12.  Why do some religions worship multiple Gods?

Summary:

•	Various religions disagree over whether one God exists or many Gods exist—but this question is more complex than it may seem.  Near death experiences suggest that the Divine can appear as one God or as many Gods.  The Divine can meet people at their level of understanding.

•	The Divine is beyond human logic and human limits.  Therefore, no religion fully understands the Divine.

•	Early humans saw spiritual power in nature, and their beliefs were sincere attempts to understand the Divine.  

•	The early Hebrews once worshipped multiple Gods; some verses in the Hebrew Bible speak of God in the plural.  Judaism later became strictly monotheistic, and Christianity and Islam inherited that history.

•	Saints and angels in monotheistic religions have supernatural powers—beings which other religions would call Divine.

•	Hinduism honors many Gods, but also teaches that all are expressions of one Ultimate reality called Brahman.

•	Buddhism and Jainism include Gods but believe in a Divine Creator and do not require worshipping any Gods.  They focus on compassion and self discipline as the path to spiritual growth.

•	How many Gods you believe in matters less than how you live your life.  Live it with love, kindness, and respect for all beings.

Within this question is a deeper question: Does the Divine consist of one God or multiple Gods?  This controversy can feel painful for Jews, Christians, and Muslims because their histories include persecution by those who worshipped multiple Gods.  Today, many Jews, Christians, and Muslims may fear that if they even contemplate the possibility of multiple Gods, doing so might anger the one God they do believe in and would disrespect the memory of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim martyrs. 

Among people who worship multiple Gods, such as many Hindu believers, they likewise remember horrific histories of persecution, typically by those who worshipped one God. 

Persecution is persecution and victims are victims, whether for one God or many Gods.  If you deeply care about love and truth, there is no blasphemy in seeking to better understand the Divine.  There is no disrespect of past martyrs if you honor them because they died for their faith.  They died under circumstances probably quite different from what you face today.

One group of believers insists there is only one God; another group insists there are multiple Gods.  Can both be satisfied?  This controversy may look like a mathematical equation with only one logical answer: either one God exists or multiple Gods exist, but not both.

The answer might be both, because this is the answer that emerges after analyzing numerous NDE reports.  This answer may not sound logical, but the Divine is not enslaved to what we consider logical.  What we call “logical” is based on our limited understanding of natural laws and our interpretations of religious scriptures, interpretations that are subjective and can be controversial.  We tend to treat numbers as absolute, that one cannot mean two or anything more than two.  In actuality, numbers are only representations of how we perceive things, perceptions based on our experiences inside a material Universe, which are limited and sometimes misleading.  Our perceptions can and do change.  Mathematics itself may not change, but the things represented by numbers can change when we change how we perceive those things.  If you change how you perceive a thing, it might be better symbolized by a different number, or maybe by no number at all.

How you perceive, interpret, and define your religion might be based on opinions not shared by everyone.  This does not mean that you or others are mistaken.  It does mean that the differences between religions that preach one God or multiple Gods are less clear and less absolute than many believers assume.  Despite some obvious differences between religions, most religions have more in common than many of us notice.

If God intended for all people to believe in only one God, one religion, and one religious scripture, with no uncertainties or no disagreements, then God would have created that—and we humans would never know any differently.  But God did not do that.  Instead, God created the spiritual freedom we have to experience and ponder the mysteries of the Divine.

Most religions teach that what we call “God” is beyond our human ability to fully comprehend.  That means that no single religion can fully comprehend the Divine.  This realization should humble us: despite thousands of years of experience, despite revelations from mystics and prophets, despite intense debates by scholars, despite libraries full of books on theology, despite explanations and insights from revered religious scriptures—no single religion knows everything there is to know about the Divine.  And there are thousands of religions.  Whichever religion you believe in, it does not fully comprehend the Divine and never can.  Testimonies of near-death experiences reveal that each and every religion can provide us with some insights into the Divine.

Consider how we began on Earth.  Long ago, when early humans first began to develop beliefs about spirits, they noticed that the natural world has many traits.  Despite not fully understanding those traits, humans sometimes attributed special spiritual powers to them. 

Perhaps because so many natural features are physically much bigger than ourselves, humans attributed special spiritual powers to trees, and to jungles, forests, mountains, rivers, lakes, and oceans. 

Perhaps because some weather phenomena can overpower entire communities, humans attributed special spiritual powers to thunderstorms and lightning, to sunshine and warmth, to fire, to ice-storms and snow-storms, to tornados, hurricanes, and volcanoes. 

