For the theist, the cosmos is something that displays the creative power of God. But in many societies the cosmos is not the work of a single maker; rather, it has a more complex character. It has in it many various powers and beings that animate different parts of it. Thus, for example, the moon gleams at night as a sign of the power of a female spirit controlling and animating the shape-changing orb which we moderns know as a satellite of the earth.
The sun radiates heat because of the sun god. In the streams there are haunting spirits, whose silent echoes are heard every time we go to bathe or let the cattle drink. the groves murmur too (maybe) with the shadows of our ancestors. The thunderstom esxhibit the dangerous power of the sky god. So the cosmos is full of powers and gods, which are unseen but yet show themselves throughut nature. Such a belief system, in which the cosmos is controlled by gods and other unseen forces, in the west is often refffered to as animism, from a latin word meaning soul and spirit. Sometimes such system are thought of as "polytheistic", that is, invlving many gods- as dinstinguished from monotheism. Very often such many power systems also include belief in a High God, like the Roman Jupiter or the Greek Zeus, who is a supreme but who, for various reasons, may not be so easily approached or dealt with as the lesser gods nearer to human beings. In any case, it seems absurd (to many people) to deal with an exalted God about the petty matters that cause us anxiety here on earth; so in some worldviews the High God is rather remote.
Whats your view on this?