So it's a common trope that beliefs give gods power, but I don't actually think that's how it works. In significant part, "power" doesn't seem like a useful way to phrase what gods do in the first place.

What I do think is that belief helps give gods *form*. How a particular god manifests and expresses themself is due in part to what folks expect of them. It's bidirectional, since a god does tell followers some about who they are. The manifestation is negotiated.

@starkatt And yeah in general, I cannot overestimate how spot-on this is, in my experience. I would like to re-post a very resonant quote that I found of, in all things, a tabletop RPG book:

"The Gods don’t need humans, but they do need humanity — not to exist, not to maintain their power, but as a mirror. Human worship is the way by which the Gods know themselves."

@indi @starkatt Which in turn, also explains why most deities themselves look like humans, notable exceptions (much of the Egyptian, Aztec and some of the Hindu pantheon, among others) aside.

@Thaminga @starkatt See, funny thing about that, they don't look human to me. The only attested God I've worked with heavily is Lugh, who was always in my head as a big imposing golden-glowing wolf anthro. Theriomorphy is so much a part of my internal symbolset that of course it's going to play a part in how a deity looks to me.

@indi @Thaminga @starkatt I think people see immaterial things through personal filters; for a long time, I saw everything through dragon-filters, so everything looked like dragons to me. a lot of things that looked like dragons to me *weren't* actually dragons; but that's how I was able to perceive/understand them. I think human-shaped is the default human perception standard, for obvious reasons. XD