Perhaps because many animals have physical abilities superior to humans—animals that can fly, run faster, swim faster, see farther, hear better, smell deeper, climb better, and hunt and fight more ferociously—humans attributed special spiritual powers to those animals. 

We should not be surprised that early humans made those assumptions.  We should respect their efforts to understand the Divine.  And because many religions teach that all living things have souls, perhaps the beliefs of early humans contain more wisdom and truth than many of us today would like to believe.

Now imagine that only one God exists, the Creator of those early humans.  God loves them all—unconditionally.  Those early humans do not realize that a single God created their entire world, and so they do not worship that one God.  Instead, they worship and pray to the many spirits of nature.  You might assume that this behavior would upset the one God, but remember that God created their entire situation and knows everything, including why humans believe what they believe.  God, all-loving and all-forgiving, wants humans to ponder the mysteries of the Divine at a pace they are comfortable with, emotionally and intellectually.  If that human pace takes hundreds or thousands of generations, then so be it.  God is not in a hurry and does not condemn people for their limited knowledge.  They (we) are only human.  So, when humans pray to multiple Gods, their prayers are answered by the one God, because God is willing to answer as if multiple Gods were answering those prayers.  God can act like multiple Gods because God is all of those multiple Gods.

Different individuals, clans, tribes, nations, and religions have different perceptions of God (or of multiple Gods), and God can adapt to all of those perceptions.  God knows that our knowledge of the Divine is limited because God created that situation.  God meets us at our level of understanding.  God meets you at your level of understanding, although not always in ways you might expect.

The religion of Judaism is famous for monotheism, worshipping only one God.  However, the early ancestors of today’s Jews did not always worship only one.  The Jewish practice of worshipping one God developed over many centuries.  Evidence of this can be found in the Holy Bible, for example in the Book of Joshua:

The story of how Judaism transitioned from worshipping multiple Gods to strict monotheism is long and complicated, but a summary is possible based on some Biblical clues.  In the Bible’s Book of Genesis, there are verses in which God speaks in ways that suggest that the Divine exists as more than one God, that God is plural.  Genesis 1:26 provides an early example:

In this verse, the Hebrew word for God is Elohim— אֱלֹהִים —pronounced eh-loh-HEEM.  The word Elohim is plural, meaning multiple Gods.  The Hebrew word for one God is Eloah— אלוה —pronounced ee-EL-oh.  Eloah is the singular version of the word Elohim.  Genesis 1:26 uses the word Elohim, not Eloah. 

Throughout the Book of Genesis, God never denies that other deities exist.  According to Genesis 19:1-28, God destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because the inhabitants were sexually abusing people.  No verse says that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for worshipping multiple Gods.  In Genesis 6:5-17, God decided to flood the entire world because the world was full of violence.  If anybody was worshipping other Gods, that was not the reason God gave for causing the flood.  (According to the story, only Noah, his family, and many animals aboard a giant Ark survived the flood.)  

The word Jews once referred to people who came from the land of Judea.  Before then, they were called Hebrews, and Judea was called the land of Canaan.  The early Hebrews lived in wandering tribes.  (The word hebrew originally meant “somebody from the other side of the river.”)  So, a very long time ago, the God of the Hebrews was the God of a small number of wandering tribes. 

According to the Book of Exodus, the Bible’s second book, the Hebrews were conquered and became slaves in Egypt.  Eventually, God freed them.  Their leader was Moses the Prophet.  On Mount Sinai, God appeared to Moses as a burning bush whose flames did not consume the bush.  During their conversation, Moses asked God, what is Your name?  Moses asked because in those days most people were worshipping multiple Gods—and so by asking for a name, Moses was actually asking God, which God are you?  In Exodus 3:14, God answered:

The grammar of Hebrew is less precise than that of many languages today.  The Hebrew words for “I am who I am” can be translated also as:

• “I will be what I will be,” or
• “I am becoming what I choose to become,” or
• “I create whatever I create,” or
• “I am the One who is.”

