I see many people refer to various named or nameless gods in their fanfiction and even official channels use the word God or diety when describing beings such as Avatars. This perplexes me as I remember reading a theros story that stated that very few planes had few true gods. As in not the plane-creating variety-I'm looking at you Eldrazi-but the Olympus God variety-Theros Gods.

My use of the term is fairly liberal. You can have natives of a particular continent refer to something on that continent, like the salaxlotl (fire-breathing salamanders) as gods because the salaxlotl is an economic resource for them. That doesn't mean that they are literally gods in the sense of the Theros gods. Another continent may have had an empire of ouphes that found a way to bind powerful elementals to idols of sticks and stones...then a later tribe might come across these idols and worship them as gods because of the bound elementals...but they're still not gods in the Theros sense of the term.

What is a god?
What defines it?

Many planes have creatures that are worshipped and if they're powerful enough to not be challenged, who can say they aren't gods?
...barring the creature type.

If it's worshipped then it's a god.

But as far as we know Theros gods are the only gods without a spirit or avatar subtitle. Maybe ironically showing them to be less divine...

How Multiverse came into existence ?
How colors of mana were created ? They aren't simple groups of attracted dots/probability blobs... They represent complex concepts, that only make sence in context of sentient beings, who are as well overwhelmingly complicated.
How planes are born ? Is there literally an infinite number of them ? If so, how something can ever change the state of Multiverse as a whole ? How actions/people can be judged, if literally infinite amount of their perfect copies happens at every moment in time ?
Who decided that 50% of planes would have some race aligned with green mana, having absolutely the same anatomy in most cases, but drastically different in some, but allways having long ears and called Elves ?
Are laws of physics same over the Multiverse ? If not, what is the probability of a planeswalker disintegrating at arrival on a plane with slightly different speed of light/mana ? If yes, why some planes have Gods and "clap your hands if you believe" effect, and others don't ? (Borrowed from TVTROPES)
10% of the theme, just to start

I'd rather that most of that was left up to us the imagine. You might get some more insight into Gods come Amonkhet though.

edit

Planes Birth - We know that not even the best of the old 'walkers could pull this off - Serra's was in danger of collapsing.

That disappointment is what happens when it isn't story based around the world, but world - around the story.

I actually would be thrilled to see Theran Avatars, which is what my big guess about Ajani's role on Theros coukd have *evolved into. Using his "soul magic" in conjuction with the magic of Nyx to create avatars of the gods. I think it would be crummy but fun fanfiction consisting of Ajani doing just that and the Avatar of Thassa resembling a starry merfolk resembling Kiora lol

I've got used to it, but admittedly, I thought God was a really stupid creature type when it came out. Before Theros, divinity in Magic had always been in the eye of the beholder. Beings like Progenitus, Karona, Freyalise, the Eldrazi titans, Nayas gargantuans, the kami, Yawgmoth etc. that were all very different from each other had been worshipped in various ways and called 'gods' by different people. Just labelling a creature a 'God' in the typeline seems pretty lame to me, even though it helps with the epic feel they were going for. At the end of the day, the Theran gods aren't really different from avatars, they're just manifestations of things and ideas.

I had never really though about how Ajani's soul magic might interact with Nyx, but the possibilities are interesting. Ajani's magic is pretty awesome in general. I can just imagine a crazy alternate universe in which Ajani used his magic to thwart Ashiok's plans on Theros.

Thread necromancy, I know, but I wonder if Amonkhet's gods will in fact be "gods", considering that the setting seems to go all Stargate

Pretty sure Bolas made them. Wouldn't stop them from being gods though.

Yeah, given how absurdly powerful even Bolas's mere presence was pre-Mending, I don't doubt for a second that he could have created five beings that are roughly on par with the Theros gods. They're probably connected to the plane somehow. I wonder if they're going to be coloured artifact creatures or some gimmick like that. They look like they could be, and we're just coming out of an artifact themed block, which means I would expect some cross block synergy.

Random speculation: What if at least one of the gods is going to be crucial for stopping the 'hour of devastation'? Maybe it's Bolas's plan to blow up Amonkhet for some reason (e.g. to get the mana) and one of the gods develops a mind of his/her own and doesn't want to be destroyed?

Yes, but Creative could give them a "false god" shtick by having them be avatars or planeswalkers.

They're definitely not planeswalkers. Not giving them walker cards would start riots.
And honestly, they explicitly said there would be gods. They have the technology now to do that and I'm not seeing much reason not to follow through on it.

They gave the Theros gods a 'false god shtick' too in a way, at least in the story, but they were still God creatures. I think making them artifact creatures would be a clever way of conveying that they're 'false'.

That's a lie.

He believes in himself.

Bolas created the gods pre-Mending. What if the gods are now more powerful than Bolas (at least on Amonkhet)?

C'mon, it's Bolas. He surely built in a failsafe.
And mending or no, he still has his brain scramble touch.