According to you, Sappho, The God commanded to his people NOT to warship or believe to ANY OTHER gods but himself/herself. That includes Christians as well. That makes sort of definition for Christianity (for this particular case). Therefore if people worship or believe in more then one god they are not Christians.

God may believe or not in whatever but his flock can not in the same way as an adult may drive but children not.

tallowood wrote on Nov 20^th, 2008 at 8:36am:


God never told his flock NOT to believe in other gods. Rather God introduced the concept of other gods existing. From that point, God demanded that none of these Gods are to be held before Him.

You cannot as a God, introduce the concept of other gods and then say to your flock, do not believe in their existance! Nor is God doing that, if you read the Commandments.

If I was to judge the motive here, I would say that God is looking to avoid a Greek Tragedy. For example, it would have been very difficult for Zeus to maintain his authority, if the flocks of earth maintained Chronos above all other gods.  

After heaven had been moved away from earth,
After earth had been separated from heaven,
After the name of man had been fixed;

After An had carried off heaven,
After Enlil had carried off earth,
After Ereshkigal had been carried off into Kur as its prize;

After he had set sail, after he had set sail,
After the father for Kur had set sail,
After Enki for Kur had set sail; p. 38

Against the king the small ones it (Kur) hurled,
Against Enki, the large ones it hurled;
Its small ones, stones of the hand,
Its large ones, stones of . . . reeds,
The keel of the boat of Enki,
In battle, like the attacking storm, overwhelm;

Against the king, the water at the head of the boat,
Like a wolf devours,
Against Enki, the water at the rear of the boat,
Like a lion strikes down.

Knowing that the ancient greeks for example worshipped many competing gods, and actually believing that those gods exist are two different issues. I think that Sappho is merely exploiting an ambiguity in the text. Whether or not those gods exist, the belief in them was real and it seems pretty clear to me that the commandments refer to that belief. Christianity almost equates belief with worship.

In any case it is pointless to make a rule saying that something doesn't exist when it does. The rules governed the behaviour of people. They were not physical laws.

muso wrote on Nov 20^th, 2008 at 10:00am:


I mean the same as with The Elephant.

Tallowood
God did not tell his flock to believe in other gods. He did not God introduced the concept of other gods existing Sumerians did that.

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In Logical Form then....

Stated premise 1.
Exodus 20:2 I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

Unstated premise 2.
Other gods exist.

Therefore
Exodus 20:3
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

God did tell anyone with a sense of logic, that there are, indeed, other gods. He was not about to deny that Ganesh, the God of Sucess, existed... now was he.

Rather, he is saying in plain understanding that he is the only god that cares about these people, so care about Him and only Him... in return.

*Reference for biblical text
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2020&version=9;

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Wrong. If anything He ended that concept. The concept was already there. He did not introduce it. He merely acknowledged that the concept existed.

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The ambiguity is in whether the commend refers to belief or worship (or maybe equates the two), and in whether it implies the existence of other gods, or merely the previous belief in their existence.

You are exploiting that ambiguity and in doing so rejecting both doctrine and a common sense interpretation.

No not wrong. God does not speak in Concepts... He speaks in Truths. So that if God says there are other gods... then there are other gods.