>{{cite book|author=C Scott Littleton |title=Gods, Goddesses, and Mythology|url=https://archive.org/details/godsgoddessesmyt02litt |url-access=registration |year=2005|publisher=Marshall Cavendish |isbn=978-0-7614-7565-1 |pages=843–844 }}</ref> Other deities found at Mayan archaeological sites include ''[[Chac-Xib-Chac|Xib Chac]]'' – the benevolent male rain deity, and ''[[Ixchel]]'' – the benevolent female earth, weaving and pregnancy goddess.<ref name=littleton843/> A deity with aspects similar to ''Kulkulkan'' in the Aztec culture has been called ''[[Quetzalcoatl]]''.<ref name=littleton797>{{cite book|author=C Scott Littleton |title=Gods, Goddesses, and Mythology|url=https://archive.org/details/godsgoddessesmyt02litt |url-access=registration |year=2005|publisher=Marshall Cavendish |isbn=978-0-7614-7565-1 |pages=797–798 }}</ref>

Missionaries came to the Americas with the start of Spanish colonial era, and the Catholic Church did not tolerate any form of native idolatry, preferring that the icons and images of Jesus and Mary replace the native idols.<ref name="Eire1989p5"/><ref>{{cite book|author1=Patrick Taylor|author2=Frederick I. Case|title=The Encyclopedia of Caribbean Religions |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XOyYCgAAQBAJ |date=30 April 2013|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=978-0-252-09433-0|pages=560–562}}</ref><ref name=morill79>{{cite book|author1=B. Morrill|author2=J. Ziegler|author3=S. Rodgers|title=Practicing Catholic: Ritual, Body, and Contestation in Catholic Faith|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rWvJAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA79 |year=2006|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-1-4039-8296-4|pages=79–80}}</ref> Aztec, for example, had a written history which included those about their Traditional Religion, but the Spanish colonialists destroyed this written history in their zeal to end what they considered as idolatry, and to convert the Aztecs to Catholicism. The Aztec Indians, however, preserved their religion and religious practices by burying their idols under the crosses, and then continuing their idol worship rituals and practices, aided by the syncretic composite of atrial crosses and their idols as before.<ref>{{cite book|author=Manuel Aguilar-Moreno|title=Handbook to Life in the Aztec World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZseasJq3WzEC|year=2007|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-533083-0|pages=24, 203–204}}</ref>

During and after the imposition of Catholic Christianity during [[Spanish Empire|Spanish colonialism]], the Incan people retained their original beliefs in deities through [[syncretism]], where they overlay the Christian God and teachings over their original beliefs and practices.<ref>{{cite book|author1=J. Gordon Melton |author2=Martin Baumann |title=Religions of the World |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v2yiyLLOj88C |year=2010|publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-59884-204-3 |pages=2243–2244 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Klaus Koschorke |author2=Frieder Ludwig|author3=Mariano Delgado|title=A History of Christianity in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, 1450-1990 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dbq6fkyp698C |year=2007|publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing |isbn=978-0-8028-2889-7 |pages=323–325 }}</ref><ref name="kuznar2011p45">{{cite book|author=Lawrence A. Kuznar |title=Ethnoarchaeology of Andean South America: Contributions to Archaeological Method and Theory |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=88R8AAAAMAAJ |year=2001|publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-1-879621-29-9 |pages=45–47 }}</ref> The male deity ''Inti'' became accepted as the Christian God, but the Andean rituals centered around idolatry of Incan deities have been retained and continued thereafter into the modern era by the Incan people.<ref name="kuznar2011p45"/><ref name="Brian M. Fagan 1996 345">{{cite book|author=Brian M. Fagan |title=The Oxford Companion to Archaeology |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ystMAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA345 |year=1996|publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-507618-9 |page=345}}</ref>