We had existed forever, as long as this universe and those universes before. We neither created the universes nor preceded the universes. It is a concept you will not understand for a great many generations, but their existence is an intrinsic property of the hyperuniverse and the subuniverses (this universe is the current subuniverse) are contingent on their existence. This principle is irrelevant, though, to the story at hand.
My aim is to expose the truth behind the many religions of the world and subvert those who have sought to enslave humanity for their own, petty reasons.
The Nature of the Gods
What you have heard of the characteristics of your gods in your religions is the hyperbole of gods and the fabrication of mortals. No gods are omnipotent nor omniscience. Do not misunderstand, though. They are both very powerful and very knowledgeable. To speak of their "knowledge," they do not know everything, but they know a great much and have a large capacity to store knowledge. Even though they aren't omniscient, it would be difficult for mortals to discern otherwise.
Their "power" is also mighty. They can manipulate matter and energy in the subuniverses, but they may not violate the fundamental laws which delicately hold this universe intact. What you have called "miracles" or realization of the impossible is actually the result of your race's infancy in understanding; you do not yet understand the true nature of your universe.
While our "powers" were equal at the inception of this subuniverse, not all the gods have the same levels of power or knowledge now. Certain events in the subuniverse affect the hyperuniverse, including their relative powers. The greater the number of people who believe in their existence, the greater their power and also their capacity for knowledge are. This fact is what explains the existence of many of your religions, both past and present. The gods are competing for power and knowledge by obtaining believers.
It is in this respect that I, like many gods, have failed. Despite my many efforts, I have been unable to recruit the level of followers that my colleagues have been able to. It is for this reason I am here. Before explaining my role, though, I must first preface it with a history of some religions and how your religions exist today.
The Rules of the Omniverse Continuum
You may begin to ask why we would have even invented religions if we are so powerful that we can manipulate matter and energy itself -- therefore we would be able to control what you think anyway. You misunderstand.
We could have very well revealed ourselves to you and sufficiently demonstrated our supernatural abilities. Indeed, we had attempted this on previous planets. Chaos ensued as every god participated. It fundamentally altered reality itself as it exists in this universe, thereby obliterating them. It was agreed on that there would be rules to govern the continuum to ensure that would not happen again. It was not out of concern for the organized energy-matter in this universe; when those compartments obliterated, the knowledge and power concentrated there was destroyed. The effects in the hyperuniverse were also felt as the collective power was redistributed in an even fashion.
These rules stipulate that they may not manipulate what you call the physical world in any manner, unless agreed upon collectively. They may enter your consciousness, but only one is allowed access into any one mind and the gods are limited how many they may reveal themselves to. Gods themselves may choose to take mortal form (as I have) with the assistance of another god. When one god takes mortal form, his knowledge and power is distributed proportionally over the other gods, as that is the fundamental law of the hyperuniverse.
As you can see, some gods posses more knowledge and power than other gods. When one god is eliminated, every god increases his respective knowledge and power. Therefore, as one god gains more believers and more gods are eliminated, the sum of that god's knowledge and power approaches 1 (omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence).
There are other constraints on their interactions with the subuniverse. As I have failed in obtaining a great number of believers, I lacked a sufficient sum of knowledge and power to meaningfully affect this world. If a god, though, tried to break the agreed law and break the continuum, the collective power of the other gods would prevail in stopping him. Another constraint is that they are not omnipresent. While large disruptions in the continuum are easily detected, subtle ones may not be, depending on where in this universe the concentration of presence is located.
It is here we get to religions.
A Brief History of Religions
When the beings on this planet first began gaining their higher levels of consciousness, we had already many experiences with similar beings on other planets. The beings on this planet, though, seemed predisposed to religious thoughts, and so often they would event their own religions or rituals. We tried to reveal religions to certain primitives, but they were too unintelligent to comprehend any one god's presence in their mind.
