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The week's question
In December 2024, in the thread "Re: BRK: Why Not XOM?", BreckHutHigh asked the members: "What about the long road trips with kids?" This week it is put to everyone again. The button below opens the small thread re-asking it - read what others have said so far, then give your own answer as an ordinary reply.
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Author: albaby1 SILVER
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Number: of 84361 
Subject: Re: Kegbreath cuts LDS from list
Date: 06/08/26 4:57 PM
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Well, one of the commandments states that you will not have any gods (plural) before me, implying the Abrahamic tradition acknowledges the existence of other gods.

Not really implying it, but just carrying over that language from an earlier era. The Torah took a long time to write. Modern scholars peg it at several centuries, from a few centuries before until shortly after the Babylonian exile. Give or take five hundred years, from about 900 BCE to 400 BCE.

During that time, Judaism evolved from a monolatrous religion (believing that multiple gods exist but only worshipping one of them) to a monotheistic religion (believing only one god exists). The "Abrahamic tradition" wasn't a single thing that sprung into existence at a single point in time, but evolved heavily from the polytheistic Canaanite religions through the Exile into the Hellenistic period.

I don't think it's correct to say that the Abrahamic tradition "acknowledges" (in the present tense) the existence of other gods. That hasn't been true for more than 2,000 years. The modern reading (which in this context dates back to the 1st or 2nd century) is that they're talking about other gods the way we would talk about Thor or Zeus or Quetzalcoatl - "gods" that exist as concepts or mythological characters or representations of a belief, but that don't exist as beings in the real world.

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This community has written 977 posts about Atheist Shrewds. The article-length ones it recommended most:
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