Founding a Religion (part II)

Apart from basic research into other forms of worship, the following is in no way a scholarly text.  It is based almost entirely on the reading of history (and/or mythology), followed by conjecture and wishful thinking.  I hope you like it.

There are two basic formats of religion: monotheistic and polytheistic.  The concept of monotheism (one god) is inherently exclusionary, while polytheism is inclusive.  An important detail to note is that polytheism does not require the worship of more than one god, only the acceptance of their existence.  This basic facet of religion seems to be a defining feature in how one's faith relates to others'.
    The idea of all power being contained within one God seems to have a very narrow history.  Judaism, leading to Christianity, leading to Islam is the only tradition I know of which espouses this theology.  All of these admit no paradise to those outside of their faith.  Any opposing force was created by this all powerful god, as a test for god's faithful.  All of these religions believe those outside their faith to be misled and lost.  Judaism seems to shrug its shoulders at this.  Christianity and Islam have, throughout their history, aggressively sought to bring others to their faith through proselytizing and the sword. Christianity has gone so far as to incorporate "pagan" holidays (signs and symbols of Christmas and Easter most obviously) to encourage the traditionalists.  Belief that all others are "unholy" has led to much bloodshed in human history.
    Polytheism has a much richer and more tangled tradition.  A worshiper might be a devout follower of one god who is directly opposed to another.  Additionally, a believer might be a devotee of one god (related to their life or trade), but pray to another on a special occasion (like the birth of a child), depending on that god's specific realm of influence.  The idea of warring groups of gods (for example: Roman against Egyptian) would not have been unreasonable to a believer at the time, though usually carried out in the mortal sphere. 
    In Europe (Roman/Greek, Norse, Celtic, Germanic), these gods primarily had the form of humans, each having some defining virtue to which humans aspire.  It was possible for gods to have sex with humans and produce offspring (demigods) in some traditions.  Some of these gods could change shape when it suited them.  Usually this was in order to test or play tricks on mortals (tricks for the gods can seem pretty harsh to mere mortals).  As an outsider, there seems to be a god appropriate for every occasion and profession.  
    Egyptian gods famously merged human and animal figures for their visual representations (though some had purely human form).  This would seem to separate the worshipers from the deities, while still making the gods somewhat comprehensible.  These gods are clearly not "us" and will not be held to the same moral or ethical standards.  Isis and Osiris (human figures) seem to tell the most human of tales (well, apart from her reassembling all the bits of him to try to bring him back from the dead), but they are functioning in a world controlled by these creatures we can not fully understand.   
    Some gods are represented by different aspects of nature, whether they be animal, vegetable or geographic.  These cultures do not venerate mountains and rivers only because a special event occurred there (like the Tiber in Italy), but because of the nature of the thing itself.  An oak tree may be just as venerated as a mountain.  These things are not usually thought to actually be a god, but simply a symbolic representation (an example may be the cow, in Hinduism) of a greater being.  Gods represented by natural beings are often consulted but rarely demand anything from their followers.
    All of these forms have been used in fantasy worlds.  In Fritz Lieber's Nehwon, there is a whole street in Lankhmar filled with temples to the various gods (and one temple for the gods of Lankhmar of course), where faiths rise and fall with regularity.  One of my favorite moments in the movie Conan: The Barbarian takes place as the titular character and his thief friend discuss their elemental faiths.  George Martin's series has both monotheistic and polytheistic believers (which will hopefully soon come into conflict).  The gods worshiped in our stories say much about the cultures we create, assuming the gods don't literally speak to the people.  When they do... I'll leave that for another post.