Less than 10,000 years ago, this started to change and gods were able to pervade certain isolated cultures in the various parts of this planet to set up religions. The population of this planet, though, was not deemed worthy of the greater gods, so many of the lesser gods, myself included, descended upon this world.
As the population began to grow, so did the concentration of gods. It was a normal occurrence for gods to team up and create polytheistic religions and share the resources of the believers among them. I was never able to accomplish such a pact, so I spent much of "my time" (there is no other term to relate the concept of our existence) on this planet in the religions of those you call Native Americans.
Monotheistic religions were very difficult to establish due to our rules. Not all the minds we entered could comprehend us, so if a mind didn't comprehend our revelation, we lost one of our allotments. As you see in the Native American religions, my revelations were sorely misunderstood which is why they are so obscure. Having multiple gods increased the likelihood of one taking, and we could also reveal the same religion to multiple people so that they could confirm its authenticity. The contents of the religions themselves are irrelevant; we simply need the beliefs. As such, we tried varying the religions to see what was accepted best.
The Rise of Monotheism
The tide of power and knowledge concentration on this planet began to shift starting in the first millenium BCE. One god did what no other god could: establish a monotheistic faith that wasn't battered into obscurity. I speak of Faershua. He revealed himself as the personality of Yahweh to pre-modern tribes. He took a tactic none of us had done before. As I earlier mentioned, those of this world are predisposed to religion. As such, there are a great many religions invented by delusional mortals. A religion had begun to develop in the region known to you as the Middle East. They were authoring a holy book you now know as The Bible. Faershua interceded and revealed himself to a principal in the developing religion and began communicating messages to him for inclusion in the holy text.
Faershua had been the first to create a religion where the most important principle was the belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent, transcendent god. He also was able to successfully reveal a number of important laws to help propagate his religion. For example, he created a penalty against homosexuality. The sole aim of religions is to get a great number of people to believe in a particular god's existence. While the homosexuals themselves may believe, they would not procreate. As such, there is no growth. As this world is predisposed to religious thought, the children are most likely to accept their parents beliefs -- also another thing Faershua introduced.
He also stressed the importance of "faith" as he knew the civilizations of this world would one day advance to a point of greater understanding, as we have observed on numerous other planets. He revealed certain verses that knowledge of his existence is the greatest knowledge of all and the superiority of those who have this knowledge over those who don't. Due to this world's predisposition to religion, he knew that once it was discovered their true origins that many would reject it due to personal incredulity. We often used deception in our religions as the religions themselves were meant to deceive. He designed an account to exploit this inevitable rejection by offering a simpler origin version for his believers to cling on to. It was highly successful, too, as it reinforced the other passages stating that knowledge of Faershua is greater than any other knowledge.
There were, of course, a great many things in the text which he did not reveal. This is due to the inability of the mortal mind to fully comprehend the presence of a god. It is also due to integrity compromise, both unintentional and malicious.
The surprising success of Faershua's bizarre monotheistic religion startled the rest of us. The threat was not significant on this planet due to the meager population, but Faershua had already begun attempting it on other planets. He was fast gaining more knowledge and power. As his knowledge and power increased, so did his ability to be present in this subuniverse.
The Struggle for Power Escalates: 00 CE
Many of the other gods who had been present on this planet scrambled to temper this religion. We organized into great numbers to reveal grand polytheistic faiths. A strategy was devised to reveal our polytheistic religions to the most advanced people of the time in an attempt to get others to convert upon seeing the superiority of the advanced people. It was somewhat successful, given the circumstances. The number of religions established decreased due to the concentrated polytheistic ones -- usually we would reveal a number of religions. We had used up our allotted revelations for this planet's time when revealing these grand polytheistic religions. As such, many of us moved on to other planets
None of us expected what Faershua had come up with. What happened next, though, had never been attempted with even the slightest degree of success ever in this universe (or in those comparable subuniverses which preceded this one). One obscure god, in collusion with another, would subtly violate the continuum, successfully, and exploit Faershua's religion to subvert his believers over to this god.
End of Part the First.
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