Quote Originally Posted by Subteigh
Further evidence for the man-made nature of gods comes from their evolutionary history. It is a little-known fact, but gods evolve. There is a steady and gradual transformation through human history not only from polytheism to monotheism, but from gods who are touchy, foolish, randy and greedy people, who just happen to be immortal, to disembodied and virtuous spirits living in an entirely different realm and concerned mainly with virtue. Contrast the vengeful and irritable Jehovah of the Old Testament with the loving Christian God of today. Or philandering, jealous Zeus with the disembodied and pure Allah; or vengeful Hera and sweet Mary.
An understanding of Zeus as a "philanderer" evolved too. Zeus was conflated with gods from different cultures, many of which had their own mythologies about important figures being descended from the god. Or aristocrats might claim to be descended from a god. This understanding of Zeus as a "philanderer" comes from people realizing thousands of figures claim descent from Zeus and satirizing their own religion.

In early mythology gods are painted as human -- often more human than actual humans. In the Iliad you notice that people seemingly aren't written with much of a sense of agency. They're usually described as taking action either because of the influence of a god, or because of some emotion or impulse arising out of some part of their body (Achilles might act because his thumos, for instance, inspires him, but you rarely just see "Achilles acted" if some consequential decision is being described). Gods have to be "human" because they're really the only forces with agency, and everything that happens is directly due to their influence. If something good happens one day and then something bad happens the next, it's either because the god in charge of the event was capricious, or you did something wrong and he punished you. The gods are right there; you can directly experience their influence; you might even believe for whatever reason that you see the gods themselves physically in front of you. Gods might even be conflated with their representations in the form of idols; the idols might talk to you, or even move around on their own. But as people gain more an idea of agency idols go away; if there are physical representations of gods they're moved to temples, and there's an understanding that they aren't really the gods themselves. The number of gods also declines. Every force of nature you encounter doesn't necessitate a god to explain it anymore, and you maybe don't need a different god to protect every room of your house. Instead of 12,000 gods you worship you might lower that number to 12. The gods can then become more abstract -- they created the world, maybe, but don't directly cause every single blade of grass to grow or wind to blow. The idea of monotheism is also made possible: all you really need at this point is a creator god who occasionally interacts with the world.