Every single person worships something. Every person who has ever lived has worshiped something. It may not be a deity, it may not be as part of a religion. I may worship money, I may worship myself, I may worship any variety of “higher powers” or philosophies, but the point remains. I can’t “not worship anything” no matter how hard I try. It is an innate desire of every human.
We will become like what we worship in the same way as we are what we eat. It is only natural. We become like those we interact with, and we humans are creatures of habit. It will happen without us realizing it.
Reading about history, it can be tempting to judge those who live in the past or are from alien cultures as somehow unenlightened or uneducated compared to us for worshiping totems of stone or gold. I propose that the specifics depend on peer pressure more than anything. It is common to direct our worship to the same object as those around you – since all people are sheep. Even me. Even you.
According to the Bible, an idol is anything that you value or trust more than God. It doesn’t have to be a statue or a golden cow or what have you. Money is an obvious example, but an idol can be time or it can be status, it can be power… it really can be anything. An “enlightened” modern man is in exactly the same boat as some ancient druid burning herbs to the mother spirit.
The Bible particularly stresses that idols are terrible not only because God is the only worthy object of worship, but that it is bad for ourselves too. Since you become like what you worship, worshiping anything less than true perfection is a fast track to a nasty road.