The Greater Beings: A few theories regarding gods and other divine existences
It is possible that God exists. It is possible that God doesn't exist. It is possible that God did exist, but is no longer there. It is possible that there are many gods, not just one. It is even possible that what we're used to call a god is something as real and tangible as an ordinary human. Just with better technologies and bigger guns.
Well, whatever. Here is a bunch of theories I wrote while playing Rimworld and being bored AF.
1. God is merely a phantasm of human fantasy
That's it. We've heard this all the time, from "progressive" and atheist speakers, the notion is that there is no such thing as a god. Humans have made it in their own fantasy.
The popular theory is still lacking, however - there are questions such as why would humans make up a god, why not something else, how come most human civilizations eventually end up making either gods or spirits or something like that, etc. etc. And it's usually poorly-elaborated, if elaborated at all, beyond the "Well, humans have made those gods up so here we go".
However, there is a possibility that this is still the case. Humans, while at their early stages of civilizations, sought to find solution to the mysteries of thunder, rain, fire, seasons, well, basically anything that concerned them significantly (or at least was observable). Many theories could've appeared, and among them was the theory of a greater being standing behind those now-known-as-natural phenomena. And since humans, not very fond of mental challenges, usually prefer the short explanations because they're easier to understand even though they might be wrong, they've chosen the God Theory as the shorter and more understandable one. Of course, it must be some greater being manipulating weather, and if we observe the nature a little bit more, we'll find that sometimes, the whims of nature do coincide with what the priests say. That damn Leon was lazy this year, and he beats his wife way too often, so the Gods must've punished him by striking his house with a lightning. An easy explanation and from normies' perspective, it is solid enough.
And now for the second factor which plays a large role in theist views: ideological violence. It is really uncommon for a religion to not have a bunch of violent fanatics thrusting their view with force at least at some point of its existence (and the second-most popular religious teaching in the world, yes the religion of peace, actively practices violence as a means of peacefully advocating for their position), so whenever competing ideas and theories appeared, their supporters were basically squashed by the fanatics. We saw Christianity doing this some centuries ago and we see Islam worshippers doing this right now.
And since most known human minds are simple and the Humanity can only very controversially be called sapient as a species, it is rather easy to see how easy did the humans embrace religious violence. At first, they've accepted the theory that there is a great god and that it cares about them humans and that it gives them boons when they behave, and that it sends calamities each time they somehow displease the god. A calamity somewhere happens, like a freak wildfire or a particularly strong flood, or basically anything scary enough, and it just happens so that someone, somewhere around the time of the calamity, did something that, according to current religious teachings, should make gods mad. So they do a simple correlation and make a conclusion that this particular ungodly kiddo have just angered the gods. And since humans, generally poor at reasoning, become even dumber when there is a looming threat demanding less use of higher cognition in exchange for faster, instinct-based decision-making, the emergence of a violent religious cult based on logical fallacies, poorly elaborated hypotheses, and the lack of retrospective abilities as well as other higher cognition faculties in most known humans, is more or less natural.
So basically, God isn't here anywhere, at least the kind of God who shoots lightnings at you should you displease him a little surely isn't.
1.1 God is an intentionally made up hoax
Another theory is that God, still being a phantasm of human mind, isn't exactly a result of human stupidity but instead an elaborate fairy-tale made up by a talented human-handler seeking to turn humans into obedient laborers living frugal lives. (This one doesn't at all contradict the first theory - and it goes well with it, with the human handlers exploiting human nature to BS the normies successfully.)
This theory isn't very relevant for relatively politically-indifferent Greek gods, who did require sacrifices often but didn't demand the population to turn into humble hard-workers living poor but honorable (lol) lives, but instead it fits modern monotheistic religions fairly well. Things like frugality, restraint of stronger desires (like sexuality), strong discipline, hard and honest labor (especially hard and honest labor for moderate rewards), and of course orderly periodic rituals which are known ways to program most humans into desired mindsets and behavior - all of these things are not something Zeus or Artemis or Aphrodite (ESPECIALLY THIS ONE) would need.
But as far as human-handlers go, they would love to have a populace which is industrious, disciplined, cheap in maintenance, and very, very docile. And all it takes to make it so is a bit of training (not unlike you train your doggies into obedience) coupled with some violence to keep peasantry in fear. It doesn't matter that this violence doesn't come from a god, though.
So a story of Jesus who've died for your sins, or whatever BS Islam comes with, is more like a supporting story, something made so you would accept all of those religious restraints. It's not that you should be disciplined, restrained and frugal because God says so - it's rather, we've made up those gods so you would accept being disciplined, restrained and frugal.
2. Parallel evolution of various species
Who said humans were the first to stand? Who said humans were the only ones to stand? And if there's someone saying this, is there any hard proof?
Basically, the notion is that the Earth, at least at some point, hosted at least two intelligent species. And it just so happened that the one that wasn't human was incredibly advanced compared to the contemporary humans.
Thinking back on it, what would a primitive caveman think if they would meet a human in an armored suit armed with a flamethrower? The caveman has recently made a discovery of shaping stones into pointy sharp blades which can be used to poke another caveman, and the next day that caveman meets this.
