INFLUENTIAL GODS IN THE HISTORY OF HUMANKIND

INFLUENTIAL GODS IN THE HISTORY OF HUMANKIND

WHAT IS THE DEFINITION OF A GOD?

The word God is taken from Old English derived from the Germanic form. According to the etymological usage of the Germanic word God; the earliest written form is found in the 6th century Christian Codex Argenteus and from the 4th century Gothic Bible. The full derivation of the English word is integrated from the Proto-Indo-Germanic-European neuter passive perfect participle word "Ghutom" based on the root "Gheuh", which meant either "to call" or "to invoke". A Sanskrit translation gives the meaning "one to whom sacrifices are made" while the Germanic form describes this as a spirit immanent in a burial mound or "that which is invoked".

In light of the full explanation in a technical methodology as analyzed by the fields of religion, theology, history, literature, philosophy, anthropology, psychology and sociology, the definition of God is stated as a Supreme Being and is known as a vital entity of a theological belief or faith. The ideology of God as explained by theologians signifies the attributes of omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), omnipresence (present everywhere), omnipotence (unlimited power), omniscience (infinite knowledge), eternal and necessary existence and divine simplicity. A belief that signifies in the existence of God or in the oneness of God is known as Monotheism. The attributes of God also include features and functionalities such as greatest existent, personal being, incorporeal and the source of all moral obligation.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

I have done my research based on time and size of religious influences of various Gods. Fame of a God is based on how his religion influenced the number of people across the world in the least period of time. For example as of this moment in time of writing this article in the present year of 2025 Christianity has 2.4 billion followers and there God would definitely be placed on number one according to population but it has 1995 years under its belt and a 622 year head start from Islam with the highest level of financial resources and technological equipment available from the Roman and British empire, but Islam turns out to be the fastest growing religion of the world because of its performance of getting 1.9 billion followers and only a 1414 year history with the lowest level of financial resources and technological equipment. My research started from the fields of humanities and social sciences with different styles of philosophical and scientific approaches towards analyzing God and Religion. Using the timeline of different ages and eras I started from the Paleolithic era to the Neolithic era and from the wooden ages to the modern ages. I analyzed different races of the world and various empires and used their religious influence and technological advancement to determine who are the most influential and powerful king of the Gods. 

In order to get a full understanding I had to go through business, trade, market, economy, politics and military strength of all the empires who were able to exert power and influence over not only its own region of the world, but beyond to others bringing time and size both into consideration. The research parameter was spread across 4200 religions and 1848000 Gods which was obviously not possible to go through individually so I devised a method of using a classification system in which only major regions were included and the king of the Gods in those regions were analyzed making the research more suitable for this article.   

• ALLAH

Islamic theology describes the entity of Allah {which is an Arabic fusion of “Al-Elah” meaning “The God” where “Al” is “the” and “Elah” is “God”} as the all-powerful and all-knowing creator, sustainer, ordainer and judge of the universe. Islam emphasizes that God is a singular and unique entity who is omniscientific (infinite knowledge), omnipotent (unlimited power), omnipresent (present everywhere), and omnibenevolent (perfect goodness). He also made it quite understandable by saying and I quote “God is alone. He is with everyone. He is neither anyone’s father nor anyone’s son; and there is none like Him.” So that no one associates him in any kind of relationship that is of a human nature. The people who follow this God are known as Muslims who are the adherents of the religion of Islam which is a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the scripture of Quran. Muslims take the Quran as a verbatim word of Allah as revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H.). They also follow the teachings of the Prophet as recorded in traditional accounts known as Hadith. Muslim is an Arabic word which means “one who submits to God”. In order to embrace the religion of Islam or to be recognized as a Muslim you need to declare yourself publicly by pronouncing the Shahadah (the declaration of faith) which states: 

I testify that there is no god except Allah, and I testify that Muhammad (P.B.U.H.) is the Messenger of Allah.

The religious practices of Muslims are integrated in the five pillars of Islam which are five basic acts in Islam, considered mandatory by believers and are the foundation of Muslim life. They make up Muslim life, prayer, concern for the needy, self purification and the pilgrimage. They are as follows:

