god (male deity)
A god is a male deity, in contrast with a goddess, a female deity. While the term “goddess” specifically refers to a female deity, the plural “gods” can be applied to deities collectively, regardless of gender. The Greek and Roman pantheons were ruled by Zeus, and Jupiter.
A god as a deity is a supernatural being considered divine or sacred. The Oxford Dictionary of English defines deity as “a god or goddess (in a polytheistic religion)”, or anything revered as divine. A goddess is a female deity. 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”.
When ancient Egyptian religion developed closer to monotheism, it was Amun, a male god, who rose to the most prominent place.
War gods, like the rulers of the pantheon, could often be male, such as Ares/Mars, Kartikeya and Toutatis.
God and goddess, generic terms for the many deities of ancient and modern polytheistic religions. Such deities may correspond to earthly and celestial phenomena or to human values, pastimes, and institutions, including love, marriage, hunting, war, and the arts. While some are capable of being killed, many are immortal. Although they are always more powerful than humans, they are often described in human terms, with all the flaws, thoughts, and emotions of humans.
Examples
- Anubis, god of mummification in Egypt
- Dyeus, sky father for the Proto-Indo-Europeans
- Dyaus Pita, the reflex of Dyeus in the historical Vedic religion
- Tengri, primary chief deity and sky father of the early Turkic peoples and the proto-Mongols.
- Zeus, king of the gods in ancient Greece
- Ra, primary/sun god in Ancient Egyptian mythology
- Enki, patron god of the Mesopotamian city of Eridu
- Odin/Wotan, all father, war god, and king of the gods in Germanic mythology
- Shiva, one of the primary gods in Hinduism
See also
Adapted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia