2007-06-19 01:37:04 · 15 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Quick answer: Yes.
If other gods are false, then why would he need to hand down this commandment?
It would be like Congress saying you can't claim heritage from another part of the world because it doesn't exist!
De dee dee!
And no, he can't compete. For instance, and this is how you know it isn't a real god, he defines himself by a gender. Why would a god who can create need to have a male or female gender?
And what is his problem with action figures? "You shall not make for yourself a carved image--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."
2007-06-19 01:45:47 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 4⤊ 5⤋
"The law was made for man, not man for the law" . For our joy and benefit out of love. It's a matter of not losing focus, as any good scientist will attest in trying to solve a problem. Another tenent of the covenant is to love you neighbor. Love and faithfulness, allegiance, go together. It was more like a marriage covenant than a command. If I protect you, your part is to be consistent. Even the Law of Attraction will tell you that holding competing ideas can sabotage what your doing. What if you are trying to find a unified field theory and hate your job? As a general rule, that's not a good situation, although "there's a time for everything.." Some meanings are deep, but if you're using them you get the gist when you need them. They spring to mind like a sayng from Shakespeare might, even if I don't understand Shakespeare half the time. How much more useful if you do understand them.
And The truth loves to be tested. It's a requirement of the scientific method and for everything. Believe it or not that agreement covenant is similar to an atheist's saying that "everything either adds to your life or takes away from it." That is, keep you feelings in line with what your doing, presumably living a happy life. God wants us to instinctively look to him when in sudden need when time is precious. On the court you have to react almost.
Also in a relationship our feet tend to follow our eyes and we don't want rocks to lead us, like using the physical sciences to explain love as a chemical reaction only. Physical sciences examine people like examining the parts to a computer. I just keep having this nagging feeling that I'm more than parts, but who knows. Or maybe we're confucing the physical sciences with the life sciences or something. Isn't there a life force or is there only impersonal forces like gravity? I somehow feel human and not just part of a machine I live in. Most people feel that they are something more, while some scientists are actually now saying that we don't have any free will. The subconscious mind, however weights precisely and impartially vaste amounts of data and makes us feel that there is God and we are aware of Him through our feelings and the preponderance of the evidence as He is aware of us. The brain is a super-calculator and totally unbiased and tell us yes. Even a machine knows what the conscious mind can't see for a lack of ability to get the whole picture. The subconscious deals in images, moving ones with all the senses and symbolism at, as science says, 24 frames a second, while the awareness has no speed limit and scans the images and the images within them and the images within the images within and so on. Pictures don't lie when your matching billions of them to each other for similarities and differences. It's a new age and stress will increase until we use our minds more efficiently, like human beings instead as the animals we have often been until now. Science is dating this as I write so please forgive the anachronisms.
2007-06-19 09:00:40 · answer #2 · answered by hb12 7 · 1⤊ 2⤋
Let's look back in history.
Man created other gods from things (such as carved from trees, out of the sun or the moon and stars, and animals) that the true God had made. Then like most religions made up alot of rites and traditions and customs some of which were human sacrifices. Baal worshippers sacrificed their babies to this false god. Unbrideled passions were the norm during worship ceremonies in many false religionous services of the time.
So, this commandment was for the protection of His people. There was no atmosphere of competition, just God's love for his people to have them avoid the heinous rituals that were in the name of those false gods.
Today, many people make gods out of movie stars, athletes, musical performers, money, sex, food, alcohol, or themselves. The commandment still stands as a warning against the pitfalls of placing things or other people before the creator of ALL things.
2007-06-19 09:08:18 · answer #3 · answered by Carol D 5 · 3⤊ 3⤋
Is a husband worried that he cannot compete in an open market of other men when it comes to his wife? Or does he rightly want her all to himself? Is he paranoid? Or does he rightly feel that only he should have an intimate relationship with her?
Jealously has its proper place. The very fact that God has given his intelligent creation free will is patent proof that he is not "worried that he cannot compete in an open market of ideas and gods." For if he were worried, he would have made sure that the worship of other gods is an impossibility. Do we get the sense of that?
Hannah J Paul
2007-06-19 08:47:19 · answer #4 · answered by Hannah J Paul 7 · 7⤊ 5⤋
Actually, the first 4 commandments deal with god's insecurity. You can't make graven images of him, as if an all-powerful god would care. You have to keep the sabbath holy, and this is a commandment because...people wouldn't go if they weren't commanded to! Don't take his name in vain - there's that insecurity again. 40% of the commandments he sent down deal with the direct insecurity of god. Funny, isn't it, that an all powerful god could be this insecure!
2007-06-19 09:01:33 · answer #5 · answered by Mi Atheist Girl 4 · 3⤊ 4⤋
It isn't through insecurity he had the commandments written...It is through total power over you that he warns...HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME.
He means it too. History has revealed that he is intolerant of people who worship false gods.
He says I am Jehovah and every knee shall bend to me and every head shall bow or I will break their stiff necks.
It would be smart of you and everyone to come to realize this is not up for debate.
2007-06-19 08:56:34 · answer #6 · answered by debbie2243 7 · 3⤊ 4⤋
No.
He knows human nature well enough to know that people are just easily led astray.
2007-06-19 10:31:34 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋
Because you can't get to know the one and only true God if you are worshiping idols or false gods. He made that commandment for our good, not His.
2007-06-19 08:41:59 · answer #8 · answered by Be me 5 · 5⤊ 5⤋
Jehovah seems to be very jealous and can't stand competition.
2007-06-19 08:41:04 · answer #9 · answered by jojovas4 2 · 1⤊ 5⤋
The better question is: if all other gods are false, why is Joe Hovah jealous of them?
It's just PSYCHOTIC to be jealous of imaginary people....
2007-06-19 08:39:51 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 5⤋