Hebrew is read from right to left.  The initials of the name of God are the Hebrew letters יהוה —or in English, read from left to right, the letters YHWH.  Together, these four letters are called the Tetragrammaton or the Tetragram.  Since all four letters are consonants without any vowels, the combination can be pronounced in multiple ways.  The most common pronunciation is yaah-WAY, spelled Yahweh, although that pronunciation is not accurate.  The accurate pronunciation is secret because devout Jews consider the name of God to be sacred and therefore not to be said.  Today, in most Christian Bibles, the name of God is often printed as “the LORD God”—but that phrase is not in the original Hebrew text.  Instead, the original Hebrew text shows the Tetragrammaton followed by the word Elohim, and therefore a direct translation into English would show “YHWH God.”  But to avoid any risk of saying the sacred name of God, most Bibles use the phrase “the LORD God.”  The capital letters LORD symbolize YHWH.  This phrase is used in Genesis 3:22, but Genesis 3:22 also suggests that God is plural:

After the Hebrews left slavery in Egypt, they migrated to Canaan, bringing along their worship of YHWh.  But Canaan already had inhabitants, called Canaanites, and many of them stayed when the Hebrews moved in (Judges 3: 5-6).  The Canaanites worshipped multiple Gods.  The most powerful of these, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, they called El— אֵל —also known as El Shaddai— אֵל שַׁדַּי —pronounced ELL SHAD-dye and translated as “God Almighty.”  The word El is the root of the words Elohim and Eloah, and El is also contained in the name Israel. 

El Shaddai also had a wife, named Asherah— אֲשֵׁרָה —pronounced ah-SHEH-rah.  She was a Goddess of fertility.

Another name in the Bible is El Elyon— אֵל עֶלְיוֹן‎ —pronounced ELL ELL-yohn and translated as “God Most High.”

When the Canaanites learned about YHWH from the Hebrews, the Canaanites included YHWH among their many Gods and began to worship YHWH.  However, a bigger change was coming.  According to Exodus, Moses returned to Mount Sinai and met YHWH for a second time—and at that meeting, YHWH provided the Ten Commandments.  The Ten Commandments are so important that the Holy Bible lists them twice, in Exodus and in Deuteronomy.  The First Commandment declares:

The first sentence of the Commandment makes clear that YHWH is talking to the Hebrews in particular.  The second sentence makes clear that worshippers of YHWH must treat YHWH as superior to all other Gods.  “You shall have no other Gods before me.”  Notice that the First Commandment does not say that no other Gods exist.  In fact, several of the Psalms in the Bible praise YHWH while also implying that multiple Gods do exist.  Here are some examples:

Psalm 86:8 — “Among the Gods there is none like You, Lord.  No deeds can compare with Yours.”

Psalm 95:3 — “For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all Gods.”

Psalm 96:4 — “For great is the LORD and most worthy of praise.  He is to be feared above all Gods.”

Psalm 136:2 — “Give thanks to the God of Gods.  His love endures forever.”

In Exodus 23:30-32, YHWH told the Hebrews, “I will give into your hands the people who live in the land [of Canaan] and you will drive them out before you.  Do not make a covenant with them or with their Gods.  Do not let them live in your land or they will cause you to sin against Me, because the worship of their Gods will certainly be a snare to you.”

Whether or not the Hebrews drove out every non-Hebrew from Canaan is a question debated by archeologists, historians, and theologians.  If true, Canaan with only Hebrews living in it did not remain that way, not in ancient times and not in modern times. 

The First Commandment and the rest of Exodus do make clear that YHWH ordered the Hebrews to worship only YHWH.  In Exodus, YHWH does not deny the existence of other Gods; instead, YHWH denies the Hebrews the liberty to worship any Gods except for YHWH.  Yet, there is also this declaration in Exodus when YHWH first spoke to Moses:

In other words, YHWH explained that YHWH and El Shaddai are actually the same God, not separate Gods.  And if El Shaddai and El Elyon are the same God, then YHWH and El Elyon are the same God.  So, perhaps a number of Canaanites did not leave Canaan but instead became religious converts, they became Hebrews, continuing to worship El Shaddai, El Elyon, and YHWH, but without any risk of provoking jealousy among two of the three Deities by worshipping the third.  All three are the same God.  Lesser Gods could be entirely ignored because believers would directly worship the supremely powerful God, the Most High, the Almighty YHWH.

Many Christian Bibles try to avoid confusing their readers by translating Elohim (multiple Gods) as “God”—but the original Hebrew text suggests there was more variety, as in Psalm 78:35.

And likewise Psalm 97:9.

There was one additional God the Hebrews continued to worship for a time: Asherah.  Canaanites believed that Asherah was the wife of El Shaddai and therefore, many assumed, the wife of YHWH.  “You shall have no other Gods before Me.”  But what about Gods after YHWH, Gods or Goddesses subordinate to YHWH?  Modern archeologists have found evidence that ancient Hebrews worshipped Asherah for centuries.  Apparently, those Hebrew worshippers did not treat Asherah as the equal of Her husband and, therefore, they did not believe they were violating the First Commandment by worshipping Her. 

