Creating a Personal Deity

[The Sum of Awe]

Has anyone considered creating a deity? Carve a form out of wood, make a form with ceramic, or pretty much anything?

I was thinking about it. I often shout at Yahweh when I'm angry almost instinctively because that's the God I was raised to believe in. Sometimes I will thank Yahweh for the good events for the same reason. I think another helping hand in this is that I don't believe God doesn't really care, our large insignificance in the universe, and the fact that because God is the sum of reality suggests he's not going to change his mind. Ironically, though, I think dependence on exterior forces gets in the way of a more blissful life; have a friend do your assignment and you have not learned a thing, have a friend do your assignment and all of his mistakes brings the consequences back to you.

Anyways, that's why I don't plan on doing it, but I just thought I'd share my thought in case it interests somebody. To construct an object to resemble a God or act like a way to communicate with God. It'd be neat to see if this would actually work as a replacement for those who don't believe in a personal God or those who don't believe in God in general.

 

[Erebus]

Just to clarify, are you talking about creating a physical representation of an existing deity or creating an entirely new deity?

If it's the former, people do this already and have done for thousands of years. In brief, it can be helpful for people to have a physical approximation of their god rather than try to conceive of something largely alien. This is also why depictions of gods are usually heavily symbolic.

If it's the latter then it'll take a lot more than just creating a physical image (though that's certainly not a bad starting point). Think of it as being a bit like creating a character for a story, you begin with a general idea and the concept slowly starts to evolve as you write. To create a personalized deity is a similar organic process.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

If it's the latter then it'll take a lot more than just creating a physical image (though that's certainly not a bad starting point). Think of it as being a bit like creating a character for a story, you begin with a general idea and the concept slowly starts to evolve as you write. To create a personalized deity is a similar organic process.

Not necessarily. Can't one ascribe personality of it and base the details on that? In fact I don't see a need for anything beyond the personality; the physical appearance isn't meant to be literal, the connection it has with your life is found through it, the divinity of it comes in time.

 

[Erebus]

Not necessarily. Can't one ascribe personality of it and base the details on that? In fact I don't see a need for anything beyond the personality; the physical appearance isn't meant to be literal, the connection it has with your life is found through it, the divinity of it comes in time.

I agree that the physical representation is secondary to the personality. What I was trying to get at is that in order for a DIY deity to actually work, you would have to spend a lot of time tweaking it. If it's going to be something you use for emotional release, you need to have built up an emotional attachment. Again, to parallel this with a story character, I can create characters I don't really care about. I haven't spent enough time and energy to build up that emotional connection with them.
Take the Flying Spaghetti Monster for example, that started out as a little doodle on an angry letter. People thought it was funny and started to add extra personality to it. Eventually you ended up with a written gospel of the FSM, people calling themselves Pastafarians and so on.
The concept evolved from the starting point of something deliberately silly (it's still silly now, but it's a more structured and multi-layered silliness ). FSM's evolution was speeded along by the presence of a cult following though.

Ok, that's a long winded way of putting things. To summarize: Yes your idea absolutely can (and does) work, but it's not as easy to pull off as it might seem at first glance.

 

[Alt Thinker]

Have you thanked Dog today?

 

[Quintessence]

Ok, that's a long winded way of putting things. To summarize: Yes your idea absolutely can (and does) work, but it's not as easy to pull off as it might seem at first glance.

Kudos asking for clarification on Sum's question, because I was confused when I read the OP as well.

I don't feel this is as difficult as you suggest. Perhaps it's because I've always had a strong connection to the otherworlds (aka, a good imagination to the rest of you, I suppose) and my theology basically says "everything is a god." Because of that, the act of "creating" a deity isn't really an act of creation at all, but one of discovery. It's about finding something already out there and deciding to worship and revere it as sacred or special to you. This pretty much describes how I built my entire "pantheon" as my gods are not drawn from traditional Pagan pantheons.

As an example, I'd always had a big fascination and love of storms since I was a kid. When I realized Paganism was a thing and started to understand alternative theologies, I knew storms were going to be a very important component of my proverbial pantheon. There was no work involved in declaring storms to be gods. Where the work came in was developing more of a relationship with Storm Spirit. Storm Spirit is already out there for me to get to know. I feel it is the same way with "fictional" characters and creations. They're already out there. My work is in getting to know them.