1. Shahadah (Faith): declaring there is no god except God, and Muhammad (P.B.U.H.) is God's Messenger

2. Salat (Prayer): ritual prayer five times a day

3. Sawm (Fasting): fasting and self-control during the blessed month of Ramadan

4. Zakat (Alms-giving): giving 2.5% of one’s savings to the poor and needy

5. Hajj (Pilgrimage): pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime if he/she is able to

Allah’s philosophy and practicality of religion is quite impressive and made according to the nature of a human. He is known by many names which are technically his qualities or powers and he has a lot of them like a mega version of a superhero. He does have a lot of titles; in fact there are 3000 of them in which a 1000 are known only to the angels. The most beautiful of these names are 99 which are mentioned in the Quran and Hadees. Another 300 you might find in the Torah, 300 in the Psalms of David, 300 in the New Testament and another 1000 with an unknown source. His religion has now become the fastest growing religion in the world with a very impressive performance index and trust me when I say this the package he is offering is quite lucrative. The reason he is so likeable is because he is straight forward and does not mess around. He has expressed his love for humanity which has idealism and existentialism. He has compared his love to that of a mother for her offspring which is one of the most pure forms of love available in this whole universe. Atheists have a problem with any God because they want to visualize him through their limited vision but the point is very simple; how can you understand something that is so great that it transcends the range of your limited intelligence. Imagine if you put an arachnid on top of a space shuttle or a nanobe over a hadron collider, it would not understand what is going on no matter how much you try to make it.

The package of his religion is quite reasonable and affordable. Just follow his guidelines in the Quran with the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad {Sallallah U Alaih E Waalihe Wasallum S.A.W.W.} (Peace Be Upon Him P.B.U.H.). If you are good to him and his people than heaven is waiting for you. It does not matter what is the result of your examination by which you are going to be judged on the Day of Judgment but it is the level of your initiative or effort. It can’t get any better than this, and here is the best part; if you are not able to make it which means even if you are the most evil person on the face of this entire planet that puts satin to shame even then all hope is not lost.

Although there is a possibility that you may go to hell but if you have even a slightest; meaning the smallest from of faith which is equivalent to the size of a grain of sand, you are ultimately going to be forgiven. You will spend your term in hell as a punishment for your sins and then will be back in heaven. Other religions don’t offer this deal; it is usually hell for all eternity and that is a very long time, like as in forever.

• JEHOVAH: THE FATHER, THE SON AND THE HOLY SPIRIT

Jehovah is the Father God of Christianity in a way that is similar to a human father that takes care of his offspring. God the Father is regarded as the first person of the Holy Trinity, followed by Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. He is also known by a significant number of names as Jehovah, Theos, Kurios, Trinity, and Yehovah. In this religion God is the eternal being who created and preserves the world believed to be both transcendent and immanent. Christian teachings exclude the belief that God is of the same substance that made the universe but they accept that God incarnated as a man.

Jehovah is one of the world’s most complicated split personality Mono-God. In one small part of the world Yahweh, the God of Judaism was worshipped by his people with the utmost devotion. He was the ultimate heavy weight fighter who had annihilated his opponents into oblivion but then suddenly Jesus came along with miracles and gifts of eternal life and made an offer that was too tempting to be refused. The idea of the revelation was not only quite basic but it had a striking resemblance with the Old Testament which the Yahweh’s worshippers were doing all along in the first place anyway. So many of them grabbed at the new model and word began to spread at an exponential rate. 

While things were not so hunky dory in the holy land because like every other story of life this one had a twist as well. The Christians, Jews, Romans and Greeks were now in a major tussle in defending their beliefs because it was not about faith alone; it was about business, trade, market economy, politics and government. It was a gigantic free for all mixed martial arts tournament where the fighting strategy was based on the quality of your larynx and the range of your vocals, but no matter how much they huffed and puffed with this effective weapon the result was just an overactive tongue and deaf ears. The first Christians had a lot of juice but being mostly ex-fisherman and AWOL tax collectors they had little experience with theological formalities which got them lynched on a daily basis.

This is the time when Paul entered into the mixture. He was like an antivirus for the Jews against the Christians until Jesus appeared to him in a flash of light and knocked some sense into him. Being a literate person and having significant level of experience with theological mechanics he not only saw the light but learned it as well and had the knowledge to preach about it. Paul technically was single handedly responsible for transforming the philosophy of Jesus’s teachings into a more marketable robust form of religion suitable for general masses. The idea is this: Adam, who is the father of mankind, had sinned so all humans were sinners and deserved to be neutralized. Previously Yahweh required the blood of animals for mankind's sinful existence. But now he'd sent his Son to die in mankind's place and this sacrifice was great enough to straighten your mortgage retention with a full low rate debt consolidation plan. The resurrection of Jesus showed that God was willing to forgive and forget and there was a way out of this permanent form of eternal damnation. 