Eventually, however, worship of Asherah ceased.  Between 400 and 600 years before the Common Era, the Hebrew city of Jerusalem was conquered by Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar II.  His army destroyed the great (First) Temple in Jerusalem, and thousands of Hebrews became slaves and were sent to Babylon in Mesopotamia, where Iraq is located today.  That time is considered a major turning point in the history of Judaism, a time now called the Babylonian Captivity or the Babylonian Exile.  Later, some Hebrews were permitted to return to Canaan where they reviewed their ancient religious scriptures.  “You shall have no other Gods before Me.”  Most Hebrews concluded that the First Commandment requires the worship of YHWH alone—meaning no other Gods at all.  And there are later Bible passages (First Kings 15:12-13 and Second Kings 23:6-7) that demand that worship of Asherah cease.  Furthermore, when most Hebrews were slaves in Mesopotamia, they probably had little need for a Canaanite Goddess of fertility. 

By then, Judaism had become a religion that worships only one God. 

Judaism is the religion from which Christianity and Islam emerged.  And that means all three religions share a distant history when multiple Gods were worshipped.  The same is true of smaller religions which later emerged from Christianity or from Islam.  Some of those smaller religions are considered to be versions of Christianity or Islam; they include Mormons (also called Latter Days Saints), Jehovah’s Witnesses, Sufis, Druze, Alawites, and Baha’is. 

Many denominations of Christianity also have a doctrine called the Trinity, sometimes called “God in Three Persons”—God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Christians insist that Christians worship only one God; however, to many non-Christians, the doctrine of the Christian Trinity seems like three Gods.  Many Christians also pray to the mother of Jesus, called the Virgin Mary, and they pray to Christian saints, hoping that a saint will help them by becoming their advocate to God the Father.  When many non-Christians look at this variety, seeing Christian prayers to multiple entities instead of directly to God the Father, those prayers look like the worship of multiple Gods.

In Islam, a saint is called a wali— وَلِيّ —and there are many of them— أَوْلِيَاء —and while there are some differences between Islam and Christianity in how they treat saints, both Islam and Christianity preach that saints are helpers of God and, according to some beliefs, they have some supernatural powers.  Angels, according to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, are God’s messengers and also have some supernatural powers.  And because angels have some supernatural powers, other religions would consider them to be Gods.  At the core of Islam is the worship of one God, which requires your submission to God, but the Holy Quran also states that multiple supernatural beings do exist.

Some religions worship only one God but without any direct connection to Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.  Among these worshippers of one God are the Zoroastrians and the Yazidis.  Yet, most of these religions include a belief in angels.  Angels—not Jewish, not Christian, not Islamic, but nevertheless beings possessing supernatural powers and who are messengers from God. 

Every person suffers problems, and yet your own problems might feel tiny in comparison to the concerns of the Almighty Creator of the Universe.  So, if you pray, you might feel embarrassed to bother the Almighty with your problems.  Fortunately, many NDE testimonies reveal that the Almighty is never too busy to hear your prayers.  Nevertheless, many people on Earth do feel ashamed to pray to God directly.  So they pray to an intermediary between themselves and the Almighty, a Divine intermediary such as a saint or a family ancestor or, if their religion has several Gods, one of the lesser Gods.  They seek a Divine advocate, preferably someone who has lived in human form and suffered and is therefore sympathetic to their prayers and plight.  Many people also believe that particular saints, or particular Gods, focus on satisfying particular human needs or desires.

When those believers pray to an intermediary instead of directly to the Almighty, they are not trying to disrespect the Almighty.  They do this because they do respect the Almighty.  They feel unworthy of asking the Almighty directly. 

In religions that have multiple Gods, usually there is one God among them who is supreme, one God who rules all the others.  And in some religions, the supernatural power of the ultimate God is greater still.

Hinduism is sometimes called a religion but it is actually multiple religions, a set of faiths.  Among its faiths are 33 Gods, sometimes called the “three tens”—but that plural number is misleading because Hindu theologies can be very complicated.  In a simple summary, the most important Gods in Hinduism include Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva.  Brahma is known as the Creator of the Universe.  Vishnu is known as the Preserver of the Universe—helping to keep the Universe operating.  However, some things in the Universe can become so broken that they either cannot or should not be repaired.  Shiva is known as the Destroyer, because after destruction comes more creation.  These three Gods form a Divine trinity, called the Trimurti.  (The Hindu Trinity is different from the Christian Trinity.)  There is also a feminine version of the Trimurti, called the Tridevi, and its three Goddesses are named Lakshmi, Parvati, and Sarasvati. 

