Marcotte, you are the wind beneath my wings.

I hereby propose the founding of a Cult of Tefnut with Marcotte as Grand Poohbah. Our rituals shall consist of Panda Parties, foody-ism, and Rick Perry internet memes. Our arch-nemesis demon shall be Billy Corgan, because really, who else.

So it is written, so it shall be done.

Tefnut is pretty cool!

I think that I would probably pray to Irony. She kills herself in despair every night because she just can’t stand the stupidity, but then is reborn whole and happy every morning, ready for a new day of uncovering the connections between all things and their opposites. I think that’s pretty comforting, even though I totally made it up.

Eris, of course.  As an atheist, extremely lazy, nominal Discordian, She would be very displeased with me if I didn’t.

I pray to Bast.  I reckon cats are too much the smug little bastards NOT to know something…

I am presently researching a heroquest into the godrealm based on her mythology.  Does anyone know where I can get a squeaky toy approximately the size of an ox?

I want to be a conformist atheist, so I will also choose Tefnut.

I’m a fan of “Mary Mother of God.” “Mary Mother of Pearl.”

Also any of the Greek Pantheon. Something for everyone.

Right now, my house is a hot mess so I might do a little prayin’ to Hestia.

I pray to the cat god Harriet that she not eat me while I’m sleeping.

I’m raised Jewish, but have never had a problem with “Christmas” displays or any other religious beliefs or non-beliefs as long as they don’t try to push it on me. At NYU, I would often eat by myself because of my schedule, and that’s when the ‘born-agains’ would try to sit down to have conversation since I obviously needed a friend in their minds. I always wanted to tell them I worship Zeus or that I was a druid and by writing on paper they defiled my g-d.

Given the other comments, I’m embarrassed to admit that at times I still wish there were a Christian God to pray to. I was brought up christian, and the mental activity of praying is something that feels almost primal therefore. I’ve admitted to myself that I’m an atheist for about 2 years now, and I’m still re-training my reflexes. It is increasingly uncommon for my prayer reflex to be activated, but there are still times that I have to consciously go through the process of reminding myself that there is no God (or even god) to pray to.

A psychological fact is that people revert to old, comfortable behavior when under stress. Given how deeply ingrained prayer was in my psyche, it is quite possible that I will revert to that behavior when I am about to die. Does that mean that I have an underlying belief that prayer makes any sense, and that this belief will be “unearthed” before I die? No. It simply means that I may revert to a pre-rational state in that stressful situation.

So, unfortunately, if I pray to a non-existent god before I die, it will almost uncertainly be to the Christian God. I hope that I will have rooted out enough of the irrational crap that I grew up believing by the time I die that I will not succumb to that reflex. I would like to live and die as a rational being. However, I know that it is still possible that I will revert to more primitive thoughts and behavior at that time. I’ll just have to wait and see…

I pray to Azathoth, or, more specifically, to his handlers.  What if they get tired or miss a beat?  The blind idiot god rolls over and destroys reality, that’s what.

Zeus and Loki get most of my screentime when I need something supernatural to blame. Pantheon mixing is the bestest.

That being said, we had a long conversation last night amongst friends as to the best way to inform religious parents that you really weren’t doing the whole Christianity thing anymore, and the difference between the responses of the males and the females was particularly striking. Perhaps it was the fact that most of the guys were also gay - and therefore had already disappointed their parents in a major way - but they were all in the “um, why don’t you just tell your mom you’re not going” camp, whereas the girls were all in the “ooo, yeah, not sure how to do that - pretend you’re sick?” camp. Very marked difference in how we were socialized to respond to that situation, thought it was worth sharing.

I was going to say “The Flying Spaghetti Monster,” but I think Tefnut now wins.

I don’t have a god figure to pray to (I’ll have to work on that), but one of the major demons in my invented theology is Cheney, God of Dickishness, a poltergeist whose assholish pranks are played out on a grand scale.

(For instance, continually implying that Iraq was behind 9/11 as a context for the invasion and occupation of Iraq and the murder of hundreds-of-thousands of innocent civilians, or passing himself off as a great military tactical and strategic expert who has no actual experience of war, having weaseled out of the Vietnam War draft on multiple occasions).

He is depicted as a giant phallus wearing a business man’s suit, rigidly tumescent in his evil while simultaneously limp and spent in his humanity, and wearing a serial killer’s evil smirk at all times.  He sometimes carries a bird-hunter’s shotgun, with which he shoots people in the face, should it strike his fancy.

While impressively scary on the outside, he is actually completely hollow on the inside — except for his mechanical heart, whose hum can be heard reverberating inside him when he’s not noisily promoting another of his evil pranks, and a teeny-tiny box which contains his last shred of human decency, enclosed by an impressive array of chains and locks to ensure it can’t escape and express itself…

Saint IgGNUcius:  http://stallman.org/saint.html

@Stan #9 - props to you for admitting it. Prayer was never a big thing in my life when growing up Catholic, so I don’t miss it. (Mostly what I have to negotiate now are the standard AmE phrases like “oh my god” or “thank god” that imply theistic belief.) But I can imagine that if you grew up prayerful, it would definitely be something that would be difficult to replace with rational things, particularly prayer in the Christian style.

As I recall, Christians tend to god-bother when they’re actually powerless to change something (say, family member with cancer) or when it’s easier than actually doing something (pray or donate money/time/goods to the homeless? pray.), and those aren’t easy things to be rational about. You have to rationally come to terms with the fact that you’re just powerless and wait (which humans are really bad at), or come to terms with the fact that you’re lazy/stingy, and that paints a not-great picture of yourself.

