Oh, not a legalist? K, but God does forbid images and idols. Period.
Yes, but Jesus also expects us to think about what he means when he speaks, what is the actual point of the teaching, in the context of the bible and now. These are a couple of the relevant passages:
“You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God’
And
The carpenter stretches a line; he marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house.
In the historical context (and maybe in some religions today), people were actually making things from wood, metal, stone etc that they believed actually were gods, that some god actually lived in the thing made and could be carried around, put in a house etc. They were worshipped as gods, treated as gods, in all respects as if they were actual gods. This practice provoked God’s jealousy, anger and even incredulity, as here:
“Half of the wood he burns in the fire; over it he prepares his meal, he roasts his meat and eats his fill. He also warms himself and says, “Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.” From the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and worships. He prays to it and says, “Save me! You are my god!””
Isaiah 44:16-17 NIV
The reasons for this are obvious; people actually believed they were making gods, actual gods, and they were turning away from the true god to worship these things that they made. Pictures like the avatar being discussed here just aren’t the same thing. It’s a picture of a young guy with a beard and long hair, because that is generally what we tend to think Jesus probably looked something like. The picture isn’t Jesus, it’s not supposed to be Jesus, it’s just a vague representation of him that I don’t think anyone believes is imbued with any kind of status as deity. To my mind, to see that as idolatry is just thoughtless religious dogma, that, moreover, clouds the original message about actual idolatry.