Hindu religious scriptures contain stories of when the Gods and Goddesses incarnated into human forms, several times, and they have several names for those human incarnations, including Vyasa (Brahman), Krishna (Vishnu), and Rudra (Shiva).  Each of the Hindu Deities and their incarnations have their own personalities; and according to the stories told about them, those personalities can be very human.  Furthermore, various theologies in Hinduism describe the behaviors and powers of each Deity somewhat differently.  Some descriptions actually combine some Gods; for example, that Shiva became Brahma when Brahma created the Universe. 

Hinduism is full of variety, but another fact about it may seem contradictory: all of the faiths in Hinduism agree that there is only one God—not more than one.  At the same time, the Almighty, the one God, can and does appear in many forms, including as 33 Gods and Goddesses.  The Hindu name of the Almighty is Brahman.  (Despite similar names, Brahman and Brahma are not exactly the same.  Brahma is a member of the Hindu Trinity, along with Vishnu and Shiva.  Brahman is more important than that.)  Devout Hindus consider Brahman the Ultimate Reality of the Universe, the non-physical (non-material) cause of everything that exists and the single unity that connects everything together.  Everything and everyone, including the 33 Gods and Goddesses, stem from Brahman and are part of Brahman.  Brahman also has a Divine feminine energy, a Supreme Goddess known as Shakti or Mahadevi.  The ultimate importance of Brahman as the Almighty, the Most High, is made clear and praised in verses like these from Hindu religious scriptures:

Does Hinduism worship multiple Gods?  Yes.  Does Hinduism worship one God?  Yes.  Does this seem contradictory?  Yes.  Does it confuse people who are not Hindus?  Sometimes.  Does it confuse God?  Never.

Hinduism originated in ancient India when society was organized into a hierarchy of groups called castes, which are levels similar to social-economic classes.  Many Hindus, believing in reincarnation, believed that one’s birth into a particular caste is the result of one’s behavior in a previous lifetime: good behavior results in birth into a higher caste, bad behavior results in birth into a lower caste.  However, why should someone born into a lower caste suffer throughout that lifetime for behavior in a previous lifetime which that person almost certainly does not remember?  Whatever answer was given to that question, it did not satisfy everyone.  So, some other religions emerged that rejected the Hindu caste system. 

Two of those religions are Buddhism and Jainism.  Both teach ways to spiritually improve yourself, in this lifetime, through self-discipline.  Compared to Jainism, Buddhism is somewhat easier to follow and has more followers.  In both religions, compassion and non-violence are fundamental: avoid harm to all living beings, including people. 

Buddhism and Jainism are sometimes accused of being atheistic because they do not believe in a Divine Creator; they teach that the Universe has always existed and therefore a Divine Creator was never needed.  But Buddhism and Jainism still have Gods, though worship is not required.  Buddhism and Jainism teach self-improvement through self-discipline, but not by asking any Gods.  Gods are treated as wise advisors, not as rulers.  Perhaps in a scripture you might find some Divine advice on how to achieve enlightenment, but your struggle to achieve enlightenment is entirely your own.

Buddhist temples and shrines contain images of the original Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism.  Practicing Buddhists honor him as a very wise man.  They sometimes bow to his image as a gesture of respect, but they do not worship him.  The Buddha told his disciples not to think of him as a God and not to treat him as one.  Buddhists keep images of him as reminders to follow his teachings.

The Gods in Buddhism include some Hindu Gods, including Brahma.  But because Buddhism does not believe in a Divine Creator, many Buddhists call Brahma a “Protector of Teachings”—known as a dharmapala.  Brahma is also called Mahabrahma by some Buddhists.  Meanwhile, some Hindus believe that Siddhartha Gautama was one of the human incarnations of the Hindu God Vishnu.

Many Christians and Buddhists see important similarities between the teachings of Jesus Christ and those of the first Buddha, who lived five centuries earlier.  For these reasons, the largest denominations within the two religions have had friendly relations for a long time, despite very different beliefs about God and Gods. 

You can practice Buddhist philosophy without practicing the Buddhist religion; Buddhist philosophy teaches emotional detachment from material desires. 

