Religion is cultural, that seems obvious.

Hindu gods, for e.g. are unique and were only "revealed" to people within a particular regional/cultural divide.

Viking gods, Greek gods, Roman gods, the god of mount hockalugee, etc. All "discovered" by the people within a certain group. Greek and Roman very parallel, but apparently not the same?

Now if any gods were real, why wouldn't they be common to other peoples of the time, and why wouldn't there be multiple instances since the modern communication revolution of cultural exchanges leading to the realisation that different cultures were worshipping the same gods, who have the same values, rules, history, personality etc.

This seems to me to be an important point that I haven't seen addressed in religious discussion much, if at all.

How are the religious so comfortable with a god or gods that apparently created all of mankind, but then adopted one tribe, and chose to communicate with and support them exclusively. Why doesn't that set the alarm bells ringing?

Even the three major Abrahamic religions are divided specifically on messages through messiah/prophet apparently meant specifically for them, to be spread through contact or conquest, rather than by simply being convincing to all.

What is the religious response to this? Are there any merging religions who realised they were properly parallel to the point where it was clearly the same god?

Surely they just say god revealed things to them alone because they were the chosen people.

zulumoose wrote:Now if any gods were real...

I love hypotheticals (not!)

Assuming there were one real god, theists would still be arguing (and killing each other) over the issue of what and who that god is because we humans are nowhere near as rational as we imagine ourselves to be. This applies to all of us. If it did not, we would have agreed by now on what constitutes an ideal society. There'd be no wars between capitalists and communists. Nor would there be conflicts within advocates of capitalism or within advocates of communism. The eternal search for a solution that reconciles the tension between the rights and freedoms of the individual and the limitations thereof imposed by the necessity of every individual to live in a society would have come to a satisfactory conclusion.

Assuming there were one real god, theists would still be arguing (and killing each other) over the issue of what and who that god is because we humans are nowhere near as rational as we imagine ourselves to be.

I would say that assuming there were one real god, our understanding of it would be exactly what it wants us to believe.
Looking at the range of beliefs, and the way believers have been inspired to interact with each other and society at large over the ages, makes it patently obvious that any real god doesn't seem to care, unless the whole point is amusement at our unguided development and follies.

How are the religious so comfortable with a god or gods that apparently created all of mankind, but then adopted one tribe, and chose to communicate with and support them exclusively. Why doesn't that set the alarm bells ringing?

I think that answers itself: because we're the Chosen Ones... if your religion told you that the other chap was the Chosen One, you probably wouldn't be a member of that religion.

How are the religious so comfortable with a god or gods that apparently created all of mankind, but then adopted one tribe, and chose to communicate with and support them exclusively. Why doesn't that set the alarm bells ringing?

Gods/religions are about one thing and one thing only: control. The type of control (bolstered by various stories and legends) depends upon the culture/ethnicity of the group being controlled and the group doing the controlling.

When one group meets another group there is a chance to compare and we could get: Your god does the same as our god. Wow!

The controllers of one group can sometimes go to war with the other group(s) if it looks like they could lose control (the other group's god/religion seems 'better') or if they think that their 'god'/religion must be imposed on all other groups (in order to extend their control).

This seems obvious - I'm just waffling here...