Before God took sides, or reflected the fallacies of the human brain, people enjoyed a wide range of gods who could guide them through all facets of life.  There was no exclusivity and proselytizing barely existed. 

 Where did the ever-changing idea of God come from?  And why is he a constant reflection of human nature.

 In the book ‘A History of God,’ the author Karen Armstrong tells us that when Abraham spoke with God, the deity introduced himself as El-Shaddai.  This was a name for the Canaanites High God, El, El-Shaddai being a reference to El of the mountain.  El was the leader of a pantheon of gods that reigned over human need such as crops, fertility, etc.

 At this time gods were territorial, and if you traveled to a different region you would worship the gods that reigned there.  But El spoke with Jacob and told him that he would be with him wherever he traveled.  Jacob performed a pagan rite to El by upending a rock and anointing it with oil in that place.  From then on, “Jacob would make him his Elohim, the only god who counted(Armstrong, 17).”

 “…the events of the Exodus made Yahweh the definitive God of Israel and that Moses was able to convince the Israelites that he really was one and the same as El, the God beloved by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob(Armstrong, 21).”

 But Yahwism was the first instance of a god demanding denial of other faiths, and it did not come easy.  “When King Solomon built a Temple for Yahweh in Jerusalem, the city that his father, David, had captured from the Jebusites, it was similar to the temples of the Canaanite gods…  Inside the Temple was a huge bronze basin, representing Yam, the primeval sea of Canaanite myth, and two forty-foot freestanding pillars, indicating the fertility cult of Asherah(Armstrong, 25)”

 As society evolved, so did the idea of a personal God.  A remote God inspires little in the way of dedication.  And people would continue to resort to other gods until Yahweh could be seen in their own reflection.

 “When they attributed their own human feelings and experiences to Yahweh, the prophets were in an important sense creating a god in their own image.  Isaiah, a member of the royal family, had seen Yahweh as a king.  Amos had ascribed his own empathy with the suffering poor to Yahweh; Hosea saw Yahweh as a jilted husband, who still continued to feel a yearning of tenderness for his wife.  All religion must begin with some anthropomorphism.  A deity which is utterly remote from humanity, such as Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover, cannot inspire a spiritual quest(Armstrong, 48).”

 But this new idea of a personal God would also create problems within theology and faith for centuries to come.  It also raises suspicion that as idolatry became the greatest sin, “Were the prophets harboring a buried worry about their own religious behavior?  Were they, perhaps, uneasily aware that their own conception of Yahweh was similar to the idolatry of the pagans, since they too were creating a god in their own image(Armstrong, 50).”

 And when this personal idea of God is dropped into the hands of violence, insecurity or fear, the results can be disastrous.  Religion is by far, the number one cause of war and violence.

 “During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Crusaders justified their holy wars against Jews and Muslims by calling themselves the new Chosen People, who had taken up the vocation that the Jews had lost.  Calvinist theologies of election have been largely instrumental in encouraging Americans to believe that they are God’s own nation.  As in Josiah’s Kingdom of Judah, such a belief is likely to flourish at a time of political insecurity when people are haunted by the fear of their own destruction(Armstrong, 55).”

 How is it that people have believed for so long that God is something that can be easily grasped.  I personally believe in God, but as the mystics did, in the way that He breathes through the life of the universe.  And within us all there is a potential for that divine spirit.  But when the roles are reversed and God becomes our own subconscious faults and fears, the situation becomes dangerous.