I pray to Vergama, the god of artists and writers:

No idols were wrought in the image of Vergama, no altars were dedicated to him: yet sometimes he was addressed in prayer by savage peoples, or was called upon with-dark runic formulae by the more venturous wizards. Some claimed that the prayers and the incantations were answered; but this, like all else that concerned Vergama, was a matter of much doubt. Curious and almost omnipotent powers were ascribed to him, and attributes of tremendous bale and benignity; but there was no virtual proof of their manifestation at any time.

If I were limited to official mythologies, I would -as a fan of first principles- have to go with Nyx (though given proto-Indo-European scholarship, I supposed her original name would have been something like Nakt), considering that she and Khaos are the “parents” of all the deities that came after.  Beside, her “portfolio” covers all manner of interesting topics including death, sleep, dreams, plans, oaths, monsters, and motherhood.

Given that all of these deities are just as fictional as the stuff found in game systems, however, I’d likely go with my favorite Elder Scrolls Daedra Prince and Nyx-equivalent, Mephala.  The Fate-Spinner embraces us all; just so.

Hmm. Probably more of an agnostic than an actual atheist—if there is a G-d, I’d like to hope it’s something so much bigger than the puny human mind can conceive ... I left the Catholic Church after my brother was killed in a car wreck—despite years of belief, there was no one in that room in the funeral home except me, and a body that used to be my brother. However, I did take the Virgin of Guadalupe with me—in part because she’s really a Toltec goddess in disguise, and mostly just because I like her. We have a thing, the two of us (also, appalls my class-conscious Irish Catholic mother for good measure).
What can I say? I sometimes pray still, but have let go of the belief part—if I “pray” it’s to remind myself to listen to my own better angels, not because I think anyone “out there” is going to answer/give me what I want.

Didn’t Hitchens deputize a couple of friends to defend his atheist reputation against this very thing when he died? He saw it coming.

I’m with PiatoR on Bast. I’m sure mine sees me as her obedient high priest. She is very displeased because I won’t let her sleep on my keyboard right now, so I’ll be feeling her wrath shortly…..

I think I’ll go for the Norse pantheon. They’re fun, but at the end of the world they lose. I find that rather reassuring. No-one’s going to slaughter people trying to convert them to a punch of gods who end up going down with the ship. The Vikings might slaughter you, of course, but at least they wouldn’t pretend if was for the sake of your soul.

*bunch* of gods, that is.

I kind of want to go with Loki, the Norse trickster god, but I don’t think he’d be very helpful in a crisis.

I go with Apollo, Greek god of light and the sun, truth and prophecy, healing, plague, music, poetry, and more. I’m mostly interested in the sun part, since the energy in every one of my thoughts, words, and actions throughout my entire life originated in the sun (with very minor exceptions). The sun makes life possible, and as it expands into a red giant it will eventually boil off the oceans and extinguish life from our little planet. It’s an unstoppable, unfeeling, giant, nuclear furnace that grants us life and will eventually burn the world to a cinder. You can’t find a better god than that.

Why pick when you can make one up on your own? :D isn’t that how it was always done? The god I’d create is Xeximidos, it’s a Swiss Army knife of gods, so I can pray to it for multiple things, but the most important two are keeping me employed and getting me laid.

But when I’m in public, or on Facebook, I usually substitute Zeus whenever a phrase calls for the invoking of god, just so my religious friends can see how silly it is.

In their smugness (a smugness born of the knowledge that social convention has their back, of course), theists often confuse comforting thoughts with true ones. I mean, I understand the impulse to believe that there’s some deity I can ask favors from. I wish I could shake my fist at the universe from time to time and the universe would actually listen; I imagine we all do. But that doesn’t make it true.

Add to that, of course, the fact that there’s absolutely nothing comforting about the Christian god if you put more than three seconds of thought into it.

I also want to point out how insidious and disgusting this tactic is. They know they can’t come out and say that Hitchens converted on his deathbed. But they can say “he probably did” or “he may of” or “I wouldn’t be surprised if” and they can repeat that ad nauseum across the internet. Then a few years from now when people have forgotten how they heard the information and about the subtle caveats attached they’ll just say “I remember a lot of people talking about Hitchens praying to God in his final moments.” And from there it’ll just be an accepted fact among Christians. It’s the height of dishonesty and cowardice to put thoughts into a dying man’s head after he is gone.

I’m surprised no one has mentioned Sterculius, the Roman god of feces, yet. How can you *not* respect a god who defecates on an entire stadium of people watching a Monster Truck Madness event?

Bonus points for said defecation also including Beavis and Butthead, who were in the audience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBHYM0SWxqc

To be quite honest, the God of dumb luck… it is kind of sad praying to nothing though. Yeah, I got issues.

That ‘bet Hitchens prayed’ thing especially bothers me in the light of his last Vanity Fair piece ( http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/01/hitchens-201201 )—I’ve had lots of problems with him, but reading that, the honesty with which he faced his medical treatment & the prospect of death, just made me want to say ‘thank you.’

If I had to pick a god? I think I’d go with Ceiling Cat, or whoever it is that guards that ‘rainbow bridge.’ I think eternity in a place filled with pets is much more attractive than one filled with people.

Nineveh @21: I think “a punch of gods” works quite well for the gaggle of Norse deities…

CROOOOM!

with an occasional hat tip to Lovecraftian mythos because a part of me will always be a 16 year-old goth kid responding to “God Bless” with a friendly “Phnglui mglw nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah nagl fhtagn”

@Heron: Nyx isn’t the parent of subsequent deities and didn’t birth anything with Chaos. Or am I just to focused on the Theogony and you’re talking about something else?

