anthropopathy

/ˌænθɹəˈpɒpəθi/

Etymology

From anthropo- + -pathy.

anthropopathy means The attribution of human emotions to a god. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 77 out of 100.

Why this word is great

ANTHROPOPATHY — [Noun] The attribution of human emotions or passions to a god or deity. From Medieval Latin anthropopathia, from Greek anthrōpopatheia ("human feeling, humanity"), from anthrōpo- ("human") + pathos ("feeling, suffering"). Unlike anthropomorphism (which clothes the divine in human shape) or apathy (which denotes a chilling absence of feeling), anthropopathy is the precise, intimate graft of our most volatile interior states onto the divine. It is the jealous God of the Old Testament, the weeping of a marble Madonna in a forgotten chapel, or the storm god nursing a petty grudge—a testament less to the nature of the gods than to our own terrifying inability to conceive of a consciousness untouched by fury, love, or sorrow. In the end, it is a confession of the human: our ultimate loneliness demanding that even the cosmos must care.

noun

The attribution of human emotions to a god.“In its recoil from the gross anthropopathy of the vulgar notions, it falls into the vacuum of absolute apathy.”