I've been thinking about my response to the Liturgical Peeve question, and I've decided to change my answer.

My original dislike of the "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me" was due to interpreting the phrase to represent all these religions which each claim to have the sole, exclusive Pathway To Righteousness, And All Others Are Wrong. That's what I had problems with.

Now that I've thought about it some more, I've decided to interpret the phrase differently.

I have found that feeling connected to something bigger than myself deeply enriches my life. It may be God, it may be Lifeforce, it may be a dynamic confluence of energies which can not be properly conveyed or explained by purely rational thought. Maybe it's Love. Maybe it's just an awareness that, to quote John Andrew Holmes, "...the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."

Whatever name you want to place upon it, I know that, when I am in touch and connected with this Higher/ Deeper/ Broader Power, I feel calm, peaceful, joyous and energized. If I am out of sync with the Universe, everything seems unsettled. Things bother me more, and I'm more easily exhausted.

Within this context, the phrase, "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me" starts to make sense. Think of all the people who worship fame or money or pleasure, placing these gods before that primary, soul-level connectedness to all that is around them. Look at Enron and "reality" television and the war in Iraq and tell me that someone, somewhere, doesn't have their priorities screwed up.

So I will amend my Liturgical Peeve to specifically reference the "We're Right/You're Burning In Hell" attitude of far too many religions rather than the phrase, "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me."