No. There are not1.
So then what do we make of the other gods that people worship? We have no problem saying they are ‘false’, or ‘not real’, or even ‘idols’, but these are all more pleasant euphemisms. None of the other gods from Baal & Molech to Zeus & Mercury, to Vishnu & Allah exist. But people heard from these gods! People got information from them! People ‘felt’ their presence!
So… what so we make of that?
It’s quite simple, really. Let’s take a look at a portion of today’s reading. Psalm 106:34-37:
They did not destroy the peoples as the Lord had commanded them, but they mingled with the nations and adopted their customs. They worshiped their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to false gods.
The original Hebrew word translated by the NET as “false gods” only appears in ONE other location in the whole of the Old Testament. That verse is Deuteronomy 32:17:
They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods they had not known; to new gods who had recently come along, gods your ancestors had not known about.
Every supposed ‘god’ who is not the God of the Bible is just a demon (or possibly many of them) trying to fool and distract you so you never realize you are on the wrong path. They are an illusion. A mirage in the desert leading you to death rather than the promised oasis. The skeptic might rebut that the same could be said for the Christian God. And I would concede that the same charge could be laid against the God of Israel… but… I think there is an incredible amount of evidence for my God’s existence. Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ, Josh & Sean McDowell’s Evidence That Demands a Verdict, and pretty much anything by William Lane Craig’s ‘Reasonable Faith’ ministry.
Just in case I am being misunderstood in any way, let me be a clear as I can be: Allah is a demon. The Hindu gods are demons. The Sikh gods are demons. Every so-called god that is NOT Yahweh is a demon doing yeoman’s work to distract and confuse as many as possible. And friends don’t let friends worship demons.
- There are a great many problems with the idea of other gods beside Yahweh as well as the idea that there are sub-gods under Yahweh. A great many people have discussed this issue, so feel free to look that up if you are interested since that is beyond the scope of what I aim to do in these daily posts. ↩︎