God, and gods

The first few commandment listed in the King James version of the Bible is, "Thou shalt have have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments."

This is reiterated by Jesus in the New Testament, "Then one of them[Pharisees], which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Often I've heard people reference the "second greatest commandment," but the first is often forgotten.

The question becomes, who is this God that is being referred to? I will call him/her/it as Jehovah, god of the real. Also know as the god of truth.

Make no mistake, there are other gods. Even the first commandment recognizes that fact. The "god of the real" didn't say, "I am the only God," he said, "I am to be your chief god."

It would be good to take some time to get to know this god. At the time the commandments were written, the people around the Israelites made statues, which they called their "gods." The god of the real said not to make a statue for him, primarily because all one needed to do to be reminded was to go outside. The trees, the grass, the rocks, where all real, dedicated to the real god. Also, dessert, and death were evidence of the real, and therefore, Jehovah, the god of the real.

Since then, people have forgotten the god of the real, and have substituted other gods. It was easy, since they taught that there was only one God. (It would be more appropriate to say there is only one God worthy of worship.)

Today I see many gods worshiped. That is, here in the United States recently, I see the god of war worshiped quite often. That is, people put their hope for salvation in the god of war. "We need a bigger army so we can defeat our enemies," is his watchword. The United States currently spends more than $400 billion dollars a year to worship that god. And, I suspect that the movies dedicated to the worship of that god bring the figure much, much higher.

The worship of the god of war has been a particular aspiration of the government since George W. Bush became president, but the worship can be traced back much further.

Another god is the god of wealth. Other names for him include the god of money. or he almighty dollar. The point can be made that the worship of the god of war is, in fact, encouraged by the god of money. We see people who seem to think that what they happen to have as possessions belongs to them, and they can do with it as they please. This is a worship of the god of wealth.

Yet how often is that wealth used to degrade the environment. The god of the real has said that if too much carbon dioxide is put into the atmosphere, then the temperature will rise, as will the ocean levels, and there will be great upheavals. Yet, the god of wealth says that each man may do what he wishes with his money, and the environment doesn't make any difference.

Others worship the "god of the Bible." That is, not the god of the real, which the book is about, but the god that is the printed page. That is, the book becomes the graven image of their god. They fail to recognize that the Israelites often worshiped other gods as well, the god Baal being one, but the god of war at times, and the god of lust. Abraham was a person, just like people today, and there is nothing given to him that is not available to people today. The same is true of Moses, and Samuel, and all the other personages in the Bible.

I suppose Christians will say there is a special place for Jesus, the son of the real. Sometimes I wonder how much of the story of Jesus is really worshiping the god of the real, and how much is worshiping the god of magic. Jesus says "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." This was not a promised peace of magic, but a statement of the truth. I've been told that the term "meek" had a special meaning in Roman law that made this statement true, but I think its truth is self-evident. That is, people who are not meek tend to worship the gods of violence, and hatred. These gods quite often call for human sacrifices, and, as often as not, the people worshiping these gods are the victims. Left long enough, the meek will be all that is left. This is real.

To be sure, there are many incidences of magic ascribed to Jesus. But most of these can be questioned. That is, the scriptures say that Jesus said, "go, tell no one." Yet, these stories came to be told. The question is, did Jesus do the think, and tell the person not to tell (which, obviously they didn't do), or did someone want to advance their own standing in the crowd by claiming to have been healed by Jesus?

In any event, the commandment is, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," even the god of magic.

As I have said in my essay on magic, there are too many other thing that are important without wasting time worshiping the god of magic. There is too much death and destruction without creating more in the name of the god of war. There are too many environmental concerns without wasting our resources worshiping the god of wealth, the god of the almighty dollar.

Let us worship God, Jehovah, the god of the real.