The First Commandment

Exodus 20:2
"You shall have no other gods before me"
What does this mean? First off, let me just state that as an agnostic person, I do not take it for granted that there is anything about the nature of God or afterlife or spirits or souls that anyone can know for sure. However, another aspect of my agnosticism is that I am capable of accepting for the benefit of discussion that something is true and then form conclusions based on the assumption that it is true. So let's just assume for a second that I believe God spoke those words to Moses and told him to make sure all people knew that this was commanded of them.
It follows from the fact that God is asking us not to have any other gods before Him that there is indeed more than one god. Otherwise, there would be no point for Him to ask this of us. So if you are going to take the word of the Bible as undeniable truth, then you should of course believe that there is more than one god. God Himself has asked you to do this and to have none of the other ones before Him. He hasn't stated that He believes the other gods are His enemies or that He despises them or anything like that, no, but He has asked us to listen to Him before we listen to them. This is certainly a reasonable request. Many people ask that of each other. Parents ask their children to do what they tell them to do even if somebody else has told them to do something else, and it's worth noting that sometimes a child is misled by his or her parents into making the same mistake that they do, simply because they will not allow him or her to disobey them, and inevitably in time the child comes to believe he or she is indeed doing the right thing (whether it's which religion to choose or how to peel carrots) even though there may be another way that might be much simpler and give better results.
Another result of my agnosticism is that I appreciate and enjoy all religions I come across, which is a personal decision because I've been lucky enough to meet many good people who belonged to many different religions. I believe that fighting and discension between different religions is one of the most destructive forces in the world, and I wish they could all appreciate each other as I appreciate them. So let's take God and Allah for instance. Are they different gods or are they the same Being speaking in a different name to different people who have different needs and therefore need different guidance presented to them so they can pursue happy lives? Well as an agnostic I must assume that both possibilities are likely. So when God speaks to people who follow the Bible and tells them to have no other gods before Him, He is not telling them that any other people in the world that DO have other gods before Him will be punished, or are wrong, He is simply telling them that their lives will be happier for having listened to Him, and they'd be wise to take His word very seriously. He's not even telling them that they should try to convince other people to follow this commandment. He's only speaking to the ones to whom it is relevant, which are the people for whom the Bible is their strongest source of wisdom in their lives.
Any person who pursues the work that God asks of them is usually a person from whom you can gain much wisdom and guidance in giving your soul a happy eternal existence. However, as soon as they say anything to you that implies that you shall be punished for taking someone else's word before theirs, they have taken all the work they have done to give you spiritual guidance and rendered it ineffective, temporarily. The one person who can truly give you guidance spiritually is yourself. When you listen to others, you learn to guide yourself more effectively.
There are two options in the immediate future: world peace or world destruction. We've gone as far as we can with this planet (which God seems to have made with great care and love and ingenuity). We've filled it up with people, and then we've gone on to get so presumptious as to think we somehow have more importance than the other life forms on it. Now with these two options ahead of us, we must realize that world peace cannot happen until religious tolerance does. If you wish to see this planet and all the people on it continue to flourish and remove some of the tragedy from their lives and live happier ones, then your only choice is to treat any person's beliefs with great appreciation and respect. Seek out the opinions of people with different beliefs than yours and pay them gratitude for sharing them with you. Do not accept the words of a person who claims that he or she hates others and wants them to be punished or destroyed. The fact that there have been people in history who have claimed that their devotion to Jesus Christ has made them to wish to harm others has discredited some of Jesus' words in my mind, but nonetheless, I have a hard time believing that a guy that said "Love your enemies" wasn't extremely wise, so even for an agnostic I still have great respect for him. It might be even better advice to people to say "Accept that one day the people you currently perceive to be enemies will be friends".
I thank you for reading all these words. It causes me great distress to consider the possibility that we will let the destruction of this planet continue, and I believe that convincing people to learn religious tolerance is essential, so writing this down is all I know how to do to try and prevent the tragedies that constantly make me very sad. For every person that has read this, I feel one step closer to seeing the goal of religious tolerance realized, so the time you have taken is a personal favour on your part to the world at large, and you should be commended for it. I look forward to your comments.