It tends to depend on what fantasy fandom I’m most obsessed with. For most of my teen years it would have been Elbereth; these days, it might be the Seven, or the Endless.

She’s a Tefnut to crack.

Eh I still don’t pray. However, if it all turns out to be true, I bet that Guanyin will take me to the western pure land anyway.

Guanyin is a stand up lady who would not let a little thing like disbelief get in the way of her whole goddess of compassion and mercy gig.

Triplanetary @ #24: Thank you for pointing that out; I was trying to put my finger on something similar but couldn’t find the words. Yes, comfort vs. truth. Two very different things. Even Christians have moments like that. “I wish I’d never been born,” for example. Frank Capra made a famous Christmas movie about that, and in the end, George Bailey takes back what he said, realizing it was a temporary reaction to a sudden trauma.

as a confirmed lunatic, my prayers go to my Lady Moon.

I’ll worship Orlanth, thank you very much.

To myself, of course.  I’m the only consciousness that can read my thoughts and that regularly does something about them.  It may not be supernatural, but anyone who’s ever said “God helps those who help themselves” is secretly practicing a form of that “religion.”  Anyway, it’s a trick question, because even if I did yell out for Tefnut in the end, I’d still be praying to myself.

I think it would be disingenuous of me to pretend that I treat my cat as anything less than a minor, difficult-to-placate deity, but I don’t think I’ve ever exactly prayed to her. Maybe I should start.

I’m a practicing Christian, and I find this offensive.  NO, not the joking about gods.  The speculation about whether Christopher Hitchens prayed as he died.  Not my business!  The man was an atheist!  I would assume he meant it, and didn’t pray.  And the numbskulls “just wondering if”  he did can go blow goats.

I do not always pray, but when I do, I pray to Cthulhu that he will devour the souls of all the world’s religious nutjobs.

I’d go with either Anansi, a West African trickster/ spider god, or Tlazolteotl, the Aztec goddess of motherhood, sex and “Eater of Filth”. They’re kind of creepy in their own ways but still cool.

I secretly pray to the god of atheism. The god of atheism goes around snuffing out religion. By praying to the god of atheism, I ensure my own prayers are snuffed out by the god who snuffs out zirself through my belief in zie. Most devotees of this god end up dying of brain implosion.

In middle school I invented Aveism, a religion I pretended to be very serious about, and a whole pantheon to go with it involving the Duckie God, the Almighty Chicken, the Chicken of Death, and the Ugly Turkling.

Sometime in high school I got called into a guidance counselor’s office because I had doodled the lyrics to a song that was stuck in my head in the margins of a paper I never thought would be turned in (“Dear God,” as it happened) and it apparently worried the teacher or something. They asked me if I was happy and if I had friends. I laughed t the absurdity of the situation and said yes to both. Then they asked me if I believed in God.  I started to lay the whole poultry pantheon out for them, got about halfway through, and noticed the expression on the woman’s face and thought that maaaaybe that hadn’t been the best idea, hahaha… they cut me loose though and didn’t bother me again.

I worship J.S. Bach. Also, there are Rick Perry ads (“Stop the liberals [sic] war on religion!”) coming up for me on this post, which is hilarious. Boy are they barking up the wrong tree!

I’ve been seriously considering taking up some form of Sun/Earth worship.  They exist, provide us with everything we need to live, it might be reasonable to consider them appropriate objects for worship.  Gods?  I mean, sure, why not?  As much as anything.

Prayer, I don’t know about.  I suppose they’re as good as any other gods at answering prayers, although if you dressed up “fixing your own damn problems” as “praying”, then they might be better.

<quote>I’d go with either Anansi, a West African trickster/ spider god</quote>

As long as it’s Neil Gaiman’s version, I’m in. 

Better yet, let’s just pray to Neil Gaiman.

It’s gotta be Dionysus, for I am a both/and girl.

Leprechauns.

Better yet, let’s just pray to Neil Gaiman.

I used to go drinking with Neil. You really don’t want to pray to him.

I like trees.  They’re impassive and yet giving, standing high into the sky to protect the ground from frost and sun burn.  And some can be thousands of years old.  The trees around my house are only a hundred, but they’re really all clones of each other, and of the thousand year old trees who stood there before they do.  Immortal, after all.

Then again, I’m oft to pray to streetlights.  They get to control my life directly when I’m on the street, after all.

I’m going to go with Arduinna, the Gaulish goddess of the Ardennes Forest. All I know about her is that she rides around the place on the back of a giant pig, but, honestly, that’s all I need to know.

We are not a religious family.  But reading shade (at #35), I recall my three year old son, sitting outside at night, talking to the moon.  Saying, “Don’t be lonely, my Moon Lady.  I will come to visit you someday.”  (“Don’t be woney, my Moon Wadey…”)

He’s older now, has all the consonants.

I was raised Catholic, but even as a 7 year-old, it made no sense to me.

For instance, mortal sins, for which you were sent to hell forever and ever were murder, adultery—and missing Mass on Sunday.

One of these things is not like the others.

Unless, you confessed your sin before you were run over by a milk truck. (Still had those when I was a kid.)

So I’m going with Bast, and I’m an acolyte to ones of her living saint, going so far as to home-cook his food, now that he’s 15.

Hey, it saves on vet bills, as well.

I do not always pray, but when I do, I pray to Cthulhu

Are you, by chance, this man?

Bast was also the goddess of ointments and perfume.

I like smelling pretty, and at my age, the ointments will come in handy.

