K, back to what I was saying before the SNL/McCartney tangent.

NPR used to do a series called This I Believe. Penn Jillette did a fantastic piece rooted in implied meaning to a statement.

An atheist doesn’t believe in god.
Mr. Jillette believes there IS NO GOD. I capitalize it because Mr. Jillette’s deliver is that of triumph.

What triumph? That the statements are different. That NOT believing in god implies that there is a god. “I don’t believe in you” versus “I believe there is NO YOU.”

See the difference?

I heard this piece on NPR, Jillette’s essay, a couple of years ago, and while I do not agree with him, his reasoning, his clarification through his language of what he exactly believed, resonated with me.

Finally, earlier this year, during my mythology phase it occurred to me that the First Commandment* has some implied meaning that I never considered before.

From here:

“exodus 20:2-20:17
2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 3you shall have no other gods before* me.
4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, 6but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation* of those who love me and keep my commandments. “

While I have a few consistency issues with the latter half of this commandment, what interests me is the statement “you shall have no other gods before me”.

My epiphany is that this implies there ARE other gods that could come before this God. It implies the existence of other gods. Examining the mythology of the time supports this theory as monotheism was quite new to the world at this time. If there is just one God, Thee God, and no other god existed, wouldn’t you think that the author would have said. “I am the Only God” or “Thou shalt believe there ARE NO OTHER GODS” or something less nebulous?

My co-worker and I get along fabulously well, although she is definitely more solid in her faith, so I posed the question to her. She said that she believes that the other “gods” references are simply idols, inanimate objects with no sentience let alone any divinity. I nod. A good discussion unfolds and I get a better idea of her belief structure. Like many other issues, one can’t argue with interpretation. If that is what people choose to see, that’s cool. She does not agree with my proposed implication, and I do not agree that the “other gods” referenced were simply statues. I see the implications.

I’m not exactly sure where I will take them though.

Gotta run!

*Now, things can be lost in translation as this website claims; we aren’t talking about the possibility that churches, altars, etc. could be directly contradictory to the First Commandment.