User blog comment:20thCentFopp/Thought-Form and Thor: What is the Nature of Asgard?/@comment-4652104-20131130085915

Well, Fear Itself quite explicitly states that Odin razed the Earth in order to stop the Serpent. So he predates any known human society.

On the other hand, the God Squad (lead by Hercules during the Secret Invasion) and the God Butcher (first few issues of the current Thor God of Thunder series) stories indicate that most races in the universe have gods and that there is some connection between the gods and their worshippers. Yet, when gods are killed new gods do not arise in their place from faith alone.

So all in all, my guess would be that the gods are a race of otherdimensional beings, that predates their worshippers to some extent, but who also have a special connection to them.

The Asgardians are somewhat unique, because they have connections to a number of worlds (which are dimensions).