“Herodotus also relates that of the many solemn festivals held in Egypt, the most important and most popular one was that celebrated in Bubastis in honour of the goddess, whom he calls Bubastis and equates with the Greek goddess Artemis.[6][7] Each year on the day of her festival, the town is said to have attracted some 700,000 visitors (“as the people of the place say”), both men and women (but not children), who arrived in numerous crowded ships. The women engaged in music, song and dance on their way to the place, great sacrifices were made and prodigious amounts of wine were drunk, more than was the case throughout the year.[8] This accords well with Egyptian sources which prescribe that leonine goddesses are to be appeased with the “feasts of drunkenness”.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastet

Even if an atheist prays right before death, so what?  Doesn’t that actually prove the atheist argument that religion is a crutch, based on fear, and isn’t useful in life until the last minute or so?  Ditto for the “no atheist in a foxhole” meme.  I used to think it was offensive, but it now just seems laughable and proves the atheist right.

“Herodotus also relates that of the many solemn festivals held in Egypt, the most important and most popular one was that celebrated in Bubastis in honour of the goddess, whom he calls Bubastis and equates with the Greek goddess Artemis.[6][7] Each year on the day of her festival, the town is said to have attracted some 700,000 visitors (“as the people of the place say”), both men and women (but not children), who arrived in numerous crowded ships. The women engaged in music, song and dance on their way to the place, great sacrifices were made and prodigious amounts of wine were drunk, more than was the case throughout the year.[8] This accords well with Egyptian sources which prescribe that leonine goddesses are to be appeased with the “feasts of drunkenness”.[2]

I am now envisioning a urban fantasy book in which it is revealed that Spring Break is a secret Bubastis ritual designed to bring ultimate power…

Marduk

Marduk rules; he totally does!

When I pray, it’s usually to Squat, Goddess of Parking Places (and other rare things).  The traditional invocation is “Oh, Squat!”

Think of this the next time you park the car—read the Signs, call the Quarters, and sacrifice to Demeter!

I’ll worship Orlanth, thank you very much.

Given my nature, I’m sorta limited to Xiola Umbar or Kyger Litor…

@28 -

whoever it is that guards that ‘rainbow bridge.’

If you mean the Bifrost Bridge of Norse mythology, that would be Heimdal.

For myself, I’d go with Tiamat. Not so much for her actual mythology, but the draconic aspect lent by D&D stuff. Born in the year of the dragon myself, and my son is obsessed with them (he’s two… it’s okay). We even saw a dragon skeleton yesterday (they took deer antlers and put them on a crocodile skeleton at the Japanese zoo we went to, because next year is year of the dragon again).

I like Albert Cirrus’s answer at #57. Also, I’m reminded of an anecdote concerning the great gadfly and cynic W.C. Fields. During the last days of his life he was laid up in a hospital bed dying from stomach hemorrhage caused by his years of excessive drinking. A friend came to visit and found old Bill flipping through the Bible. Obviously, this was a bit of a puzzler, and when asked, Fields responded, “I’m checking for loopholes.”

These days, I pray to Willie Nelson. I’ve met Willie and talked with him, which is more than I can say about any other possible object of worship. He’s a really nice guy and I think if someone were to come to him with a serious problem, he’d do what he could to help out. Plus, he’s got a lot of friends and everyone loves Willie, so I think he’d get folks to help you if he couldn’t directly. And if nothing else, he’d offer you a hit of some truly excellent weed.

Praying is pointless, as the deity is just a guy in a room seemingly randomly hitting buttons.

@59

Mardok desires not the barren wastelands of your dessicated viscera!

Also thanks to my mythology expert sweetheart for pointing out that Marduk is a real deity.  Well, as real as an imaginary being can be, anyway.

Porcelain God

The biggest problem with Pascal’s wager is that I only have 1 life to live and I don’t want to waste it on church stuff and feeling guilty on the off chance that being good will get me a place in heaven.  But if I have ten seconds of life left and I’m not busy… sure, why not?

No, no, no, you got it all wrong.  You gotta start by asking Papa Legba to open the crossroads so you can call Baron Samedi and make your appeal to him.  Don’t forget that both of them like chicken—and that Baron likes rum.

There is only ONE god
He is the SUN god
Ra! Ra! Ra!

10 million points to felagund.

If only. I swiped it from Robert Anton Wilson’s “Illuminatus! Trilogy”.

There is only one prayer: Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.

Given the other comments, I’m embarrassed to admit that at times I still wish there were a Christian God to pray to

I don’t think this is so unusual.  One of the hardest things to do is to accept that you can do nothing.  Prayer is very tempting to a lot of people because it makes them feel less powerless and frustrated.

About 9 months ago, my cat nearly died.  He was even in the pet hospital overnight because he needed IV hydration.  I and the vets thought it was probably organ failure or cancer, and I figured that I would have to put him to sleep, but I wanted a diagnosis first because I was willing to try to get a few more weeks or months if it wouldn’t mean much suffering for him.  That whole night I was understandably sad, and because of my history with pets, my OCD, and living alone except for this cat, I was sadder than most people would be.  I wished I could pray.  I wished that there were some magical entity that could do me a favor.  But that’s when I knew with absolute certainty that I am now a genuine atheist and no longer agnostic.  Because as much as I wished for there to be a god, I just couldn’t convince myself to even pretend it was true.  I desperately wanted to believe, but I just couldn’t, not even for a comforting minute.  I understand why it’s so comforting to people and why it’s so hard for some people to give up religion.

Just so I don’t leave anyone hanging, my cat turned out to only have a UTI.  It was a pretty severe infection, but antibiotics cleared it right up.  He’s sitting on my lap and purring right now.

And if I have to pick a deity to pray to, I’ll go with Dionysus.  I might as well get some good wine out of it.