 

[Erebus]

Kudos asking for clarification on Sum's question, because I was confused when I read the OP as well.

I don't feel this is as difficult as you suggest. Perhaps it's because I've always had a strong connection to the otherworlds (aka, a good imagination to the rest of you, I suppose) and my theology basically says "everything is a god." Because of that, the act of "creating" a deity isn't really an act of creation at all, but one of discovery. It's about finding something already out there and deciding to worship and revere it as sacred or special to you. This pretty much describes how I built my entire "pantheon" as my gods are not drawn from traditional Pagan pantheons.

As an example, I'd always had a big fascination and love of storms since I was a kid. When I realized Paganism was a thing and started to understand alternative theologies, I knew storms were going to be a very important component of my proverbial pantheon. There was no work involved in declaring storms to be gods. Where the work came in was developing more of a relationship with Storm Spirit. Storm Spirit is already out there for me to get to know. I feel it is the same way with "fictional" characters and creations. They're already out there. My work is in getting to know them.

I definitely think a Pantheistic/Panentheistic/Animistic viewpoint would help a great deal in this, as you've already taken the step towards making something sacred to you. As you say, they're already divine you just need to discover them.
I've always been a negative person, something is usually bad until it's proven to be good. As such I'm less likely to see something as inherently divine or sacred. Don't get me wrong, I'm entranced by the beauty of a storm and I've always enjoyed Autumn and Winter. However, I still see the world as largely hostile, unpleasant and soulless.
Obviously, this makes me much slower to trust something and incredibly slow to actually love something (even if it's my own creation). In this sense I suppose you and me are probably the flip sides of the same coin.

 

[Quintessence]

I've always been a negative person, something is usually bad until it's proven to be good. As such I'm less likely to see something as inherently divine or sacred. Don't get me wrong, I'm entranced by the beauty of a storm and I've always enjoyed Autumn and Winter. However, I still see the world as largely hostile, unpleasant and soulless.

May I ask why you feel something must be good to be divine or sacred?

I don't personally approach things from this standpoint. It's simply all divine and sacred, regardless of what judgements a human slaps onto it, whether that judgement is ascribed by myself or someone else. Storm Spirit can definitely be perceived as "hostile" to human interests given it doesn't give a crap that we exist and will lay some serious smack down on us as it passes through a given area. That doesn't make it any less worthy of worship and adoration to me, and one of the reasons I like Storm Spirit is precisely because it smacks my arrogant species upside the head and reminds them on a regular basis who the real higher powers (aka, gods) are in this universe. XD

 

[Erebus]

May I ask why you feel something must be good to be divine or sacred?

I don't personally approach things from this standpoint. It's simply all divine and sacred, regardless of what judgements a human slaps onto it, whether that judgement is ascribed by myself or someone else. Storm Spirit can definitely be perceived as "hostile" to human interests given it doesn't give a crap that we exist and will lay some serious smack down on us as it passes through a given area. That doesn't make it any less worthy of worship and adoration to me, and one of the reasons I like Storm Spirit is precisely because it smacks my arrogant species upside the head and reminds them on a regular basis who the real higher powers (aka, gods) are in this universe. XD

To me, to truly hold something to be sacred you must in some way love it or be inspired by it. Even if that thing is destructive, as in your example of the storm, it's possible to rejoice in it or at least respect it. However, since I approach things from a negative viewpoint to begin with I find myself more likely to be put off, dismayed by or wholly apathetic towards a given thing than I am to genuinely revere it.
I've always held that if you're to revere nature then you must also revere cholera, tsunamis and maggots. At one point I did indeed take a Pantheistic viewpoint and held that all these things were equally sacred. In more recent times I began to shift more towards holding that as a purely intellectual viewpoint rather than an emotional one. Eventually I could no longer honestly say that I revere nature.
I'm still finding my feet of course and may even end up moving towards a Pantheistic viewpoint again. For the time being I've found myself embracing a more limited range of things that do appeal to me on an emotional level. These things aren't necessarily considered "good" by most people, but nor are they things that I myself consider "bad".

Now I've always found this to be a difficult topic to accurately convey my thoughts on. I'm also not as careful as I should be in my choice of wording at times. With that in mind, if you want me to go into anything more in depth I'm quite happy to do so. However I also don't want to derail the thread, so it might be better to do it over PM