I wish to propose a question. It’s likely to be held in contempt by a number of people. Some might even condemn me to Hell. However, society has gotten nowhere by keeping its mouth shut. It progresses by the asking of questions. So here I go.
Are Judaism and it’s spin-off of Christianity supposed to be monotheistic religions?
Most people would probably say yes. Jews and Christians worship one God, not many Gods. That answer misses the point of the question. I’m not asking if they do worship one God. Instead I am asking if they are supposed to believe that there is only one God. Let’s look at the 1st Commandment:
“6 I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 7 you shall have no other gods before me.” Deuteronomy 5:6-7
That doesn’t say there is only one God. It just says you only get to worship one God. Maybe it’s heretical, but I’m just trying to ask a question that I don’t hear anyone asking. Like I said, society progresses through the asking of questions and the search for answers. That is what made Newton question why things fall to the ground. It led Franklin to investigate lightning. In 1969 that spirit put a man on the moon. We should stop accepting what we have been told and go out and discover for ourselves.
It is of interest that this is the very problem with American political participation. We are far too willing to accept something that is said to us repeatedly. Karl Rove can raise millions of dollars and use it to sway elections because a 30 second attack ad is easier to absorb than a complicated argument. Everyone complains about attack ads during a campaign, but they are there because they work. It easier to say, “raising taxes is bad.,” than it is to go out and find the information that shows those tax increases would be on %2 of the population. Guess what? You’re not one of them.
What truly saddens me is that we don’t have the desire to even question the most simplistic statements. If we can’t get past those, then no one questions the 1st commandment. Many people would tell me that my argument about Deuteronomy isn’t really that important. There are roughly 2 billion Christians in the world. How is it not important?
Questioning our leaders, in our communities, government, or churches is very important. One fact that is often forgotten is that those people work for us. Ministers are supposed to be servants of their congregations. Government employees work for the public good. We are their boss, and any good boss pays attention to what his employees are doing. I’d say it’s about time we check in on ours.
Independent Kansan 
Good question. The first line of Genesis is ‘In the beginnig God created heaven and earth.’ This implies that God created everything. There is no entity other or outside of God. The concepts of time and space are also God’s creations. We don’t worship one God because of that though, we do it because he told us to. That’s the answer in Judaism, Christianity might work a bit differently.
Interesting point. I had a feeling that the argument could be made that there is only one God. I really just love presenting questions that exist outside the conventional debate. Your point about Genesis makes sense. I really enjoy it because like my argument it goes beyond the words to the implication of the words. Thanks for the comment.
As a Christian, I believe there is only one God. I do like the Genesis reference Vadim made. Like you, I question many things that our government does, because the government is made up of imperfect people, not God.
Matt you might enjoy a post I wrote years ago (and recently published on Idiocracy). It’s called: Some Christians Are Technically Atheists – WTF?