Likewise, you can practice Daoist philosophy without practicing the Daoist religion; Daoist philosophy teaches living in harmony with nature.  And like Buddhism, Daoism has multiple Gods but worshipping them is not required.  Among those Gods in Daoism is a Divine trinity called the Three Pure Ones, but they are not rulers; they assist humankind.  The first One, the Ancient Lord of Heaven, reveals the Dao (the Way) to humankind; the second One, the Heavenly Lord of Spiritual Treasure, offers the sacred scriptures of Daoism to humankind; and the third One, the Heavenly Lord of the Dao and its Virtue, teaches the Dao to humankind.  Some Daoists believe that at least one of the Three Pure Ones incarnated into human form as Lao Tzu, the founder of Daoism.

Other Gods in Daoism include the Great Jade Emperor and the Golden Mother.  But according to Daoists, the most important force in the Universe is called the Dao, usually translated as the Way.  Daoists do not consider the Dao to be a God—but their descriptions of the Dao can sound like descriptions of the Divine. 

Confucianism is more of a philosophy for society than a mystical religion, although Confucianism is sometimes called a religion.  Confucius taught that the spirits of dead ancestors and others should be honored, with traditional rituals.  Other than that, his teachings in the Analects, recorded by his disciples, say little about mysticism or Gods.

However, in very ancient times, Chinese religions—probably including Daoism and Confucianism—included worship of a Divine Creator called Shangdi— 上帝 —pronounced SHANG-dee, which means “God-on-High” or “Lord Above.”  Chinese worship of Shangdi gradually faded away in favor of worshipping Heaven in general, perhaps because many Chinese considered Shangdi to be too distant and beyond human comprehension.  The Chinese word for “Heaven” is Tian— 天 —although this word can also mean Divine power and Divine approval.  Whenever an Emperor in China was securely in power, people said that he had the “Mandate of Heaven.”  But whenever an Emperor lost power, people said that he lost the “Mandate of Heaven.”  Today, increasing numbers of Chinese people are worshipping Shangdi again.  They include many Chinese Christians, people who have compared the Holy Bible with ancient Chinese religious scriptures and believe that Shangdi is also Christianity’s God the Father. 

Remember: In the Holy Bible, God reveals that YHWH and El Shaddai are the same.  God is also called Elohim, which indicates that the Divine is plural.  The Jewish Deity named YHWH is also the Christian Deity called God the Father, and also the Islamic Deity called Allah.

Numerous religious scriptures say that the Divine is capable of appearing in many different forms, has many different names, and can be both one God and many Gods at the same time.  Some people insist that the God of one religion cannot be the same God of a different religion, especially if one religion preaches that only one God exists while another religion preaches the existence of many.  You have a right to whatever belief you prefer, but remember that religious scriptures can be interpreted in multiple ways.  Beware of assuming absolute certainty.  You are human, and humans make mistakes.

Whatever we know about the Divine is filtered through our human perceptions and preconceptions.  That includes people who claim—with undeserved certainty—that they speak for God but cannot imagine a God who is infinitely more wondrous than their own beliefs will permit.  They have created a cage inside their minds, imprisoning their own conception of God inside it because they cannot imagine anything greater.  God is infinitely larger, more powerful, and more loving than that.  God is not imprisoned by our limited understanding of physics and logic.

In pondering whether God is singular or plural, or both, at least five points are worth considering: 

First, a religion that insists that it worships only one God may not appear that way to outsiders.  (Consider how many saints or spirits are prayed to.)  A religion that worships multiple Gods may treat one God in particular as the Most High, the Ultimate.  So, the difference between religions that worship one God or multiple Gods is less clear, less rigid, than many people assume.

Second, religions that encourage spiritual growth and worship either one God or multiple Gods share some spiritual truths at their core.  Their outward differences may appear obvious, but the spiritual truths they share are far more important.

Third, among different religions, you may not recognize their shared truths unless you look for those truths at their core.  That may never happen if you assume that only religion must be true and therefore all other religions must be false.  Your ego may feel absolutely certain, but your spiritual health is at risk.  Prejudice, arrogance, fear—these are infectious that endanger your spirit. 

Fourth, every person, whether devoutly religious or not, is learning at an individual pace.  You are learning at your pace; other people are learning at their pace.  That pace can include pondering the Divine as either one Deity or more than one. 

Fifth, no matter how many Deities a religion worships, that number is less important than how you treat other people, how you treat other living beings, and how you treat your deepest self.  Love and care for others is the most important form of worship possible.  That is the most important point of all.