The idea that God is willing to forgive and forget only made sense if JESUS was actually a God. (Who cares if a mere man is sacrificed? People have been slaughtering each other for millennia.) As everyone agreed rather strongly that there was only one GOD, a degree of theological tinkering was called for. Result: a Holy Makeover in which YAHWEH was transformed into the concept of JEHOVAH, a Trinity package deal of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So what is the mystery behind the Trinitarian ideology? It is the idea that all three Gods are separate but are the same in unity, now it is understandable that God is the father but how did he have a son? The reason was that God is visualized as a man and Jesus also a man assimilated from a virgin birth thus the connection of an organic relationship and then the Holy Spirit is brought forward. 

There is a possibility that the Holy Spirit could be God’s own essence, Jesus’s own soul, an angel of revelation or the signal prophecy of the arrival of the final Prophet; which have all been analyzed and interpreted using the original scriptures. In the Islamic philosophy it is believed that any deity that takes on a physical form will lose its Godliness, hypothetically speaking. So we arrive at a paradox in the theology which was not so complicated or conflicting according to the original scriptures. Still Christianity has become a huge success for the Christians at least and Jehovah is friendly, accessible, reliable for accommodating a variety of creeds and denominations, and suitable for all members of the family. Kind of like a Disney movie.

• SHIVA

Shiva is translated into the English language as “Auspicious One”. He is one of the greatest and most supreme Gods (termed as Mahadeva which means “Great God”) of the sect of Shaivism in the religion of Hinduism. He has a significant number of shapes and forms both positive and negative. He is included in the five essential types of God in Smarta tradition. He is usually portrayed as a Yogi (one who practices the art of Yoga) who lives an ascetic life (a self denying life meaning a simple life that refrains from the luxurious pleasures of materialistic ambitions) on Mount Kailash with his wife Parvati and two children Ganesha and Kartikeya. He is also known as the destroyer and as a cosmic dancer.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen I present to you Shiva; the Dancing Hindu God of Universal Destruction. Known cheerfully as The Destroyer, he is lord of the cosmic dance. Move over Michael Jackson the lord of dance has arrived. He does not need to moonwalk, he’ll walk on the moon for you and do not be fooled by his theatrical artistry or melodramatic sentametality, when he goes into destructive mode he becomes an MMORPG nightmare. If he would be in a video game, he’ll beat the living daylights out of any Street Fighter character. Dhalsim knows what I am talking about. He whirls and propels his enemies into defeat and his dancing creates or destroys the universe. He appears to have 4 arms and 5 heads but this could be the blurring effect of his high speed gyrations. Kind of like how Bruce Lee was waving his arms in “The Fist of Fury”. When he becomes fierce he is known to slay demons. The most recognizable iconographical attributes of the God is a third eye on his forehead, a snake around his neck, the crescent moon is adorning him and the river Ganga is flowing from his matted hair, the trishula is his prime weapon and the damaru is his musical instrument.  

• YUANSHI TIANZUN

The Supreme Divinity is a perception from Chinese mythology and Chinese popular religion.

Shangdi is the creator of the universe and member of the [SAN-QING] trinity of supreme Daoist Gods. There is no way you can get an interview with a God who is eternal, limitless and invisible. There is no background to fall back on because he created all the backgrounds. His distinguished vocation has gone largely unnoticed in the Western World where titles such as 'The Celestial Venerable of the Primordial Beginning' are beyond the understanding of ordinary mortals.

Legend tells that he existed before everything, having formed himself from pure QI energy. Then he created Heaven and Earth and ruled over all for at least a significant period of time after which he had bigger fish to fry with a multitude of Chinese spices. He is known to have transcended to a higher plane of existence where he shed his organic vessel and obtained or acquired the pure form of spiritual energy which is also known as spiritual ascension. Here he will retire peacefully with a life insurance and a full pension. We don’t know what he is doing there nowadays; probably his kung fu taolu or his meditation rituals. Whatever situation we can hypothesize, one thing is laid down quite understandably that he needed a suitable replacement. So the young Jade Emperor was brought into the fusion and learned the trade of Universal Mastery and became ruler of everything, while YUAN-SHI-TIAN-ZONG relocated to the Jade Heaven for indefinite years of navel-gazing. We understand he is still available for consultations and soul-saving, but only in urgency.

• BUDDHA

Buddha’s real name is Siddhartha. He was born somewhere in Nepal and raised by his mother's sister, Maha Pajapati. By custom, he is said to have been ordained for the life of a prince, and had three palaces (for regular occupation) fabricated for him. His father, said to be King Suddhodana, wanting his son to be a great king, is said to have shielded him from religious teachings and from knowledge of human suffering. Talk about a dysfunctional family with an overprotective father. What was he thinking? That he wasn’t going to find out. No wonder he needed enlightenment; he was in a dark prison. Kind of reminds me of my life. Where are those child services and human rights private organizations when you need them?  

