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A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred.[1] The Oxford Dictionary of English defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine.[2] C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans, but who interacts with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new levels of consciousness, beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life".[3]
Religions can be categorized by how many deities they worship. Monotheistic religions accept only one deity (predominantly referred to as "God"),[4][5] whereas polytheistic religions accept multiple deities.[6] Henotheistic religions accept one supreme deity without denying other deities, considering them as aspects of the same divine principle.[7][8] Nontheistic religions deny any supreme eternal creator deity, but may accept a pantheon of deities which live, die and may be reborn like any other being.[9]: 35–37 [10]: 357–58
Although most monotheistic religions traditionally envision their god as omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and eternal,[11][12] none of these qualities are essential to the definition of a "deity"[13][14][15] and various cultures have conceptualized their deities differently.[13][14] Monotheistic religions typically refer to their god in masculine terms,[16][17]: 96 while other religions refer to their deities in a variety of ways—male, female, hermaphroditic, or genderless.[18][19][20]
Many cultures — including the ancient Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Germanic peoples—have personified natural phenomena, variously as either deliberate causes or effects.[21][22][23] Some Avestan and Vedic deities were viewed as ethical concepts.[21][22] In Indian religions, deities have been envisioned as manifesting within the temple of every living being's body, as sensory organs and mind.[24][25][26] Deities are envisioned as a form of existence (Saṃsāra) after rebirth, for human beings who gain merit through an ethical life, where they become guardian deities and live blissfully in heaven, but are also subject to death when their merit is lost.[9]: 35–38 [10]: 356–59
Etymology
Main articles: Dyeus, Deus, God (word), and Deva (Hinduism)
Kobayashi Eitaku painting showing the god Izanagi (right) and Izanami, a goddess of creation and death in Japanese mythology.
The English language word deity derives from Old French deité,[27][page needed] the Latin deitatem or "divine nature", coined by Augustine of Hippo from deus ("god"). Deus is related through a common Proto-Indo-European (PIE) origin to *deiwos.[28] This root yields the ancient Indian word Deva meaning "to gleam, a shining one", from *div- "to shine", as well as Greek dios "divine" and Zeus; and Latin deus "god" (Old Latin deivos).[29][30][31]: 230–31 Deva is masculine, and the related feminine equivalent is devi.[32]: 496 Etymologically, the cognates of Devi are Latin dea and Greek thea.[33] In Old Persian, daiva- means "demon, evil god",[30] while in Sanskrit it means the opposite, referring to the "heavenly, divine, terrestrial things of high excellence, exalted, shining ones".[32]: 496 [34][35]
The closely linked term "god" refers to "supreme being, deity", according to Douglas Harper,[36] and is derived from Proto-Germanic *guthan, from PIE *ghut-, which means "that which is invoked".[31]: 230–31 Guth in the Irish language means "voice". The term *ghut- is also the source of Old Church Slavonic zovo ("to call"), Sanskrit huta- ("invoked", an epithet of Indra), from the root *gheu(e)- ("to call, invoke."),[36]
An alternate etymology for the term "god" comes from the Proto-Germanic Gaut, which traces it to the PIE root *ghu-to- ("poured"), derived from the root *gheu- ("to pour, pour a libation"). The term *gheu- is also the source of the Greek khein "to pour".[36] Originally the word "god" and its other Germanic cognates were neuter nouns but shifted to being generally masculine under the influence of Christianity in which the god is typically seen as male.[31]: 230–31 [36] In contrast, all ancient Indo-European cultures and mythologies recognized both masculine and feminine deities.
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