GOD AND MAN

Gods are imaginary entities.  Acts of nature are events to which men can respond but cannot control.  The rising and setting of the sun, the passing of the seasons, severe storms, droughts, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes all have had profound effects on how people around the world think and behave.  Gods were created as a way for humans to try to explain natural occurrences and to gain some influence over them.

Without gods, man felt powerless to alter the course of nature.  Deities, by contrast, could be invoked to serve as intermediaries between man and nature.  A god was asked to protect a tribe, provide a good harvest, or cure someone who was ill.  When the results were not the desired ones, it was then believed that the gods must have been offended.  Positive outcomes, on the other hand, reinforced beliefs that gods could intervene on man’s behalf.

There was, however, always a price to pay for such intervention.  The gods had their own requirements.  They had to be worshiped, prayed to, sacrificed to, and above all obeyed.  If a god’s demands were met, the expectation was that good things would follow.  If, on the other hand, the god’s wishes were ignored, then dire consequences were expected to ensue.

To gain an understanding of what the gods expected from them, people sought the advice of those who purported to have special relationships with higher beings.  This permitted shamans or priests to have a degree of power over the activities of those who looked to them to interpret the will of a god.  Eventually, the pronouncements of holy men were claimed to be the very words of the gods themselves.

As societies became more complex, different groups of people developed written versions of the histories of the encounters of holy men with their gods. Examples of these are the Torah, the Bible, and the Koran.  Prescribed behavior also became part of these narrations.  Explanations of the beginnings of the world and all living things were provided in texts that became the bases for today’s religions.  Each religion’s leaders became the authorities on the interpretation of God’s written word and what men had to do to remain in God’s good graces.  Numerous examples are provided in each revered text of what happens to infidels or to believers who fail to sufficiently heed the words of God or Allah.