![]() The Shinto faith in Japan taught that all Japanese people were descended from a female ancestor called Amaterasu.Īnthropomorphic gods are depicted in ancient art found at archaeological sites all over the world. Norse myths spoke of twelve great gods and twenty-four goddesses who lived in a region above the earth called Avgard. The avatars of the Hindu god Vishnu possessed human forms and qualities. Greek gods such as Zeus and Apollo were often depicted in human form exhibiting both commendable and despicable human traits. Anthropomorphic gods exhibited human qualities such as beauty, wisdom, and power, and sometimes human weaknesses such as greed, hatred, jealousy, and uncontrollable anger. Some anthropomorphic gods represented specific human concepts, such as love, war, fertility, beauty, or the seasons. They feasted on special foods, and sometimes required sacrifices of food, beverage, and sacred objects to be made by human beings. The gods fell in love, married, had children, fought battles, wielded weapons, and rode horses and chariots. ![]() These gods resemble human beings not only in appearance and personality they exhibited many human behaviors which were used to explain natural phenomena, creation, and historical events. The Roman god Apollo is an anthropomorphic representation of the Sun.Īncient mythologies frequently represented the divine as a god or gods with human forms and qualities. ![]() Anthropomorphism, then, is taken to be fundamentally flawed, and only manifests popular ignorance. From that perspective, anthropomorphic conceptions of deity are indeed projections of human qualities on the ineffable. This resemblance implies some kind of kinship between human beings and God, especially between humanity’s moral being and God.įor philosophically-minded theists and adherents to theological systems such as Vedanta, the essence of God is impersonal Being, the "ground of being." Omnipotent, omnipresent, and uncaused, God is totally incommensurate with creation. In most belief systems, the deity or deities existed before humans, and therefore humans were created in the form of the divine. From the perspective of believers of a religion where the deity or deities have human characteristics, it may be more accurate to describe the phenomenon as “theomorphism,” or the giving of divine qualities to humans, instead of anthropomorphism, the giving of human qualities to the divine. Since most religious beliefs are homocentric, concerned with questions such as the purpose of humanity’s existence, the origin of human beings, and humanity’s place in the universe, many belief systems assign human attributes to the divine. Computer science studies and attempts to emulate the processes of the human brain in technology. The modern science of robotics, which develops machines to carry out automated tasks or enhance human performance, employs anthropomorphism to engage human beings intellectually and emotionally with machines or computers. ![]() In technology and science, the behavior of machines and computers is sometimes described in terms of human behavior. ![]() Early Hebrew monotheism scriptural representations of God are replete with human attributes, however, they lack comparable attributions of human vices.Īnthropomorphism is frequently used as a device in art, literature, and film to convey the author’s message through a symbolic animal or object with human qualities. In early polytheistic religions human qualities and emotions-including passions, lusts and petty willfulness-were readily identified with the divinities. Polytheistic and monotheistic faiths have apprehended the nature of divine being(s) in terms of humans characteristics. The term comes from two Greek words, άνθρωπος (anthrōpos), meaning "human," and μορφή (morphē), meaning "shape" or "form." The suffix "-ism" originates from the morpheme "-isma" in the Greek language.Īnthropomorphism has significantly shaped religious thought. God, animals, the forces of nature, and unseen or unknown authors of chance are frequent subjects of anthropomorphosis. Michelangelo's painting of God in the Sistine Chapel is a well-known example of anthropomorphism in religion.Īnthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics and qualities to non-human beings, objects, natural, or supernatural phenomena. ![]()
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