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What are the coolest Gods and Dieties of different cultures?

PostPosted: Sun Nov 14, 2004 6:35 am
by yorick
South Americans have a jaguar headed god, said to manifest perfected physical presence....... stealth, ballance, strength and beauty.

Aegyptians had Annubis the Undertaker with jackal's head, an animal that picks and scatters bones of the dead, often seen ballancing the weight of the heart in canopic jar against a weight of a feather. Also they had sand-piper bird headed Thoth measuring time and elemental changes, sort of the lawyer/accountant of the aegyptian pantheon.

What are some other really cool Gods that y'all world travellers have learned about?


(:=

Journalists

PostPosted: Sun Nov 14, 2004 2:12 pm
by Mikethehack
Alcohol,sex and adrenalin.

PostPosted: Sun Nov 14, 2004 3:11 pm
by ROB
Maybe not a "cool" answer, but I am starting to take an interest in the statues of Buddha that I come accross. I think it would be a cool trip to see some the more famour ones everywhere from Afghanistan to Japan. They are also an interesting photographic subject.

PostPosted: Sun Nov 14, 2004 7:37 pm
by Kurt
I guess it is my heritage but I dig the Norse gods.

The Voodoo Loa are cool just because they are incredibly indulgent dieties that need to drink, eat, kill chickens and flirt...I can relate to that kind of god.

Re: What are the coolest Gods and Dieties of different cultu

PostPosted: Sun Nov 14, 2004 8:38 pm
by el3so
yorick wrote:What are some other really cool Gods that y'all world travellers have learned about?

Echo Kurt's voudoun gods, esp Baron Samedi. Stove pipe hat and a bottle of rum, gotta love the guy.

Technically not a deity, but I did like the idea I heard from an African (don't remember the country, but Dark Africa) refugee about his dead father.
He and his oldest uncle went back to the grave after the Catholic burial, dug up the corpse and cut the head of. It was kept as a sacred object and spirit would watch over the house.
Don't think they were allowed to use it as a drinking cup, but still: pretty cool in my book.

Certainly beats pot of flowers and a quick dusting-off of the stone a day before 1th November...

PostPosted: Mon Nov 15, 2004 3:27 am
by ReptilianKittenEater
Thor and De Dannan

(Norse and Irish Celtic)

PostPosted: Mon Nov 15, 2004 7:37 am
by yorick
Speaking of Norse Gods, Odin arguably had a better rap than did Jesus Christ.

Jesus got strung up on the cross and everything about him was later written by the Roman Catholic Corporation....... effectively telling everybody what to believe Jesus was about, much of it borrowed from Mithraism which competed with Christianity as the official Roman religion.

Odin, on the other hand, got hung from a tree hanging upside down. And then could barely touch the earth with his fingertips, so he scratched lines in the sand as he swung from the tree more dead than alive.

And Odin's scribblings later became known as the Rune alphabet - a symbolic series of geometric forms that could be combined or arranged in any fashion that one saw fit.


(:=

PostPosted: Mon Nov 15, 2004 9:36 am
by Texas Carnie Roadshow
I always thought Odin did that to himself in order to get more wisdom, or was that his eye?
I tend not to look too much into the bible beyond the basic message.
Loki is the man.

PostPosted: Mon Nov 15, 2004 2:59 pm
by Stiv
The Hindus and specifically Balinese Hindus have some of the freakiest Gods/demons/spirits, lots of fangs and arms, claws and bulging eyes, ie Garuda, Barong, Durga, Kali/Kala. I have masks all over my walls, and if you look at Tibetan Buddhist Tankas they have some pretty scary figures and faces on them.

You usually see that kind of imagery when animism crosses over into a more mainstream belief system.

Best,
Stiv

PostPosted: Mon Nov 15, 2004 7:10 pm
by need mine back
I always dug Minerva, both the Greek and Roman interpretations.

PostPosted: Mon Nov 15, 2004 10:26 pm
by svizzerams
My two personal favorites: Artemis (Diana) - a nice outdoorsy girl & Athena (Minerva) - brainy

Image

Artemis/Diana

Image

Athena/Minerva

asdf

PostPosted: Tue Nov 16, 2004 1:54 am
by Piggs
Check out Bulfinches Mythology

It is the will of God

PostPosted: Tue Nov 16, 2004 12:20 pm
by el3so
How about Monster Magnet's bullheaded god?
I'd imagine rites include plenty of coke snorting from the small of the back of scanthily-clad well-endowed young ladies (sigh) and the wearing of sunglasses 24/24...

Kinda like the Celtic gods as portrayed in the comics of Slaine, don't think they count as historic sources though. Esp. Mother Nature in her triple form of maiden, female and old hag.

PostPosted: Tue Nov 16, 2004 1:20 pm
by Stiv
Good one el3!! Remeber, "It's a Satanic drug thing, you wouldn't understand." ;-)

Best,
Stiv

PostPosted: Tue Nov 16, 2004 4:22 pm
by Kurt
Artemis is hot.

Diana is a bit frumpy in that sculpture, but smart girls and goddesses are hot as well. I think Diana should go for the Librarian look or how those English majors in college used to dress...really conservative but they memorised the works of Henry Miller and Anais Nin.