The polytheism spoken of by the author was formally made part of State policy when the constitutional framers replaced the First Commandment (found intact in some of the 17th-century Colonial governments) with the polytheism-enabling First Amendment.

"...Religious Freedom and Christian Liberty are not the same thing. They are, in fact, hostile to each other. The former is born of the First Amendment. The latter is born of the First Commandment. In 1789, the First Commandment and Christian
Liberty were formally sacrificed on the altar of the First Amendment and Religious Freedom.

"When the 18th-century founders replaced the First Commandment (found intact in some 17th-century Colonial Constitutions) with the First Amendment, America was transformed from a predominantly monotheistic Christian nation (a united nation under one God, Yahweh) into arguably the most polytheistic nation to exist (a divided nation under many gods, including Islam's Allah).

"It’s one thing to allow for individual freedom of conscience and private choice of gods, something impossible to legislate for or against. It’s another matter altogether for government to enable any and all religions to proliferate through the land and evangelize our posterity to false gods. This is what the First Amendment legitimizes. It is an unequivocal violation of the First Commandment and the polar opposite of the following First Commandment statute:

'[Y]e shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves. For thou shall worship no other god: for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God: Lest thou … go a whoring after their gods….' (Exodus 34:13-15)...."

For more, see blog article "National Religious Freedom Day aka Celebrating the Founders' Violation of the First Commandment." Click on my name, then our website. Go to our Blog and search on title.

Then online Chapter 11 "Amendment 1: Government-Sanctioned Polytheism" of "Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective." Go to our Online Books page, click on the top entry, and scroll down to Chapter 11.

I just wish that GOD, in His wisdom and omnipotence, would be just a bit more media-savvy in this day and age. I mean, we’re talking about the same God that allegedly created the Universe (just 6,000 years ago, according to some people), flooded the entire Earth, parted the Red Sea, and whose Earthbound avatar came back to life after having assumed room temperature for the better part of a weekend. Why does He insist on taking such a hands-off approach? We have one Book which has been translated and re-translated, interpreted and re-interpreted, until hardly anyone can agree on what it means. We have dozens of Christian denominations, each with its own unique take on what God expects of us. Wouldn’t God be a little more effective in getting us to behave decently toward one another if He would just put together a website or a television channel or at the very least a 1-800 number? There is a wide variety of contemporary social and economic issues I sure would like to get His opinion on.

Chuck,

The "avatar" of whom you speak, Jesus Christ, is the absolute embodiment of a hands-on approach.

Yes, there are different interpretations, and people can be cruel. The alternative is unconscionable, however. Would you rather have God control people so they always think the same thing? Or so no one can make a choice other than to do the most perfect thing?

As for a good website, there are lots of them. There's even one right here. (You're welcome.)

If God was stupid enough to bring in free will...He has no right whatsoever to complain people are not obediently following Him.

God will touch your heart one day Chuck and you will take all these words back, I pray, Amen.

The parable of the tares among the wheat will probably bring to light some of the things you remain in the dark on, but I'm sure you'd much prefer to retain the thought that you've done something clever with your post.

God has revealed himself to everyone, but only some are willing to believe what information is available. God is being as "effective" as he wants to be. You have to do things God's way because he is not going to do things your way.

Hey Chuck, that's some imaginative evaluation! First off, would you be kind enough to point-out in either the Old or New Testament, where it states explicitly just WHEN the universe was created, let alone this biosphere?

Also, could you be a little more specific in identifying just WHO this "earthbound avatar [was] who came back to life after having assumed room temperature for the better part of a weekend"? Do you mean the same "earthbound avatar," of whom openly stated that "you are of this world, but I am not of this world," "you are from beneath, but I am from above," or "For I have COME DOWN FROM HEAVEN not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me"? BTW: Are you suggesting in this comment, that science has certifiably established, as a causal requirement, that "room-temp" itself is both a "sufficient & necessary" catalyst to one's "self-rising" from the dead? Do tell... (e.g., John 2:19; but see 2:13-22 for precise historical context.)

Anyway Chuck, "you do err not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God." (i.e., Matthew 22:29; however, see 22:23-33 for relevant context.)

Additionally, you seem to be backhandedly inferring - as though you alone possess omniscience, evident in your sweeping, "fallen" anemic analysis re: the manner in which the actual omniscient/omnipotent Creator God of this universe has handled matters upon planet earth - that the Holy Bible's Yahweh completely failed, or "couldn't successfully accomplish" communicating clearly, and effectively with His specially-created spirit-creatures, aka rational/moral H@#o sapiens??

Yet, I would also think you're simultaneously inferring that the perfectly ethical/moral "Judge of all mankind" - of whose throne it's said in Holy Scripture that "righteousness and justice are the foundation" thereof - will nonetheless wind-up capriciously, thus immorally judging His creatures for failing to abide by His apparently obscure, UNKNOWN commands? Am I correct in that assumption Chuck??

If so, let's test that out: the Ten Commandments of "The Decalogue" were delivered to the nation of Israel roughly 3,400-3,450 years ago; you know, the same 10 Commandments that atheists, government officials et al. across God Bless America, CAN'T stand to see displayed publicly, or in any of our STATE-sponsored public education venues? Yet this very content has been located in Exodus 20 & Deuteronomy 5, in every Hebrew Bible that's ever been circulated, or distributed.

Having noted that, please tell me if you've ever been concerned about "breaking" any of them throughout your life...in many cases I'm sure, over-and-over again; in which case, have you ever honestly, or diligently pursued the very "resolution" to your own penchant for autonomously committing moral transgressions (i.e., sinfulness) on a regular basis?? I finally did - although He was the one helping me through the "drawing" process!

