The history of religion seems like the history of cinema sound but inverted. We started with one powerful speaker hidden behind the screen, then we got two channel, three channel, five, seven, now we have voices comming at us from all directions.
Long time ago the voice of god was lots of voices comming at us from all sides. Over time Dolby Surround turned back into mono so now we have His voice as one large loudspeaker still hidden behind a screen.
I know it's silly to compare religion with the cinema, they're quite differant. One is an escapist world that draws in a great deal of money from it's fans, the other has made some excellent movies.