Is idolatry more than praying to a stone?

I was searching the sins that were responsible for the destruction of the second beit hamikidash, and two sins I found interesting, the avodah zarah and the Lashon Hara. The second is understandable, as humans are like that, even tho it hard to me to understand why Jews being a big family would talk bad from each other.

I feel like nowadays this is not a thing anymore. When it come to the avodah zarah, I can’t understand why would a jew to pray to the stone or any deity, we have so many examples on how does this sin went pretty bad, do I guess the idolatry is more than just praying to a pagan deity but it has a deep meaning right? Why did the jews struggled so much with avodah zarah since the Sinai and is this still a problem and how to avoid it?