Although I have to admit that tomorrow morning when I wake up with dry eyes, dry mouth, and dry skin, Tefnut might be able to win me over as a convert.  Winter sucks because everything is so dry and the skin on my hands gets so painful.

I’m something of a Chesterton atheist—my current FB religious affiliation reads “agnostic snake-handler”—but it seems to me that the obvious god for atheists to pray to would be Mantorok, the corpse god. Who else stood against the fleshy predations of Chattur’gha? Who exhausted the reality-bending powers of Ulyaoth? Who gazed open-eyed into the depraved maw of Xel’lotath?

All hail Mantorok!

All hail Mantorok!

All hail Mantorok!

Yep, if I find myself facing my imminent death, I’m in good shape.

Nemesis, Ishtar, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; deities for all my most important priorities.

Din, Nayru, and Farore. One of these days I hope to have my prayers answered and be given a second hookshot.

Gozer the Traveler. He will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During the rectification of the Vuldrini, the traveler came as a large and moving Torg! Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the McKetrick supplicants, they chose a new form for him: that of a giant Slor! Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!

You might not know this but the Greek myths have gods created by masturbation. There was some legend of a snake monster under the acropolis. This monster was the protector of Athens. It was created when Hephaestus was jerking off while watching Athena, who was wearing a cloak lined with snakes at the time.

Hephaestus’ semen landed on the acropolis and soaked into the soil which gave birth to a snake monster. An Athenian priestess would sacrifice two cakes to the monster every month. She’d leave the cakes out at night, by morning they would be gone.  During the second Persian war there was a debate over the meaning of the “wooden walls” prophecy. Some took it literally and said they should build extra fortifications around Athens. Others took it metaphorically and said the “wooden walls” referred to the powerful Athenian navy. This second group suggested the radical plan of evacuating most of the city and assembling a large allied naval force near Salamis to crush Persia’s supply lines.

The debate wasn’t settled until the a few days later when the cake-offering was made. The cakes were still there in the morning. Almost everyone started to evacuate the city. If the snake monster leaves, the people need to leave too.

#63

“I’m checking for loopholes.”

The Bible is “holey.”

How about praying to the God who made Tim Tebow lose and Kim Jong Il die on the same day.

@30 Scrummy: Nyx isn’t the parent of subsequent deities and didn’t birth anything with Chaos. Or am I just to focused on the Theogony and you’re talking about something else?

I was mixing up Khaos and Erebus apparently, so my bad :/ As to being the parent of the other gods, she’s either the first, or one of the first deities to arises from Khaos, the Orphics either considered her the demiurge itself or the first child of Phanes the demiurge, and some writers (Aristophanes in The Birds most notably, though that’s a satirical work) portray her and Erebus as the initial couple from whom Uranus and Gaia, thence the Titans, thence the Olympians, are descended.  This, combined with how many temples included small niches for her worship, has always seemed to suggest to me that she, Khaos, and Erebus were either originally considered to be synonymous as the initial crative force, or she the original demiurge that shaped Khaos into other stuff, or that Nyx and Erebus were the initial pairing that gave rise to the chain of parental couple->male child-cannibalism/female child-monopolization->patricide->marrying your sister which Zeus broke.

From here I’ll be getting far more speculative.  I certainly see the difficulties in extrapolating pre-Archaic beliefs from Orphic beliefs and post-Hesiod writers, but Hesiod’s Theogony has always sort of bugged me.  It’s late so I don’t really want to go into it too much, but it’s rather obvious that he set out as much to organize as to record the religious and mythological landscape, as it were, and some of the stuff in the Theogony -like the personified gods- has always seemed more an attempt at organization and simplification than what was genuinely believed regarding the older gods.  I’ll give an example.  We know that most of the Olympians had multiple personas because each was given it’s own name; there’s Pallas Athena (Athena the warrior), Athena Parthenos (Athena the virgin), Olympian Zeus (Zeus the King of the Gods), Zeus Velchanos (Zeus the Boy of Crete), Apollo the Protector and Apollo the bringer of disease, ect. ect.  Yet in the Theogony Hesiod presents the older gods as being largely unitary; Nyx is just Night, Erebus is just Shadow, and Khaos -unlike it’s Near Eastern equivalents- isn’t even personified but merely a formless mass of nothingness that could be somethingness.  In a similar way, we see Hesiod often cast as “children” of the Olympians aspects which we know were considered, in practice, as subsumed within the primary deity; Aphrodite and her children being the most notable examples.

So I suspect that, with Nyx and the Titans, Hesiod may have been doing something similar; more so with Nyx’s generation because the revulsion against Titanic religion’s probable grim practices led to him leaving them largely undefined.  And, simply because those gods were worshiped way back in pre-history, there was nobody to leave the sort of records that showed the edits he made as there were regarding extant gods.  Nyx’s personified “children” (Thanatos, Oneiro, Momus, Nemisis, ect) may have been originally just other aspects or responsibilities of Nyx herself.  This would also explain why the Olympians were always portrayed as susceptible to their powers; something you wouldn’t expect if these children were the minor helpers of the Theogony.  It is also possible she originally was the proto-Greek or I-E version of Tiamat and, If the IEs were, as many suspect, practiced watermen of the Trans-Caucasus(by which I mean, Eastern Anatolia, the Caucasus, and the plains north of them) as well as charioteers, then they wouldn’t have had the fear of the water which Mesopotamians did, and thus, their primeval void wouldn’t have been the oceanic Abyss (like Tiamat), but perhaps some other medium both perennially frightening and protective to humans, and the night certainly serves that purpose.