At the age of 29, Siddhartha left his palace to meet his subjects. His arrogant and ignorant father tried to stop him so that he would miraculously be able to hide him from the aged, poor, sick and suffering, but like a rebellious teenager hooked up on dopamine Siddhartha kept on moving forward. It is stated in various accounts that Siddhartha saw an old man when he left his chariot and ran away from his procession that moves through the town. So after seeing an old man that looked like an alien to him; he asked his charioteer Channa who clarified to him that all people grew old. Surprise! Daah! So the ruler went on further outings much further from his royal residence. (There should definitely be more field trips and the boy needs to go to a private school). 

Siddhartha was metaphorically speaking the Justin Bieber of Spiceville, yeah; really he had actually got very good looks according to the Brahmin Sonadanda who described him as "handsome, good-looking, and pleasing to the eye, with a most beautiful complexion. He has a godlike form and countenance; he is by no means unattractive."(D, I: 115). Siddhartha is known to sneak out from the palace to go on a variety of adventures. It's said that, "the stallion's hooves were stifled by the divine beings" to keep the guards from knowing of his departure. I think the horse was either trained in the art of ninjutsu or equipped with stealth technology. (I want that horsey) He met a bunch of interesting people in his observation mode which included an ascetic and a yogi inspiring him to master the art of spiritual asceticism and yogic meditation.

After many years of poverty and deprivation from worldly possessions like getting rid of all the bling, beating the daylights out of his body, living in solitary solitude that would embarrass a devout monk and a dieting plan that would make an anorexic model look like a walk in the park, he began to understand that extreme asceticism doesn’t work. He remembered the concentrated and focused state that was blissful and refreshing of the Jhana And learned that the middle way is the best approach. So he designed the noble eightfold path. Gautama was broadly situated under a pipal tree now known as the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya, India, when he pledged never to emerge until he had discovered enlightenment. His group of friends and followers led by the Brahmin scholar Kaundinya and four others thought that he had given up on his quest and gotten undisciplined, so they just left. After a rumored 49 days of reflection, at the age of 35, he is said to have accomplished Enlightenment and began to be known as Gautama Buddha. (Yippey!)

• IZANAGI

Izanagi is a god conceived of the seven celestial eras in the Japanese religion of Shinto and he is also termed as Lord Izanagi. Together with his wife and younger sister Izanami they have had a variety of different types of Shintoism deities and have assimilated many islands of Japan. In the process of giving birth to the fire god Kagu-tsuchi she was unable to endure the burden and passed away. Izanagi executed the fire god with the “ten-grip sword”. After sometime, he visited his wife in Yomi-no-kuni (the Underworld) in the hope of retrieving her. Yet she had taken the taste of the nourishment cooked in the furnace of the Underworld, rendering her return incomprehensible.

Izanagi broke his promise to not look at her, and lit up a fire, just to see her gigantic and horrendous state. To take revenge of her disgrace, she dispatched the ghastly witch Yakusa-no-ikazuchi-no-kami (Raijin) and Yomotsu-shikome to pursue him. Izanagi got away, however the goddess guaranteed to kill a thousand of his kin consistently. Izanagi countered that a thousand and five hundred will be born every day. In the purging ritual after his return, he generated Amaterasu (the sun goddess) from his left eye, Tsukuyomi (the moon god) from his right eye and Susanoo (storm or storm god) from his nose. Izanagi's visit to his wife Izanami in Yomi-no-kuni to some degree parallels the Greek Orpheus' visit to Eurydice in the underworld, however an additionally striking similarity is his wife's powerlessness to return after ingesting the sustenance provided in damnation is matched by Persephone of Greek myth.

• YEMOJA

She is the sea, the quintessence of parenthood, and a wild defender of children. In Yoruba mythology, Yemoja is a mother goddess; supporter god of ladies, particularly pregnant ladies; and the Ogun stream. Her guardians are Oduduwa and Obatala. There are numerous stories with reference to how she turned into the mother of all paragons of piety. She was wedded to Aganju and had one child, Orungan, and fifteen Orishas approached from her. They incorporate Ogun, Olokun, Shopona and Shango. 

