Bible readers are familiar with the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal. Baal was a god widely worshiped in the ancient Middle East, especially in Phoenicia, Canaan, and Babylon. Elijah challenged the prophets (priests) of Baal to a contest to determine which god, Baal or the God of Elijah was the more powerful, and could cause a fiery holocaust. The priests of Baal prayed all morning and all afternoon to no avail; nothing happened.

Before Elijah prayed, he drenched his altar and surrounding area with water, and then he called upon God to show his power. God did so in a spectacular display. The people believed and demonstrated this by executing all the prophets of Baal. This is one of the Bible stories that is rightly used to demonstrate the tremendous power of the God of the Bible.

But, there is another factor here too which is rarely if ever mentioned.  It takes us back to the very beginning of time. The first verse of the Bible tells us that, “In the beginning God….”This means that when God decided to create the universe and everything in it, nothing else existed except Him. When Adam and Eve were created, God was the only God around. This means that every god since then is a man-made god, and, therefore, false.

Every false god arises in the mind of some human or group of humans; they literally invent a god and proceed to worship their own invention, ignoring the fact that the creature can never outrank the Creator. This is the opposite of how the true God established things at the beginning.

Objective truth does not arise in the mind of man. Objective truth exists regardless of anyoneʼs attitude toward it; 2+2=4 no matter what anyone may think about it. We may discover truth and accept it or not, but we do not invent it.

Thus, every man-made god is also non-existent in reality. It may exist in some minds, but not in reality. The prophets did not stand a chance because there WAS NO BAAL to begin with! He was only as real as the tooth fairy, or Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.

So it is with all other made-made gods. Astarte was the female fertility goddess of the ancient Middle East, a counterpart to Baal. Her “worship” consisted mainly of ritual sex. But, she did not exist in reality either.

There is no Allah in the real world. True, there are millions of believers just as there are millions of children who believe in Santa Claus, but that does not make him real. The media has a habit of referring to Allah as “God”. Totally false. He is only a god and a made-made one at that.

In the seventh century, Arabia was a polytheistic culture; they had gods for everything.  Allah was a moon god.  Mohammed, the founder of Islam, simply elevated this moon god to special preeminence and declared that Allah was the supreme god. In the real world, Allah is the figment of the human imagination of various Arabs 1500 years ago.

Hinduism has a chief god, Brahman, plus 300 million other gods. None exist in reality. All came from human imagination. In fact, no one really knows where Hinduism came from.

Buddhism is not really a religion because it is non-theistic. (It does not concern itself with any god.) There really was a person known as Buddha, but his doctrine is so anti-human, anti-God that it becomes laughable when really analyzed. For example, God created humans with the ability to experience various licit pleasures. Buddhists claim that all desire for pleasure is evil.

This applies to all the man-made religions and variations that have come down through time. The Kamis of Shintoism do not exist. Maroni of the Mormons does not exist. Pele, the Hawaiian goddess, does not exist. All these and others do not exist now and never did.

No human being can create a being higher in essence than himself. Even material idols such as the Golden Calf or the mass- produced gods of the ancient world began in some personʼs imagination.

That may be true some will say, but these believers in false gods are “sincere”, (one of the most misused words in English when it comes to religion and morality). God will take care of them. No one was a more sincere believer in Santa Claus than I was. I did all the rituals (and my father did not like cake, but I guess he had to eat the piece we put out for Santa.) I admit I believed in him probably as much as I believed in God. Very sincere and very wrong. How would you like your child attending a school where the teachers gave everyone Aʼs regardless of the answers because they were “sincere”?

The basic problem with false gods is that the doctrine that it goes with is also false because it comes from a fallible human mind. Thus we have the insanity of Islamic homicide bombers, laboring in the name of Allah (who does not exist) for a reward that will never come to pass.

The doctrine of the God of the Bible comes from the infallible, inerrant God who simply does not make mistakes or “get it wrong”. The world we live in has become awash in false gods, not only the “religious” types, but other things we worship…. power, popularity, sex, money, pornography, drugs etc. These are also man-made gods, which are just as false and misleading as Baal. We are either worshiping the true God with all our mind, heart and strength, or we are being “suckered” by some false god that some dumb human told us was the latest and the greatest.