How do gods come to be?

[Simon Slade]

Re: How do gods come to be?

They came to be because we needed them. For me at least, Corbin's choice of the word "invented" seems too conscious...too aware.

I think gods fill a niche, a need created by a particular society or represent needs and values. Often in modern times, what is being worshiped in that fashion isn't always recognized as a god either.

I agree with this. I believe that humans "created" the gods, but I also agree with this:

Deities were created with the rest of the Universe when the Universe came into being. But their existence is dependent on belief and/or the sheer existence of what they *are*. The names and faces we give them are purely cultural and are a reflection of us.

I don't entirely agree, but I think there are universal archetypes and ideas that the forms of deities have been constructed around, so they weren't gods to begin with, but what became gods has always been around.
I hope that made sense.

[Dumuzi]

Re: How do gods come to be?

I agree. I believe everything has a creator. Which means....even God. Which goes against the very idea of God. Which means...something is very false.

If everything has a creator then nothing would have existed.

[Louisvillian]

Re: How do gods come to be?

How do they come to be? Who are they created by? Are they based on people that have existed?

The beings themselves? I believe that a great many simply are and were not created by any specific entity. Other than flowing outward from a primordial, basic principle or force of existence. Some may have been further created, but this isn't something I have any strong opinion on. Overall theology and cosmogony, though, I usually defer to the wording of Pythagoras, later Hermeticism, and early Wiccan theorists. That there is an all-encompassing, genderless, person-less, and primordial "god" which is The All (or as Gerald Gardner referred to it, "Dryghten"), and that the gods worshipped by most pagans are ones that flow from this entity, and form a part of nature and existence in an intimate, immanent way as well as having a consciousness that exists transcendently.
I may very well be completely wrong. But those are my beliefs.

The gods, as we perceive them? A confluence of the actual beings and the social needs of the time and culture in which they were described and to whom they most often communicated. Example: the Greek god Zeus may very well be a powerful, ruling deity with a dominant personality and associations with electricity, the sky, and the weather; but other aspects of him, such as him being a representation of patriarchy and tradition and being the outright King of the Gods, is likely something latched upon him by the Greek peoples that needed a figure to represent the cultural emphasis on social traditionalism, masculine authority and values, oligarchical power structure, and hierarchy. Perhaps they are given additional power or form by our conceptions of them, and are affected by this just as much as we are affected by them? Unknown, but an interesting concept.

[Medusa]

Re: How do gods come to be?

Deities were created with the rest of the Universe when the Universe came into being. But their existence is dependent on belief and/or the sheer existence of what they *are*. The names and faces we give them are purely cultural and are a reflection of us.

Now this seems to make sense. Then I get to thinking..deities create the universe. But do not follow any universal laws. Which makes me think: Douche bag Deities!