Only when the naturalistic rendering has a standard, repeated typology one can speak about symbolism.
The steadily repeated way of rendering personal features is potentially the basis for an early semiology in specific cognitive fields, one of which is certainly religion.
Any force exceeding the limits of human control has some characteristics. In early societies man conceives the abstract notion of a non-controlled force (such as the notion of fertility and production) more difficultly than a concrete one.
Of course, any power exceeding the limits of human control has certain characteristics.
Hence, it is very possible that man deified those abstract notions by personifying them, i.e. by giving them human characteristics related to the abstract notions we wishes to render and which are at the same time
easily identified by the social group of his environment.
For example a penis, breasts, etc. can be easily related to fertility, production etc.
It is possible then that with time and through common acceptance man has created and instituted certain deities.
