#The question is a very bad fit in the first place

As you have said, you have studied these issues for 16 years. This isn’t a topic for a quick Q&A, this is the topic of books – plural, many have been published trying to answer that question.

To try to answer it in the SE format is, I think, absurd. An expert of your caliber might be able to do a summary justice here, and I’d be thrilled to see that answer, and upvote it – but I wouldn’t necessarily expect an expert of 16 years in religious studies to be answering questions on worldbuilding, and I don’t think the question belongs here in the first place.

So my ideal answer to this situation is to see your answer, upvote it, and then see the question closed anyway.

The question is a very bad fit in the first place

As you have said, you have studied these issues for 16 years. This isn’t a topic for a quick Q&A, this is the topic of books – plural, many have been published trying to answer that question.

To try to answer it in the SE format is, I think, absurd. An expert of your caliber might be able to do a summary justice here, and I’d be thrilled to see that answer, and upvote it – but I wouldn’t necessarily expect an expert of 16 years in religious studies to be answering questions on worldbuilding, and I don’t think the question belongs here in the first place.

So my ideal answer to this situation is to see your answer, upvote it, and then see the question closed anyway.