Right, a light-brown golem armed with a Thunder Staff.
Maybe the species wasn't humanoid, though. Maybe it was something like a huge-ass corvid equipped with fire bombs and revered as a bird god. Or a huge sapient octopus which had yet to enter into Non-Aggression Pact with human sailors. Or a legendary reptiloid armed with a flamethrower, a descendant of the few survivors of that war which involved dropping a huge-ass comet on the earth which've obliterated most of their civilization.
Or maybe it's all just phantasms of the human mind, painting transdimensional horrors out of fear of the dark.
But as far as the theory goes, there were sapient beings greatly exceeding primal humans in intelligence - and, indeed, technological advncements. And once again, from a caveman's point, a device that throws fire/bullets/arcs of electricity, or just emits powerful light, is something they just can't explain with their level of knowledge which have just been expanded with the knowledge of making bronze.
As for where are those creatures now, there are many options. Maybe the current climate on Earth just doesn't fit them well and they all went underground, or to another planet maybe. Maybe they did finish each other off, creating an Ice Age and almost dooming the humans. How do we know if it all happened before the written history?.. Or maybe they went into a different form of existence, casting off their material bodies and turning themselves into beings made of ever-present ether (the presence of which was poorly censored and explanation of related phenomena replaced with some quantum theory or whatever).
After all, there are realistic-looking stories about odd artifacts dated as far as hundreds of millions of years ago. And there's another story about humans actually seeing live dinosaurs and making figurines of them. It all can be complete BS, or partial BS. But then again, it might be not.
3. Aliens
Another popular story involves alien beings visiting the Earth for a very short period, leaving some sort of legacy as they go.
During the short time of their visit, aliens have managed to contact the humans, and obviously they have left quite an impact while doing so. Considering there isn't any lasting alien presence, though, it isn't likely they came here to guide the human race; it's more likely that those aliens actually got stranded on Earth for some reason, or have performed some short-term missions for any reason. This explains also why there was not much evidence of them found throughout history - after all, those "gods" came and bamm, they're gone.
3.1 Long-term observation missions
And of course, would it be a simple alien who got stranded on Earth for any reasons, there would be, most likely, one of two outcomes: either the alien would eventually perish outside their civilization, or they would immediately call for help and get extracted very, very soon. All while trying to minimmize contact with an alien species living on this planet and, if necessary, scaring those sword-waving barbarians with some totally awesome plasma bursts, arcs of electricity, mystery green fireballs, well, whatever weapons they have.
In any way, unless the alien had some very powerful analytic tools to study human languages in a very short time, (which, according to the current level of human technological advancement, would require enormous amounts of data gathered through surveillance of human societies and a really powerful machine with an autonomous learning algorithm) the alien would not be able to converse with humans. So, barring the presence of those hyper-advanced learning tools unimaginable even to modern and future humans...
...it would mean that these aliens were actively observing humans, for any reason.
And the creepier part is that they weren't going to reveal themselves, since there is no evidence of long-lasting contact with the "gods". Rather, the short-lived presence of these aliens on Earth hints that they were actively trying to avoid contact with the humans. Alternatively, they did actually plan on short-term interaction with the humans - and have even prepared some human bodies to operate for those ground operations, such as in case of "Jesus Christ" who got reportedly crucified by the barbarian Romans and then "resurrected" simply by sending a new marionette human body back on Earth.
In any case, though, there were no widely-known repeat contacts with these aliens, which means - they either have ceased their operations, or are still influencing the human race from somewhere safe, this time trying to avoid any extraordinary attention such as with the Jesus incident. Whatever the fuck these aliens were trying to do is still too unclear, though.
4. Some of us "humans" are Gods
Now this is a call for every cognitively-advanced person to re-ascertain their association with the human race. Seriously.
The theory is that, in fact, the Earth have never evolved any sapient, or even semi-sapient, life on its own. Or if it did evolve any, it's long gone, either due to a massive cataclysm (possibly of their own creation too) which've got rid of them, or that they've emigrated from Earth for any reason and never came back.
In any way, the humanity was never a product of any natural evolution - rather, it was created on Earth with an unknown purpose, but very likely with the purpose of colonization. Instead of terraforming the Earth, already full of life, in order to suit them, they went another way: creation of an Earth-compatible species through genetic manipulation of already existing native lifeforms, and then latching on those organisms with their "spirits" - basically, their own selves. This way, they both save themselves the trouble of re-engineering the biosphere after successful terraforming of the Earth, and saving the Earth's native lifeforms from extinction via terraforming-induced climate/atmospheric changes.
Of course, the gods didn't want to become stupid monkeys with barely-above-animal intelligence - hence they've developed human bodies capable enough to host the "spirits" and their mental capacities, or at least to be capable enough marionette units to allow those "spirits" to latch onto them, providing them a way to see and feel through the eyes of a human. So, while the spirits mostly stay outside the human body, they still do have some sort of attachment to that body - pretty much the type of attachment a human has to a remote-controlled surveillance system, able to control it at will and see through its sensors, while safely being stashed very, very far away from it in case that thing gets destroyed.
