Worship of one god

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Often appears with: religious persecution and toleration · justice as a virtue · true religion vs idolatry · the nature and attributes of God · superstition · resurrection belief · religious critique · prophets as warners · prayer and worship · prayer and patience · paradise rewards · kingdom of god within

Usually: argument (2) · censure (2) · exhortation (2) · law or decree (1) · the test or trial (1) · skepticism (1)

Quotable

“And thus mercy is so far from authorising slackness, that it is on the contrary the quality which formally attacks it; so that instead of saying, "If there were no mercy in God we should have to make every kind of effort after virtue," we must say, on the contrary, "that it is because there is mercy in God, that we must make every kind of effort.” Blaise Pascal, Pascal's Pensées · insight

The Koran (Al-Qur'an) primary

Muhammad (Al-Qur'an content traditionally attributed; Rodwell as translator) · c. 610–632 CE (revelations compiled into the Qur'an after the prophet’s death)
Book carefully concocted from various sources, and with much extraneous aid, and published as a divine oracle, then it would seem that the author is at once open to the charge of the grossest imposture, and even of impious blasphemy. The evidence rather shews, that in all he did and wrote, Muhammad was actuated by a sincere desire to deliver his countrymen from the grossness of its debasing idolatries–that he was urged on by an intense desire to proclaim that great truth of the Unity of the Godhead which had taken full possession of his own soul–that the end to be attained justified to his mind the means he adopted in the production of his Suras–that he worked himself up into a belief that he had received a divine call–and that he was carried on by the force of circumstances, and by gradually increasing successes, to believe himself the accredited messenger of Heaven. The earnestness of those convictions which at Mecca sustained him under persecution, and which perhaps led him, at any price as it were, and by any means, not even excluding deceit and falsehood, to endeavour to rescue his countrymen from idolatry,–naturally stiffened at Medina into tyranny and unscrupulous violence. At the same time, he was probably, more or less, throughout his whole career, the victim of a certain amount of self-deception. A cataleptic13 subject from his early youth, born–according to the traditions–of a highly nervous and excitable mother, he would be peculiarly liable to morbid and fantastic hallucinations, and alternations of excitement and depression, which would win for him, in the eyes of his ignorant countrymen, the credit of being inspired. It would be easy for him to persuade himself that he was "the seal of the Prophets," > Book," "the Seven Verses of Repetition." The Muhammadans always say "Amen" (16/56)

Sura LII, titled “The Mountain,” describes an approaching divine chastisement that will rattle heaven and mountains, assigns people to Hell or Paradise, and challenges skeptics to produce anything like the Qur’an.

And in Themoud:7 when it was said to them, "Enjoy yourselves for yet a while." But they rebelled against their Lord's command: so the tempest took them as they watched its coming.8 They were not able to stand upright, and could not help themselves. And we destroyed the people of Noah, before them; for an impious people were they. And the Heaven–with our hands have we built it up, and given it its expanse; And th…

Institutes of the Christian Religion (Vol. 1 of 2) primary

Jean Calvin · 1541 (initial publication of the Institutes; this record is for a later 1559/French-collated edition, but the work’s composition spans Calvin’s revisions after earlier versions)
Book I. On The Knowledge Of God The Creator. > Chapter XII. God Contradistinguished From Idols, That He May Be Solely And (2/3)

Calvin contrasts true religion with idolatry: worship must belong to God alone, since Scripture’s claim of one God excludes transferring divine honors, and “superstition” corrupts worship by disorder and false gods.

Supremely Worshipped. We said, at the beginning, that the knowledge of God consists not in frigid speculation, but is accompanied by the worship of him. We also cursorily touched on the right method of worshipping him, which will be more fully explained in other places. I now only repeat, in few words, that whenever the Scripture asserts that there is but one God, it contends not for the bare name, but also teaches,…

Pascal's Pensées primary

Blaise Pascal · c. 1660 (notes compiled earlier/later, as left unfinished at his death)
SECTION > SECTION VII (16/23)

Pascal argues that Christian morality has distinctive laws: hate self and seek the truly lovable being, worship the Universal Being as the sole source and end, and reject religions that omit this.

494 The true religion must teach greatness and misery; must lead to the esteem and contempt of self, to love and to hate. 495 If it is an extraordinary blindness to live without investigating what we are, it is a terrible one to live an evil life, while believing in God. 496 Experience makes us see an enormous difference between piety and goodness. 497 _Against those who, trusting to the mercy of God, live hee…