Of course, as I said earlier, this is mostly my own spitballing regarding mythology and history, subjects I’ve loved since childhood, and I certainly can’t claim significant scholarly opinion to back it up.  Then again, Nyx herself is obviously ancient given her corollaries in most I-E religions, and we don’t have much in the way of evidence regarding IE religious practices before, iirc, the 2nd millennium BCE, so -barring some entirely plausible archeological finds in Transcaucasia- it may be we’ll never find any evidence of how she was actually worshiped before the Archaic Era in Greece.  That being thus, and gods being figments anyway, I feel quite confident considering Nyx in this fashion for the purposes of my Internet natterings, though I doubt I’ll be trying to pass it off in a paper any time soon :p

I think the Christian god is the Ashton Kutcher of deities. He’s mostly useless, dbaggy, really worried about who’s following him and plays stupid ass practical jokes on people, “Abraham! Dude! You’ve been punked! And to think you were totally gonna kill your son because I told you to. LOLZ!”

I like to mix and match with my pantheons. As an ex-Catholic, I find it hard to rid myself of a reflexive “Mother of God”, so I changed it slightly to the more pagan “Mother of Zeus” and so on.  Shiva, Guan Yin, Frigg, and the FSM get occasional mentions as well.

Obviously, atheists worship Athe, the god of non-existence.

Failing that, maybe the God-Emperor of Mankind, who even in death sustains and protects us all from atop his Golden Throne on Holy Terra. The Emperor protects!

@ Bannanacat

Your post reminds me of some things I’ve thought about during the nights I can’t sleep because of the anxiety and fear from battling, and losing to osteosarcoma over the last two years.

I’ve imagined what kind of god I would be if I were one, and it was not a omnipotent omniscient god that created everything and can do anything effortlessly, but just an empathetic and understanding entity that would gather everyone, every creature, who’s died together to itself and forgave them all for all the bad they may have done, and loved each and every single person and thing unconditionally; because it understands that the universe is an indifferent place filled with more pain and anguish than joy for the things that live in it.

Our lives give us our purpose and meaning to living, but even so, even striving to do what I can to reach one of the small goals of my life that I feel defines me as a person in the little time I have left, I feel empty, and cheated because it’s so perverse that there are things with minds that yearn and persevere even after hurt and after hurt and after hurt, to ultimately have their strife come to naught and the pain and hurts which has molded them into the things and beings they are become absolutely meaningless.

But there’s no evidence of any sort of god, nor evidence of life after death, things that I would take comfort in if they existed and were benevolent.

However I kinda do at times take comfort in the finality and completeness of death.

These days it seems I worship Farmville…

I find myself frequently praying to, or cursing, the nameless Transport Gods.  Is the bus going to be late this morning for no obvious reason?  Will the train be held up by mysterious “signalling problems”?

I’d actually quite like a name to scream at the sky in frustrated futility.

I’ve got a little statue of Ganesh on the bookshelf by my desk, right next to my copy of the Tanakh.

I don’t pray to it or anything, but it’s nice having the little guy looking over my shoulder, punching troublesome shit out of my way.

Though I consider myself Christian, the idea of praying to Eris does appeal to me. I like the story of the golden apple—maybe they’ll learn not to be exclusionary pricks next time >:D

If I pray to anything, it’s Nemesis, Tyche, and Anoia, Goddess of Things That Stick In Drawers (and things that get lost down the couch). According to Anoia, sooner or later, every curse is a prayer.

Occasionally, if I’m feeling in need of particular good luck, I might pour a libation to the god of travellers or the Remover of Obstacles. Can’t hurt - well, not unless you forget you’ve dribbled some wine on an outside tile and slip on it.

I believe that we may have inadvertantly created a god named Shit by constantly invoking his name when something goes wrong.  This would make Shit the God of Disappointment.  If I ever find myself in mortal danger, try to avert it, and fail, I might very well pray to him in my last few seconds.

(I will add that it seems particularly appropriate to click on the Blaspheme button this time.)

Am I the only neophyte who doesn’t know what snowballing is?

Jayn—if you want to pray to someone with supernatural powers who gets pissy about being excluded from parties, why not pray to Maleficent?

However, I did take the Virgin of Guadalupe with me—in part because she’s really a Toltec goddess in disguise, and mostly just because I like her. We have a thing, the two of us (also, appalls my class-conscious Irish Catholic mother for good measure).

I’ve known more than one Mexican atheist who hasn’t set foot in a church in years and spits when he/she walks past one, but who still occasionally offers one up for the Virgin of Guadalupe. There’s something about that lady ...

I pray to Princess Celestia. She rules over all of Equestria with a gracile iron hoof.

I would be praying to the namby-pamby not-particularly useful god of 70s mid-church episcopalians. Well, if by praying you mean “You $!$@%@$%  %%^&^%*  %$#%#$$#! You never could get anything right, you %$#%$#$ $%%#$%!”

As a fan of the booze-sauce and wild emotions, I would go for Dionysis (or Bacchus or whatever other name he/she goes by). Or I may go for Thor, as a fan of lightning and hammers, and I believe he may be the only god with his own comic book. I’d like to explore this Egyptian pantheon a little more now. Pele was always pretty cool, but I am afraid there could be confusion in the prayer beams and my prayer bat-signal might get incorrectly directed to the soccer star, and even if it goes to the right Pele, she might be all like “you’re just doing this because of the Tori Amos album title”, and I’ll be all like “no, I don’t really like Tori Amos, I just thik you’re cool”, and it would be embarrassing for both of us. Another choice, I could be rebellious like the jebus people believe I am, and pray to Baal or Moloch. So many choices!

Did you know that God is a girl, and His name is Eris?

If I did believe, that’s who I’d believe in. However, praying to Eris is not recommended.

