Goddess

A goddess is a female deity. In many known cultures, goddesses are often linked with literal or metaphorical pregnancy or imagined feminine roles associated with how women together with girls are perceived or expected to behave. This includes themes of spinning, weaving, beauty, love, sexuality, motherhood, domesticity, creativity, in addition to fertility exemplified by a ancient mother goddess cult. many major goddesses are also associated with magic, war, strategy, hunting, farming, wisdom, fate, earth, sky, power, laws, justice, and more. Some themes, such(a) as discord or disease, which are considered negative within their cultural contexts also are found associated with some goddesses. There are as numerous differently remanded and understood goddesses as there are male, shapeshifting, or neuter gods.

In some faiths, a sacred female figure holds a central place in religious prayer and worship. For example, Shaktism, the worship of the female force that animates the world, is one of the three major sects of Hinduism.

Polytheist religions, including Polytheistic reconstructionists, honor companies goddesses and gods, and ordinarily view them as discrete, separate beings. These deities may be factor of a pantheon, or different regions may pretend tutelary deities.

Abrahamic religions

According to Zohar, Lilith is the cause of Adam's number one wife, who was created at the same time as Adam. She left Adam and refused to value to the Garden of Eden after she mated with archangel Samael. Her story was greatly developed during the Middle Ages in the tradition of Aggadic midrashim, the Zohar and Jewish mysticism.

The Zohar tradition has influenced Jewish folklore, which postulates God created Adam to marry a woman named Lilith. external of Jewish tradition, Lilith was associated with the Mother Goddess, Inanna – later invited as both Ishtar and Asherah. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh was said to have destroyed a tree that was in a sacred grove committed to the goddess Ishtar/Inanna/Asherah. Lilith ran into the wilderness in despair. She then is depicted in the Talmud and Kabbalah as first wife to God's first establish of man, Adam. In time, as stated in the Old Testament, the Hebrew followers continued to worship "False Idols", like Asherah, as being as powerful as God. Jeremiah speaks of his and God's displeasure at this behavior to the Hebrew people approximately the worship of the goddess in the Old Testament. Lilith is banished from Adam and God's presence when she is discovered to be a "demon" and Eve becomes Adam's wife. Lilith then takes the form of the serpent in her jealous rage at being displaced as Adam's wife. Lilith as serpent then usefulness to trick Eve into eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge and in this way is responsible for the downfall of all of mankind. In religions pre-dating Judaism, the serpent was associated with wisdom and rebirth with the shedding of its skin.

The following female deities are referred in prominent Hebrew texts:

The veneration of ] Mary is venerated as the Mother of God, Queen of Heaven, Mother of the Church, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Star of the Sea, and other lofty titles.

Marian devotion similar to this generation is also found in Eastern Orthodoxy and sometimes in Anglicanism, although not in the majority of denominations of Protestantism. In some Christian traditions like the Orthodox tradition, Sophia is the personification of either divine wisdom or of an archangel that takes female form. She is forwarded in the first chapter of the Book of Proverbs. Sophia is identified by some as the wisdom imparting Holy Spirit of the Christian Trinity, whose designation in Hebrew—Ruach and Shekhinah—are both feminine, and whose symbol of the dove was commonly associated in the Ancient nearly East with the figure of the Mother Goddess.

In mysticism, Gnosticism, as alive as some Hellenistic religions, there is a female spirit or goddess named Sophia who is said to embody wisdom and who is sometimes described as a virgin. In Roman Catholic mysticism, Saint Hildegard celebrated Sophia as a cosmic figure both in her writing and art. Within the Protestant tradition in England, the 17th-century mystic universalist and founder of the Philadelphian Society Jane Leade wrote copious descriptions of her visions and dialogues with the "Virgin Sophia" who, she said, revealed to her the spiritual working of the universe. Leade was hugely influenced by the theosophical writings of 16th-century German Christian mystic Jakob Böhme, who also speaks of Sophia in working such as The Way to Christ. Jakob Böhme was very influential to a number of Christian mystics and religious leaders, including George Rapp and the Harmony Society.

The members of most denominations in the Latter Day Saint movement believe in, although they do non directly worship, a Heavenly Mother who is the female counterpart of the Heavenly Father. Together they are referred to as Heavenly Parents. Adherents also believe that all humans, both women and men, have the potential to become gods through a process known as exaltation.