Another thought. There ARE “other” gods…(created by GOD…after all, he created Satan, didn’t he?)…Budda, Allah, Indian Sun God, etc…
Well, Buddha would hit you with a fly-whisk if you tried to divinize him, and say, “Look, we’re Acosmic Monists, kid, neither of us isn’t God, because we’re both parts of God, because God’s all that exists.” He never claimed to be divine in our sense of the word, and nobody says he is–although the title Buddha does also belong to the fundamental nature of being, in Buddhism, which is essentially God. Mahavairocana Buddha, the Great Shining Eyed Enlightened One, is our God–they just don’t think anything else exists, so worshiping Him will only distract you from getting out of the illusion that *you *exist.
Allah is the same God, down to having revealed himself to the Jews–just talked of in very poor theological terms.
And the Indian sun god…I can’t even remember his name, he’s not that important. But both Shiva and Vishnu are identified with the Supreme Being, which is to say…God. Just worshiped under the names of very ancient Indian gods who are similar to the Greek gods (actually, they’re the same gods–they even fought titans and giants).
I would argue, from what I know of two forms of paganism right near my home (Navajo and Hopi religions), that the “gods” may be some sort of spirits, though probably not angels (something like fairies maybe), that originally helped humans out when they first fell, to try and teach them some basic principles to order their lives with. They seem to be very finicky about certain ideas like ritual purity, they don’t acknowledge the concept of forgiveness without reparation (as Shinto likes to say, “Nonetheless, harm was done,”), and they only grant prayers if sacrifices are made. I don’t think they’re either kind of angel, good or bad, because they don’t seem to be that smart, and they seem to have feelings, which angels don’t. Also, they aren’t
that terrifying, like good angels, but they aren’t uniformly pleasing either, like bad angels. They’re just kind of…spooky.
As far as I know they don’t take human sacrifices until the society gets decadent–Hopi religion and Aztec religion are very close, but the Hopi
katsinas don’t take human sacrifice. The Aztec gods (
teteoh) didn’t, either, in ancient times–only butterflies and fruit. But then something happened (demons assumed their identities?) and they began to be bloodthirsty.
What I think happened later on with all the pagan gods, though, is we started to read our existential yearnings–our desire for God who is, after all, our existence itself–into the little fairy-esque spirits who’d been helping us out, as long as we followed their rules. This got furthest in India, where various gods are definitely identified with the Supreme Being; it was cut short by two thousand years in Rome and Greece because, well, something better came along.
The reason I think it’s our fault those spirits came to be treated like God, is…the Navajo and Hopi deny that their gods are Him. They even say He made them.
