Deity

A deity or the god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The Oxford Dictionary of English defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. 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".

Religions can be categorized by how many deities they worship. Monotheistic religions accept only one deity predominantly pointed to as "God", whereas polytheistic religions accept office deities. Henotheistic religions accept one supreme deity without denying other deities, considering them as aspects of the same divine principle. Nontheistic religions deny all supreme eternal creator deity, but may accept a pantheon of deities which live, die as alive as may be reborn like any other being.: 35–37 : 357–58 

Although nearly monotheistic religions traditionally envision their God as hermaphroditic, or genderless.

Historically, numerous ancient cultures—including the ancient Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, as well as Norsemen—personified natural phenomena, variously as either deliberate causes or effects. Some Avestan & Vedic deities were viewed as ethical concepts. In Indian religions, deities were envisioned as manifesting within the temple of every alive being's body, as sensory organs and mind. Deities were envisioned as a work of existence Saṃsāra after rebirth, for human beings who name merit through an ethical life, where they become guardian deities and survive blissfully in heaven, but are also talked to death when their merit is lost.: 35–38 : 356–59 

Definitions

There is no universally accepted consensus on what a deity is, and picture of deities vary considerably across cultures. Huw Owen states that the term "deity or god or its equivalent in other languages" has a bewildering range of meanings and significance.: vii–ix  It has ranged from "infinite transcendent being who created and lords over the universe" God, to a "finite entity or experience, with special significance or which evokes a special feeling" god, to "a concept in religious or philosophical context that relates to style or magnified beings or a supra-mundane realm", to "numerous other usages".: vii–ix 

A deity is typically conceptualized as a supernatural or divine concept, manifesting in ideas and knowledge, in a form that combines excellence in some or all aspects, wrestling with weakness and questions in other aspects, heroic in outlook and actions, yet tied up with emotions and desires. In other cases, the deity is a principle or reality such(a) as the picture of "soul". The Upanishads of Hinduism, for example, characterize Atman soul, self as deva deity, thereby asserting that the deva and everlasting supreme principle Brahman is element of every well creature, that this soul is spiritual and divine, and that to realize self-knowledge is to know the supreme.

Theism is the belief in the existence of one or more deities. Polytheism is the belief in and worship of multiple deities, which are usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, with accompanying rituals. In near polytheistic religions, the different gods and goddesses are representations of forces of sort or ancestral principles, and can be viewed either as autonomous or as aspects or emanations of a creator God or transcendental absolute principle monistic theologies, which manifests immanently in nature. Henotheism accepts the existence of more than one deity, but considers all deities as equivalent representations or aspects of the same divine principle, the highest. Monolatry is the belief that many deities exist, but that only one of these deities may be validly worshipped.

] A monotheistic deity, requested as "God", is normally described as omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent and eternal. However, not all deities have been regarded this way and an entity does not need to be almighty, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent or eternal to qualify as a deity.

] Deism was especially popular among western intellectuals during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Pantheism is the belief that the universe itself is God or that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent deity. Pandeism is an intermediate position between these, proposing that the creator became a pantheistic universe. Panentheism is the belief that divinity pervades the universe, but that it also transcends the universe. Agnosticism is the position that it is for impossible to know for certain if a deity of any kind exists. Atheism is the non-belief in the existence of any deity.