And as far as you accusing God of "taking a hands-off approach" to addressing this moral cesspool taking place on planet earth: just imagine what our predicament would be like if His Holy Spirit WASN'T omnipresent (i.e., Jeremiah 23:23-24); thus acting as an existential "restraint" against our evil actions toward one another - see John 16:7-11 in this exact context - not to mention His "elect angels" ceaselessly engaged in a cosmic struggle in-and-around this planet, with Lucifer & his fallen emissaries? Aside from that, just consider our overall moral predicament if His powerfully penetrating, eternal Word WASN'T faithfully preached by His transformed ["born-again"] children, to other "fallen" people throughout human cultures?

And particularly, where would we be had He NOT SENT His only begotten Son Jesus into the world: i.e., "For God SO LOVED THE WORLD, that He gave His only begotten Son [Yeshua/Jesus], that whosoever believes in Him should NOT PERISH, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16)?? Yet in this day-and-age, how many "fallen" people are actually listening to the "voice" of God; as WE Christians preaching the "gospel of Jesus Christ" - or standing-up for His truth - have been singled-out as de facto representing "Public Enemy #1" throughout America and the West?

☆ ☆ ☆

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me [Yeshua/Jesus]. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe ALL THINGS WHATSOEVER I COMMAND YOU, and lo I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS, EVEN TO THE END OF THE AGE" (Matthew 28:18-20).

That's been called the "Great Commission"; of which His children in every generation & culture have been COMMANDED to carry-out diligently, for the last 2,000 years, or so! "Hands-off approach" Chuck? Maybe the REAL problem is OUR spiritual BLINDNESS & SIN - and NOT GOD? Ever thought about that?

Take a quick moment to ponder Revelation 13:8 too, whereby the Lord Jesus is described as "the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world," or literally in the Greek language, "before time began." Does that sound like the omniscient/omnipotent Creator-God of this universe is some cosmic bumbling idiot, making things-up (or adjusting His ways & plans) as He goes along - as in "Open/Process Theology"?? (Please read Isaiah 46:9-10 in this context too.)

And one last observation: in the final analysis, contra your fancifully erroneous ideas above, our Creator God will have actually been SO intimately involved amongst His human creatures in resolving the "problem of evil" (aka "Theodicy") - commencing about 2,000 years ago - that true Godly love amongst one another, peace, genuine respect, compassion, righteousness etc. will have ultimately become the experiential rule-of-thumb in the lives of ALL redeemed H#%o sapiens - possessing SINLESS "resurrection bodies" - in the "new heavens and new earth where righteousness will dwell" (2 Peter 3:13); in whose unimaginably pristine environment (morally included), all will have no doubt come to realize that God ALONE had eradicated not only the very concept of sin, evil, death and decay - but it's actual presence as well...forevermore.

Jesus unambiguously stated: "Truly truly I say unto you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God" (John 3:3).

How about you Chuck? The Lord Jesus is reaching-out, or "speaking" to your heart within this very post. Are you listening? Do you desire to have your sins forgiven, and receive the "gift of eternal life" - thus "become a partaker of the Divine nature" - and enter-into an eternal relationship with the Creator of this universe (yourself included - Revelation 4:11) through His Son Yeshua/Jesus of Nazareth? I pray you will...soon sir!

There is nothing new under the sun. You can trace the same savagery from the Muslim world to what came before it in the Assyrian empire, the same quest for empire in Iran that you saw from the Persian empire. It's the same spirits behind it all, and just because it has a new name doesn't change what's behind it.

"But the truth is that it is only by believing in God that we can ever criticize the government. Once abolish the God, and the Government becomes the God. The fact is written all across human history; but it is written more plainly across that recent history of Russia; which was created by Lenin. There the Government is the God, and all the more the God, because it proclaims aloud in accents of thunder, like every other
God worth worshiping, the one essential commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me...

...The truth is that Irreligion is the opium of the people. Wherever the people do not believe in something beyond the world, they will worship the world. But, above all, they will worship the strongest thing in the world. And, by the very nature of the Bolshevist and many other modern systems, as well as by the practical working of almost any system, the State will be strongest thing in the world. The whole tendency of men is to
treat the solitary State as the solitary standard. That men may protest against law, it is necessary that they should believe in justice; that they may believe in justice beyond law, it is necessary that they should believe in a justice beyond the land of living men. You can impose the rule of the Bolshevist as you can impose the rule of the Bourbons; but it is equally an imposition. You can even make its subjects contented, as opium would make them contented. But if you are to have anything like divine discontent, then it must really be divine. Anything that really comes from below must really come from above."

~ G.K.Chesterton

The serpent said to Eve, "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof (the forbidden tree), then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Genesis 3:5

Most people want to be their own god and be ruler of their own life. Some people want to be a god to others too and tell them what to do.

I think the greatest obstacle to Western culture's acceptance of Christianity is rooted in a deification of human rights. The cry for civil, human, universal rights is so loud and its stamp so indelible upon the Western psyche that any concept of the fallen nature of humankind, the need for salvation, the depravity of man, and other Biblical doctrines runs counter to that deification ideal. In the end, this is not even about humanism versus Christianity; it is about being human itself. The exaltation of being human will always bring humans down rather than exalt them, which Christianity in fact promises. It eventually reduces humans to a level equal with animals, perhaps even plants or rocks. And, without a Creator who holds people accountable and who gives people a higher identity, anybody or anything can become dispensable on a whim. So, the gods of the Greeks and Romans (mirrored images of humans), eventually turn on each other, because the only thing that has any meaning is raw power, and the ability (or gall) to project it.

I say the same, when mankind makes himself the center of the universe then we are open to all kinds of craziness, as Romans 1 tells us.