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A composite image of Table 3 is available at http://www.walden3d.com/openmind/ figures/Table_3a-f_Gods_of_Mankind.png. Note the colors provide one possible correlation across various cultures of their main gods (red, yellow text), their secondary gods (yellow, brown text), their tertiary gods (orange, blue text), gods representing natural processes (green, silver text), gods handling death and the underworld (violet, maroon text), and men who are viewed by some to have progressed to become perfect (brown, orange text), as commanded in Matthew 5:48, which states "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Also note there are only two lines of text for each entry in the table, typically with 3 to 5 words per line, to describe each "god." As with many other aspects of this book, this chart is intended to provide a start, which will be corrected, added to, expanded on, and improved until it becomes a more complete and accurate representation of The Gods of Mankind.
Since this chapter is about the actors involved in planet earth, and since the main actor is ascribed to be God, it would have been logical to start from the religious point of view. Certainly this approach would have been more appropriate from both a theological and from a historical point of view. However, since acceptance of God is a personal choice, it seemed best to start this discussion from the personal point of view. And since an important part of science is about the history of mankind and the development of ideas, it made sense for the next view of the actors to be from a scientific point of view. This section will round out the discussion of the actors from a theological point of view.
Religion is centered on a belief in God or in a cultural perception of the gods. This book does not attempt to justify the theological beliefs of polytheistic (the worship of multiple gods),3.87 henotheistic (devotion to a single God, while accepting the existence of other gods),3.88 monotheistic (the belief in the existence of one deity or God),3.89 pantheistic (literally meaning "God is All" and "All is God"),3.90 panentheistic (God is immanent within the universe, but also transcends it),3.91 or even agnostic (the truth value of theological claims regarding the existence of God, god(s), or deities is unknown or possibly unknowable)3.92 religious viewpoints. Nor is the book an attempt to define the nature of gods or of God. The point is, there is a main actor relative to life on earth, that actor is God, with whatever name or nature individual readers assign to this actor.
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paradoxes