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August 8th, 2008
05:04 pm - Is your god on The List?
There is something odd about this List of Entities that I stumbled upon. Perhaps it is the inclusion of Harpo Marx, Discordian Saint Second Class, as an entity. Usually, this would be good, except that I can't really stand lists like this, nor can I abide the great Saint Harpo being listed with (and I quote):
Gurid - an angel of the summer equinox angel. I mean, really?
Look up your favourite god and/or goddess and see what they say about him or her!
Other gems?
- Amon - Egyptian ram-headed god of life and reproduction. Later fused with sun god Ra becoming known as Apollo - God of healing poetry and music.
- She - One of the Forgotten Ones. Invoked by the vultures atop the Pillars of the Abyss.
- Nike - Greek goddess of victory. Bewinged, she was also a messenger goddess. She also has an overprinced brand of running shoes named after her.
Okay, so I can agree to that last one. . .
Deity lists are crazy popular online, part of the general buffet-style religion that's always been popular (as many in ADF like to say, there's nothing more Indo-European than stealing someone else's gods and saying you found them first). You'll find a lot of repeats and some consistently bad stuff (a personal favourite, about Esus was just found. . . "Esus, God of war, who may have been a tree god Celtic.")
I first stumbled onto this phenomenon when I came across David Owens' dictionary of gods and goddesses, which he allowed to be electronically duplicated online, called The Gods of Man: A Small Dictionary of Pagan Gods and Goddesses. when I initially ran across it, I was pretty freaked out. I mean, it's just so. . . superficial. (I've had the pleasure of chatting with him briefly online, and he's a good guy, and the list is pretty astounding, actually.)
I suppose there's about as much wrong with a superficial interest in the deities you worship as there is in a superficial interest in cheese (which is to say, not much, especially if you're lactose intolerant), but every time I run across these lists (almost always accidentally), I wonder who actually uses them.
And then I remember: I did. My superficial list was just written by D.J. Conway. Plus, it was David Owens' book that turned me onto Esus (due to its woefully bad description, but still).
So they serve their purposes, I guess. They get people interested. They build those first steps and get 'em out the door and into the bright light of Paganism.
So, in that spirit, I think I'll go invoke Lu Dong Bin, Nexhagus, and Freddie Krueger. Hey, they're on the list, man!
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/smile.gif) amused
Current Music: "Duke's on Sunday", -JB
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Comments:
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/58449817/3132294) | | From: | ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) rfunk |
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| Date: | August 8th, 2008 09:21 pm (UTC) |
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I use lists of deities to help me name my servers. And I think one was useful for creating a D&D character long ago.
The number of D&D characters named after gods is second only to the number of Pagans who take deity names as their own magical names.
| From: | (Anonymous) |
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| Date: | August 8th, 2008 09:48 pm (UTC) |
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What does it mean that the most frustrating thing about this list, at least for me, is the extremely poor grammar?
Plus the inclusion of what I assume is She from the Haggard novel.
I was that masked respondant...
Haha. "Who was that masked respondent?" :)
I think you're right about She. I own that book, but haven't read it yet. My passion for adventure schlock dissipated before I got to the good stuff. But I did manage King Solomon's Mines.
The grammar is just. . . Well, it's astounding.
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/2462762/422838) | | From: | myrch |
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| Date: | August 8th, 2008 09:50 pm (UTC) |
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i don't see "money," so no.
Frejya and Odin are missing - and I'm sure they really don't mind.
I'm glad you can find the good in all this... it just annoys me. According to this source, all the Roman deities are either Greco-Roman equivalent (e.g., Hermes/Mercury) or Strega deities (e.g., Janus, Fortuna). Sorry, that's just so wrong on so many levels. We won't even talk about "Dionesos/Bacchus."
"If we couldn't laugh we'd all go insane." Yeah, the "let's make all the Roman gods Stega gods!" was just silly.
There's a point where things get so ridiculous, that you can't even conceive of them as serious. That's where I got about a quarter of the way down.
As always, Ullr is nowhere to be seen.
Morrigan in the standard one-sidedness format. Mentions Dagda but nothing about Sovereignty or passion.
No Asterion (or Minotaur) not that I am surprised.
What... no Goibnu? That does surprise me. A pretty important figure of the Tautha I think.
I see the list hasn't gotten to Japan or Korea yet...
Also what's a "Nativa American"? |
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