Mighty Ponygirl also makes a convincing argument.

I was thinking of Mighty Ponygirl’s comment about Din, Nayru, and Farore, but now that I see it, I can’t argue with her comment about Maleficent either.

I feel like the Greek pantheon is sufficiently squalid and fractious to be relatable.

Or maybe Arioch.

Physics. At least, it’s the name I exclaim in exaltation the most.

George Carlin (although I’m sure he was being facetious; it seems the very act of praying and/or worshiping is quite useless):

“So rather than be just another mindless religious robot, mindlessly and aimlessly and blindly believing that all of this is in the hands of some spooky incompetent father figure who doesn’t give a shit, I decided to look around for something else to worship. Something I could really count on.

And immediately, I thought of the sun. Happened like that. Overnight I became a sun-worshiper. Well, not overnight, you can’t see the sun at night. But first thing the next morning, I became a sun-worshiper. Several reasons. First of all, I can see the sun, okay? Unlike some other gods I could mention, I can actually see the sun. I’m big on that. If I can see something, I don’t know, it kind of helps the credibility along, you know? So everyday I can see the sun, as it gives me everything I need; heat, light, food, flowers in the park, reflections on the lake, an occasional skin cancer, but hey. At least there are no crucifixions, and we’re not setting people on fire simply because they don’t agree with us.

Sun worship is fairly simple. There’s no mystery, no miracles, no pageantry, no one asks for money, there are no songs to learn, and we don’t have a special building where we all gather once a week to compare clothing. And the best thing about the sun, it never tells me I’m unworthy. Doesn’t tell me I’m a bad person who needs to be saved. Hasn’t said an unkind word. Treats me fine. So, I worship the sun. But, I don’t pray to the sun. Know why? I wouldn’t presume on our friendship. It’s not polite.”

The two living goddesses in my household demand daily worship in the form of snuggling, petting, scritching, food, and a freely opening door.

The two living goddesses in my household demand daily worship in the form of snuggling, petting, scritching, food, and a freely opening door.

R.T.: may peace be with you now, and into whatever future you find.

Gozer the Traveler. He will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During the rectification of the Vuldrini, the traveler came as a large and moving Torg! Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the McKetrick supplicants, they chose a new form for him: that of a giant Slor! Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!

Nice work! But I can’t approve of cats and dogs living together, so I’ll take my cue from Terry Pratchett and worship Bilious, the Oh-God of Hangovers.

Some excellent choices but personally I believe my non-existent final prayer will be to Dr. Who.

http://unholyoffice.blogspot.com/2011/06/jesus-vs-dr-who.html

@62 I was thinking of the schmaltzy poem about the ‘rainbow bridge’ that pets cross over when they die… might’ve been influenced by the norse myth, but I’m betting it’s more of a rainbows/hearts/unicorns/butterflies thing. Didn’t help me any when I lost my two (geriatric) kitties (actually, knowing that when they were buried, they’d turn into flowers—and probably snakes & assorted creepy-crawlies—helped;  and of course that the pain was gone) , but it’s all over the place in pet communities, so I guess someone’s comforted by the thought.

In times of trouble, I like to think of the Hindu goddess Kali (I won’t say that I would pray to her, because she is the “forbidden thing” - death itself). She is a very ancient goddess (she must be one of the oldest still worshipped today) and thus represents many things - Time, Death (or ‘the time has come’), change, annihilation. In approaching Kali, “the goal of the devotee is to become reconciled with death and to learn acceptance of the way that things are.” The mantras associated with Kali concern gaining power through conquering the Ego, which is in many ways the reason that we fear death. At the time of my death, I hope I can find some comfort and solace in the idea that death is merely change - not in a metaphysical sense but in an entirely ordinary and physical one.

(I considered not posting this, because I know that it is inappropriate to appropriate Kali as an icon of Western White Feminism, but considering this thread is all about appropriating non-Christian myths to a modern purpose, I think it’s definitely fitting).

I’m going to go with Hermes. What is dying but a boundary to cross? He’s also god of orators and wit, which could be useful while alive, and as I plan on being cremated, praying at the end to one who invented fire makes as much sense as anything.

Did you know that God is a girl,

That is perhaps the stupidest thing I have ever heard.  If God is a girl, she by definition has a vagina. Two simple questions:

i, How big is it?
ii, What is it used for?

I think that demonstrates how pathetically foolish your assertion is.

And that’s why God is obviously a guy.

Fully created beings spring forth from vaginas.

Fully created beings spring forth from vaginas.

Foreheads and clay too.  We’rer talking about Gods here.

I think Amanda’s stumbled upon the explanation for female ejaculation. It’s an offering to Tefnut.

I’m not going to say that this is a particularly admirable characteristic I have, but I like to pick the choice most likely to piss off the Normals. Just like when I stopped caring for the Montreal Canadians I went directly to becoming a Boston Bruins fan.

So I have to say I’d pray to Satan. Or Lucifer (though to many fundies, they’re one and the same anyway, but as Archetypes they’re definitely different). I know it sucks for you guys because it basically confirms whatever some of them believe all atheists do in their spare time, but personally if you look at the established canon and some of the unofficial fandom, Satan and Lucifer seem like the actual good guys in the whole story.

I’m an atheist partly because I’m not a worshipper. Who cares if there is a higher authority? I do not worship. Therefore, I also do not pray. I am the highest authority in my life.

Also, I obey all road rules.

I actually like to change gods more often than I change socks.

At various times I’ve worshiped Superman, Thor (the comics and metal aspect), General Zod, Cthulhu, Y’Golonac, Marduk, Loviatar the Mistress of Pain, and the Great Ape.