Different stories might say that Yemaya was always there from the start and all life hailed from her, including the sum of the orishas. Her name is a withdrawal of Yoruba words: "Yeye omo eja" that signify "Mother whose kids are similar to fish." This speaks to the incomprehensibility of her parenthood, her fertility and her rule over all living things. Yemaya is commended in Ifá convention as Yemoja. As Iemanja Nana Borocum, or Nana Burku, she is imagined as a very old lady, wearing dark and mauve, joined with mud, bogs and earth. Nana Buluku is an old god in Dahomey mythology. In the Igbo dialect of south eastern Nigeria, Yemanja is called Mmuommiri, which could be interpreted as the water spirit.

• WAHEGURU

In Sikhism, the term utilized for God is Waheguru who is shapeless, timeless, and sightless (i.e., unable to be seen with the physical eye): nirankar, akaal, and alakh. The start of the first structure of Sikh scripture is the figure "1" implying the all inclusiveness of God. It states that God is inescapable and boundless with control over everything, and is meant by the term Ik Onkar. Sikhs accept that before creation, all that existed was God and God's hukam (will or order). As soon as God willed, the whole universe was made. From the beginning of time God fostered "enticement and attachment" to Maya, or the human thinking of reality. Waheguru which signifies "Wonderful Teacher" is the Supreme Being or the inventor of all. “Wahi” signifies "Wonderful" (a Middle Persian derivative) and "Guru" (Sanskrit dialect) is a term indicating "Teacher". Waheguru is also defined as an experience of ecstasy that is beyond depiction. 

Sikhism pushes the faith in one panentheistic God (Ek Onkar) who is inescapable and has boundless qualities, whose name is true (Satnam), who can do anything (karta purkh), who has no trepidation (Nirbhau), who is not foe of anyone (nirvair), he is beyond time (Akaal), he has no image (Murat), he is beyond from birth and death (ajunee), he is self existent (Sai Bhang) and with the finesse of his word Guru (endless light) we can reach him (Gurprasaad). Sikhs don't have a sex for God nor do they accept God takes a human structure. All individuals are viewed as equals regardless of their religion, sex or race. All are sons and daughters of Waheguru, the Almighty.

• ADONAI

Adonai is the God of Judaism however first he was known as Yahweh. Yahweh was the national divine force of the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The name presumably started as a sobriquet of the god El, leader of the Bronze Age Canaanite pantheon ("El who is present, who makes himself manifest"), and seems to have been remarkable to Israel and Judah, despite the fact that a divine being Yahweh may have been worshiped south of the Dead Sea no less than three centuries prior to the rise of Israel (Kenite hypothesis).

In the most seasoned biblical writing (12th to 11th centuries BC), Yahweh is an ordinary old Near Eastern "heavenly warrior" who heads the divine army against Israel's adversaries; he and Israel are bound by a contract under which Yahweh will protect Israel and, in turn Israel won't worship other Gods. At a later period, Yahweh worked as the dynastic religion where the imperial courts were promoting him as the incomparable god over all others in the pantheon, notably Baal, El, and Asherah. With the passage of time, Yahwism got to be progressively narrow minded of his rivals, and the royal court and sanctuary upheld Yahweh as God of the whole universe, having all the positive qualities at one time credited to alternate divine beings and goddesses. With the work of Second Isaiah (the theoretical writer of the second piece of the Book of Isaiah) towards the end of the Babylonian exile (sixth century BC), the exact presence of outside divine beings was denied, and Yahweh was announced as the maker of the universe and true God of the entire world. By early post-biblical times, the name of Yahweh had been totally stopped from being spoken. In present day Judaism, it is replaced with the term Adonai which means Lord, and is comprehended to be God's most suitable name and to signify his kindness. Numerous Christian Bibles take after the Jewish custom and started using "the LORD".

• BAHA

The Baha’i writings portray a single, personal, omniscient and almighty God who is the creator of all things in the universe. The presence of God and the universe is thought to be everlasting, without a beginning or end. Although God is not directly accessible, He is definitely aware of his creation, with a will and reason that is communicated through envoys termed Manifestations of God. Baha’i teachings state that God is too extraordinary for people to completely understand, or to make an accurate image of, by themselves. Accordingly, human understanding of God is accomplished through his revelations by means of his Manifestations. 

In the Baha’i religion God is regularly referred to by titles and traits (for instance, the All-Powerful, or the All-Loving), and there is a significant focus on monotheism; such tenets as the Trinity are seen as compromising, if not repudiating, the Baha’i see that God is single and has no equivalent. The Baha’i teachings state that the attributes which are associated with God are utilized to make Godliness understandable in human terms and likewise to help people focus on their own abilities in revering God to create their potential on their spiritual path. As stated by the Baha’i teachings the human mission is to figure out how to know and love God through such doctrines as prayer, meditation, reflection, and being helpful to all the people of the world.