The human body surely can operate on its own, since it has all the animal facilities and some more advanced mental faculties necessary for the spirit beings to process sufficent information obtained from their marionette bodies locally. And, of course, to provide them enough control of that body. However, without the spirit attached to that body, it is pretty much an animal with some latent mental faculties - which, without intervention from the spirits, will never, ever develop enough, simply because there's nothing to develop them; the human without a latched-on spirit is essentially a somewhat-advanced animal.
And here is why this theory actually looks quite plausible.
First of all, most of the observed humans can be divided roughly into two groups: the "normies", or "sheeple", or "lemmings", or "ordinaries" - basically, the aforementioned spirit-less human shells roaming the earth - and the "enlightened", or the "great people", well, those who do make themselves known as quite mentally-advanced individuals, either prominent creatives/artists, or scientists, or innovators/inventors commonly called "genius". And here is where it becomes even more curious.
First of all, a lot of those in the genius group strangely have their ethics, their behavior, and their goals and mindsets radically different from the rest of the humans. While their difference in cognitive abilities would surely impact their ethics and worldviews greatly, due to their extraordinary intellect, they shouldn't be too radically different from the rest of the humans fundamentally - their "hard-coded" animal behavior should mostly, if not entirely, match the rest of the humanity should they truly be the same species. For example, they should be expected to be just as violent, domination-hungry, and belligerent as the rest of the humanity - which would lead to them being recorded in history as exceptionally proficent warlords, conquerors, and iron-fist rulers dominating entire countries if not continents with a brutal, yet efficient and prosperous regime.
And yet, while the "ordinaries" fight for entertainment and resolve most of their conflicts with fists, they strive for harmony and peaceful co-existence while having an unusual disdain towards violence - something they shouldn't have been should their evolutionary history be the same as that of humans. After all, it takes more than just high intelligence to completely overwrite those behavior/attitude patterns developed through evolution!
Persons like Tesla or Einstein, known as exceptional geniuses, are also known to have mindsets radically different from those met in common humans - and tracing back these differences, they go as far as to basic responses to encounters and threats which are typically formed while the species is not yet sapient. For example, the violent and belligerent nature of humans is said to originate from their ancestors who were predominantly hunters; this type of nature makes sense as a hunter feeds off meat, which in turn is obtained via killing other creatures. And since meat is much, much more scarce than plant resources, the need for competition is much greater in carnivores than in herbivores - and the most common way in which the animals compete is violent contests. So one can say that humans have basically evolved to fight each other (for some scarce resources such as food/territory) and have a belligerent attitude towards everything (this tactic is quite useful when you need to eat something but, at the same time, don't really want to be badly scratched or even killed by someone comparable or stronger than you). So, in other words, should Tesla or Einstein be a full-fledged Earthlin human, one would expect them to be exceptionally proficent warlords, dominating the world thanks to the devastating weapons they've invented.
And instead, just like many persons like them, they're known to pursue peaceful coexistence, resolve conflicts through peaceful debates, and sometimes even follow a highly-counterproductive logic where they would lose something against a competitor, or attempt to help those who basically think they're mad, or even outright hate them.
As if their ancestors didn't imprint violent patterns of behavior which are needed for a human predecessor to survive and thrive.
But why would the spirits have violent behavioral patterns?..
5. We haven't seen the real Gods yet
And humans won't ever see them. Because they're just so far ahead of them, their mere existence is unimaginable - they exist beyond what humans know to exist, and their essence is way too complex for an ordinary human mind to even imagine.
Some time ago, the image of a God was pretty much a humanoid being with a lightning staff. Now that we know where does that lightning come from, and can make those lightning arcs for fun, a being which can manipulate the power of lightning doesn't look like a god that much. Another thing is a being from some Type-IV civilization, which can harness the power of entire universes...
The good thing about such beings is that they're highly unlikely to be concerned with some barbarian semi-sapient species living in one of the countless galaxies, pretty much for the same reason you humans do not turn every stone upside down and fuck up every poor plant happening to be in your way and kick around every small pebble on your way: these things are just too insignificant to waste your time on.
The bad thing is that they can fuck you up without any ill intent. They might be just doing their routine chores and bamm, it's just that your galaxy happens to be in the way of their super-advanced power plant or a literally universal-scale resort project or basically anything they want to build in place of the Milky Way galay, which they just plan to scrap for resources. And one day you wake up to see no sun, no stars, and it's hella cold outside.
Or to see your Sun being turned into a green star with purple swirls and wildly fluctuating energy output which can cause your oceans to boil in minutes, or your entire planet to freeze for half-a-year. And you can never know when it happens.
All in all, a human can never, ever have a chance of ever having any contact with them or influencing them anyhow; and most of all, there is nothing "mystical" about this creatures - they're just far-more-advanced-than-humans beings which perfectly fit in a world of a skeptic who doesn't believe in any supernatural entities such as gods.
And they're far more powerful than anything supernatural made up by a human mind.