Down with the Tyrant Celestia!

Join the New Lunar Republic!

:p

I believe that when you die, you find yourself seated on an uncomfortable chair.

Suddenly a spotlight comes up on you and you see you’re on stage in an auditorium.  And then everyone who you ever knew shuffles in, sits down and watches you.  Your mother.  Your brothers.  Your little 6 year old cousin.  The nuns who taught you in 5th grade.  Your lovers.  That one girl who you never connected with but never got over.  Everyone.

And then a huge voice starts reciting your Google search history…

I’ve always been partial to Athena. But frankly, I think I’m poly.

This is a good essay by a noted skeptic and gadfly:

Speaking of Huitzilopochtli recalls his brother Tezcatilpoca. Tezcatilpoca was almost as powerful; he consumed 25,000 virgins a year. Lead me to his tomb: I would weep, and hang a couronne des perles. But who knows where it is? Or where the grave of Quitzalcoatl is? Or Xiehtecuthli? Or Centeotl, that sweet one? Or Tlazolteotl, the goddess of love? Of Mictlan? Or Xipe? Or all the host of Tzitzimitles? Where are their bones? Where is the willow on which they hung their harps? In what forlorn and unheard-of
Hell do they await their resurrection morn? Who enjoys their residuary estates? Or that of Dis, whom Caesar found to be the chief god of the Celts? Of that of Tarves, the bull? Or that of Moccos, the pig? Or that of Epona, the mare? Or that of Mullo, the celestial jackass? There was a time when the Irish revered all these gods, but today even the drunkest Irishman laughs at them.

Sometimes when I’m particularly ill or upset, I think to myself “Jesus/Allah/Buddha, help me!” a la Homer Simpson.

All of them.  You know, like newspapers.

I also have my own personal god, someone mentioned it above.  The way I see it, even a very powerful god must get busy with millions of people praying to it, I want a god who’s not busy with other people’s problems. 

I also don’t actually want my god to pay attention to me because, judging from mythology, the gods are pretty freaking rough on the people they like especially well.

Gryla, the Icelandic christmas witch. She comes on christmas eve, kidnaps children who cry too much (not who are bad, mind you, just children who cry too much), eats them, and takes them to hell. It’s parent’s job to fight her off (or, y’know, pretend to) while their kids cower in their beds. What better family tradition could there be?

Plus, I’ve already got the Precious Moments figurines of her and her 13 gnarled gnome sons, dressed in little Santa outfits.

I’m going to go with Hermes. What is dying but a boundary to cross? He’s also god of orators and wit, which could be useful while alive, and as I plan on being cremated, praying at the end to one who invented fire makes as much sense as anything.

While the Herm, a large column with a head on top and male genitalia at the front, is the primary representative of his cult, any imagery if the penis is a sign for him, making even the lowliest cock scrawled on the wall of the most befouled bathroom a mark of blessing and safe passage.

If God is a girl, she by definition has a vagina.

Thanks for the cissexism there, PiaToR.

I worship my hobbyhorse.

Thanks for the cissexism there, PiaToR.

Well, if you wanna postulate an omnipotent being with gender dysphoria, go right ahead.

Thanks for the cissexism there, PiaToR.
Well, if you wanna postulate an omnipotent being with gender dysphoria, go right ahead.

PiaToR, It’s been done. If you read the Tortall books, by Tamora Pierce, you will find mention of the Trickster god. Trans people were touched by him in the womb. It’s as good an explanation as any, in that universe. It *is* a horrible trick to play on a person.

PiaToR, It’s been done.

I was talking about the God (Him/Her)self.

My original sarcasm was a riff on a piece I recall seeing in, I think, the Historical Illuminatus series where an early feminist starts making some pointed comments about the theological implications of God’s Willy.

Nothing more transgressive than the “Enemy on Both Sides”:

Tezcatlipoca is the patron of sorcerers, warriors, and young men. He is perpetually young, and considered the most handsome of the gods. Tezcatlipoca was the patron of the Telpochcalli, the schools where young men were trained to be warriors. The night warrior in contrast to Huitzilopochtli’s day, Tezcatlipoca also uses sorcery and cunning to exact His will, in addition to warrior might. He is also a princely god, a patron of the nobility. However, He was also the patron of slaves, who were considered His “beloved children.”

Fun fact:

After the Spanish Conquered Mexico in the 1520s, the Religious Orders of Franciscan and Augustinian Friars of the 1530s had a very difficult time converting the Aztecs, Zapotecs, Mayans and other natives of Mexico to Christianity as, according to the natives, the God of the Europeans was dead and on a crucifix, until they “discovered” that their ultimate God was Tezcatlipoca who was, according to their costumes, the sacrificed one—except that he was black in color. The friars then made a crucifix of Jesus Christ, painting his body all black, and as a result the natives believed that the man on the crucifix was Tezcatlipoca

Comment #107: Ms Kate

Thank you.

Christian here too, but really like Ganesha, especially the story about
why his tusk is broken (needed it as a pen).

I’ll have to save this page to
consider (in addition) other deities. Isn’t there a big list somewhere?

Bit worried about Texcatlipoca though. I don’t think we need any more war gods than
we already have.  But associating war with a sacrificed god is interesting.

It should be noted that to the Aztecs, war was a means to an end, the end was to have captives to sacrifice to their gods, because they believed that without a sacrifice of human blood the universe would literally fall apart.

And, he was also the god of slaves, so he was clearly a pro-labor kind of god

Isn’t there a big list somewhere?

Check the Mencken essay I linked to above, googling some of the more obscure gods he mentions will probably find such a list as you describe.