Nonbelief is one of the most difficult things for Christianity to explain. After all, scripture teaches that God wants everyone to be saved and to know the truth – and as an omnipotent being, he should be able to make that happen. But it's not just atheism and agnosticism that are a problem; the existence of competing religious beliefs is every bit as difficult to account for. In fact, the first commandment isn't “thou shalt not be an atheist,” but rather “thou shalt have no other gods.” So why would Yahweh, who by his own admission is a jealous jerk (not his exact words), allow most of humanity to worship other deities?
A couple of explanations might immediately come to mind, of course. In biblical times, God selected one group of people to work with, and so was concerned only with this group. And nowadays he allows those who wish to do so to reject him because he wants everyone to believe in him freely. These explanations, however, only seem reasonable because they are so familiar. It doesn't take much thought to see just how weak they really are.
Consider the first. Why choose a particular group of people at all? Why not work with all of humanity? Are we to suppose that that would have been too much for God to handle, what with having different prophets in different parts of the world, speaking various languages, and so on? And if he didn't care about the Chinese, Africans, native Americans, etc., worshiping other gods, why did it anger him so much whenever the Israelites strayed from the faith? It couldn't be because having a group of non-observant Israelites would prevent his plan of salvation from being carried out. After all, when the Messiah did come, most Jews rejected him; his followers were found mainly among the gentiles.
And the situation today is even more incomprehensible. God has now revealed his plan to the entire world, and yet the majority still rebels against him. Why isn't he, like in Old Testament days, commanding that the followers of other religions – who might lead the faithful astray – be slaughtered? Or at the very least, why doesn't he make sure these people know that Christ really is the answer? Instead, he seems perfectly fine with letting them worship as they please. What happened to all that jealousy? Don't get me wrong: I'm glad he's mellowed out. But I can't help wondering why.
A couple of explanations might immediately come to mind, of course. In biblical times, God selected one group of people to work with, and so was concerned only with this group. And nowadays he allows those who wish to do so to reject him because he wants everyone to believe in him freely. These explanations, however, only seem reasonable because they are so familiar. It doesn't take much thought to see just how weak they really are.
Consider the first. Why choose a particular group of people at all? Why not work with all of humanity? Are we to suppose that that would have been too much for God to handle, what with having different prophets in different parts of the world, speaking various languages, and so on? And if he didn't care about the Chinese, Africans, native Americans, etc., worshiping other gods, why did it anger him so much whenever the Israelites strayed from the faith? It couldn't be because having a group of non-observant Israelites would prevent his plan of salvation from being carried out. After all, when the Messiah did come, most Jews rejected him; his followers were found mainly among the gentiles.
And the situation today is even more incomprehensible. God has now revealed his plan to the entire world, and yet the majority still rebels against him. Why isn't he, like in Old Testament days, commanding that the followers of other religions – who might lead the faithful astray – be slaughtered? Or at the very least, why doesn't he make sure these people know that Christ really is the answer? Instead, he seems perfectly fine with letting them worship as they please. What happened to all that jealousy? Don't get me wrong: I'm glad he's mellowed out. But I can't help wondering why.
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