I suppose the answer any Christian gives will depend on their theology. eg: Are Muslims accidently interacting with the real God, and giving him worship, or are they actively opposing the real God? Do atheists worship God when they act morally?
Explicit 'God beliefs' may not be so important to God, but rather the important thing could be the hearts orientation towards things like goodness. Maybe when you feed the poor, it's the same as doing it for God (Bible reference).
That's pretty close to what I believe. I figure, it can't be that any one religion is "the right one" and I don't think it's possible that all are correct so for now, I say they're all wrong. But if at any point I become more convinced by any one of them, I hope God wouldn't hold it against me for joining "the wrong one". How was I supposed to know?
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
Commandment numero uno.
Yeah it seems like believing in him is a pretty big deal to God. Why would he make such important revelations into a gigantic game of telephone spanning over 20 centuries?
You would think something so important would be made explicitly clear to every human being.
Just the fact that there are any skeptics at all should indicate that maybe he isn't as evident as some people believe he is.
The OT god is a jealous god.
Which is such a human emotion. It's ridiculous that a supreme being of infinite power, wisdom, and love would get jealous over people believing in gods that supposedly don't even exist!
I don't know that Jesus said anything about the matter.
Specific to my question, I don't think so.
Within the Christian paradigm unbelief is unbelief. All people are worshipping all the time -- either the living God or false gods. We either worship God, we deify created things and give them god-like status, or we create gods that we find agreeable.
Can you expound on this a bit?
I'm not sure I 'worship' anything. There are plenty of things I enjoy doing. There's plenty of things I love. But I wouldn't call any of those things god.
If there is anything I deify, it is nature itself. I'm am in complete awe of the natural world. Complex systems are fascinating and nothing gets more complex than the universe. But I don't worship the universe.
Conversion is always "turning from idols to serve the living God". Even if you classify yourself as a skeptic unbeliever, according to the Bible you're still a worshipper and there is some created thing or some false image of God that you've committed yourself to. God wants you to turn from false worship to true worship.
But how do you differentiate between false worship and true worship?
I disagree. Worship is at the core of who we are. It's as essential to human life as breathing. It doesn't always look "religious", especially in our day when we've become so interested in secularism. But worship is simply this: there are some core commitments at the root of your life that determine your decisions, behavior, emotional reactions, etc. At the very center of your person are things that you love and have committed yourself to. You serve these things and look to these things to do you good. You pursue these things. You're married to these things. That's worship.
And what's wrong with worshipping things other than God?
In this sense all people are religious. Some religious devotion takes the traditional form wherein the worshipper looks to personal deities. Other religious devotion takes on a secular form wherein the worshipper looks to a person, themselves, money, a career, children, material possessions, etc.
So what's wrong with that? A man can't live on worship alone. It ain't gonna put food on the table.
Think of all the good things that we value. I'll just name a few. Power, freedom, and comfort. These are valuable. A god is anything you look to for these things. Money can become a god when we look to money to give us power, freedom, and comfort.
But money does give you power, freedom and comfort. Praying to God for these things doesn't seem to work so people have to work for them themselves. I can see now why people might turn their devotion to their careers and money more than God.
Sex can become a god when we look to it to give us these things. Worshippers of the living God look to the creator to provide these things and worshippers of idols look for them in the creation.
And why is that bad?
