And the city-states begat the nation-states that begat the empire-states. And, being top of the food chain and experiencing a population explosion unprecedented among primates in the history of planet Earth, Homo-Timmius, already cursed with self awareness and imagination, began, in a age that was already homicidally brutal, to fear Death.
The new style of monotheism was well suited to the needs of the populace. Not only did their proponents preach an end to murder and torture but provided an answer to a vexing existential question: the Afterlife. Of course, "God" came with some conditions. Most were written in the form of Books, Scriptures, Commandments, and various other diktats. All shared a didactic similarity: the first being that "This God is the Only One"!
In fairness, they also codified the behavior of several thousands of irresponsible, ill-educated Timmys. In the absence of a latter day labyrinth of mind-boggling Laws and their adherent lawyers and judges, most religions managed to tell their wayward offspring not to murder each other, shag their neighbours' females, or generally upset the otherwise fragile social apple-cart. In the more harsher desert environments they managed to conduct public health regulations by applying some brutal childhood surgeries to prevent the possibility of sexually transmitted diseases or instructing the terminally stupid not to eat with the same hand you just wiped your arse with.
But, in the end, the social engineers of the day, our early priesthood, had a problem. If, by declaring the single God to be invisible and stretched over an 11 dimensional framework extending at least 13.5 billion light years in any observational direction, how the bloody hell do you make it accessible to hundreds of thousands of Timmys who really, really want to Believe? The simultaneous answer from all these early religious engineers was this: "We create an Avatar". And Lo: thus was born a plethora of Prophets, Sages, Disciples and, in one memorable case, an Offspring! Now the Timmys really had something to focus on!
Fast forward a few generations and we find our hitherto successful Priesthoods have grown into even more successful Organisations. Not only did the Creed overwhelm the originally beneficial social message, but the ritualistic dogma overwhelmed the original concept of a benevolent "God". The New Religions developed a massive internal structure, almost machine-like in its purpose, creating formidable Bureaucratic, Political and Enforcement Divisions. Being pan-geographical in nature it could quite literally topple kings and Governments. And did. Local crises abounded over the necessity to separate Church and State until, with some regions, the Church made the decision for the people. Religious Governments dominated. And had no intention of going away!
As they grew, each religious institution began to disagree with the "Right Way" of worshiping their god, eventually leading to multiple schisms predicated on an insane level of detail of creed and ritual. Of course, it would not be unreasonable to add, "they also disagreed very violently" over the course of the centuries. Once-Upon-A-Time there were only a few religions who claimed to be the "True Religion". Now there are more. Many, many more. And the violence continues.
Oh My God. It would appear that Timmy has fallen down the well gain! "What's that Skippy? There are bloody great wells all over the place?" How many? "All over the damned planet?" But how many Timmies are down there?
"That many?!!" Oh My God!!
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