In the contexts in which it seriously occurs, "god" generally designates some force, entity, being or process that is affirmed as a proper object of human worship. To "worship" some X is to venerate it, address prayers and praise to it, be obedient to it, hold it in awe and as a target for ritual practice, and so on.
Although those who worship some X would seem, by their practice, to imply that it deserves their veneration and so on, there remains an important question to the outsider -- "Does the target of their worship actually deserve it?" All would agree, however, that anyone who worships something that does not deserve it worships a "false" god.
The affirmation that some X or other is a proper object of worship ( and is, hence, to be called "god") has been articulated in many ways --
- Animism - All the objects and phenomena have a soul. Worship of the ancestors , superstitions, magic
- Polytheism - Believes in several gods who act on the world
- Pantheism - Aims its worship at any and all things (either distributively or collectively), seeing them all as inhabited by spirits or beings of the sort that animism singles out.
- Henotheism - Belief in or worship of one deity without denying the existence of other deities.
- Dualism/bitheism - is the belief that two separate, complementary forces or deities exist (light/dark, wet/dry and so on).
- Deism - Believes in a creative God, first cause, who does not intervene in human business
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