While Sq’wak is labeled, “The Divine Penguin” she is not actually a god, at least not as they are generally viewed. Here is why.
What is a god? That’s a very difficult question. There are a number of candidates for gods. There’s YHWH, who turns out to be a usurper deity. as discussed in my previous post on Penguinism. There are the Greek and Roman gods. There are the Kami of Shinto. There’s the Buddha. Many of these things are called gods by some.
However, there are many times where believers reject the notion of godhood. The Buddha is considered a normal person who happened to achieve enlightenment, something that any of us could do. He is not viewed as a god by Buddhism. Similarly, the practitioners of Shinto do not view the Kami as gods. They are manifestations of a fundamental force known as Musubi. Sq’wak is the same. She is not a god, in the sense that we usually view the world. She is a product of nature herself. She is confined by the fundamental laws of nature.
Therefore Sq’wak should not be viewed of as a god, in the sense of a being which has agency and ability to violate natural law, but rather a being, which is closer to the fundamental essence of nature. In this way, Penguinism is an atheistic religion, much like Buddhism, Taoism, Shinto, etc.