Nerdology 101: My Top 5 Favorite Gods
Heyyy! Welcome back to another week of Nerdology 101. I just realized the blog is 6 months old now. Last week was my 26 week post. Yay meee! I have no real way of telling how many people are actually reading this blog, but I can say it accounts for almost 20% of my website traffic. So, it’s definitely helping with the discoverability issue. Whether you’re new, an occassional visitor, or a regular visitor, I appreciate it a lot.
With that being said, let’s get into some Nerdology! This week I’m going to be going over some of my favorite gods and why I love them so much. As I shared in the post announcement, I’m working on a mythological romance right now. To be clear, these are simply my favorite gods in real life. Some of them may appear in the work when it releases, other’s may not. I’m not telling.
5th Place - Amaterasu (Shinto/Japanese)
Starting off strong with Amaterasu, the Shinto (Japanese) sun goddess, and chief diety of the pantheon. Amaterasu is the only chief diety that will appear on this list. That’s for a reason. While she certainly isn’t the only goddess who has ever been a chief deity, she sticks out to me in a lot of way. For those that don’t know, here’s a quick summary:
Born of Izanagi and Izanami, Amaterasu and her siblings are some of the most central figures in the pantheon. The most famous story about her is one about a conflict she had with her brother, Susanoo, god of seas and storms. She retreated into a cave. That caused some trouble for the other gods and they had to lure her back out in order to convince her to return to her role.
In modern times, Amaterasu is still a highly influential figure. In fact, the imperial family is said to be descendants of her. This is one of my favorite key details and probably the one that makes her a favorite of mine. It’s fascinating to me because, here in the Western world, there was this idea at one time that kings were annointed by by the god the west believed in. This meant that rulers were seen as “chosen” to rule. We see other iterations where a ruler is see as the personification of a diety, like the pharoahs of Egypt. This idea of being descended from a diety, though, is a bit unique (not to say there is no other culture that took this approach. I’m sure other’s existed, but I can only speak in comparison to the ones I’ve researched). It’s just an interesting approach that had impact on how views regarding ancestry, rank, and monarchy formed within the Japanese culture. Thus, Amaterasu became one of my favorite gods because she exposed me to a way of thinking I hadn’t encountered before.
4th Place - Freyja (Norse)
Badassery. I love Freyja for the badassery. In the actual mythology, in every depiction, in everything, Freyja is badass. The balance is amazing because, on one hand, she’s this nurturing sort of maternal figure, but on the other she’s a terrifyingly powerful warrior that you do NOT want to tick off. It’s nice because it’s reflective of the reality of the versatility women can take on. Humans aren’t one-dimensional creatures and sometimes I think the world can forget that, specifically when it comes to women and other historically marginalized groups. Freyja doesn’t fit neatly into anyone’s box and, for that reason, I consider to be a feminist sign of adaptability, power, and freedom.
For context, in the mythology, Odin and Freyja married for political reasons. She birthed Thor, Tyr, and Balder—some of the most fearsome gods in the mythology. Odin, like most gods, was an ass. She sought revenge for the abuse and continuously fought to maintain her own identity, freedoms, and power.
As such, many women can identify with her stuggles. She’s easy to connect to and see ourselves in. I consider her a favorite of mine because her story shows us how, for all the changes the world has seen, many of the struggles women knew then have endured.
3rd Place - Buddha (Buddhist)
I think Buddha’s story is great because it calls into question godhood in and of itself. It’s a story that focuses on ascent rather than descent, where who you become is more important than the bloodline you come from. This is important because it throws a wrench in the idea most belief systems adapt where who you were born from determines your position in life. I think it’s origins have a lot to do with why Buddhism is such an adaptable belief system. This sort of fluidity it has is, to me, one of the most realistic approaches to belief because it focuses on things a person can actually do—like training their body and mind, helping others, and other things.
While the Buddha was ultimately a human, not a god, I think I’d be remiss not to count him because of his leadership, impact, and the spirituality he spurred on. Gods, for all intents and purposes, are figures through which we form our beliefs and explain the thoughts behind them. For this reason, Buddha is a god-adjescent figure that headed a spiritual movement still widely practiced in the world today. In fact, that’s probably why I put him at number 3. It’s complex and there’s no clear answer. I like that the existence of the Buddha isn’t clearly defined as one thing or another. Grey areas and contradictions are some of my favorite things—which makes it wasy to understand why I’d see Buddha as a favorite. The entire practice focuses on existing somewhere in between two polar extremes.
2nd Place - Anubis (Egyptian)
The best I can say here is that I think this god is fundamentally misunderstood a lot of the time. Many people have a specific image that comes to mind when they think of any “god of the dead”. That image is likely formed by media depictions more than it is the actual culture or mythology. In most depictions of Anubis from ancient Egypt, he was kind, protective, and comforting. While there’s no doubt he was a powerful god that could do some real damage if you ticked him off, it was more often feroscity that stemmed for a desire to protect the souls of the dead, thus most well-intentioned people/gods had no reason to feel threatened by him.
It’s this misunderstood nature of Anubis that draws me to him, He’s like an OG of the misunderstood badboy archetype. I think I relate a lot to that vibe because A) BookTok, but more importantly, B) it speaks a lot to humanities underlying beliefs about death in general when you compare Anubis to other dieties or figures meant to depict death. I, personally, have never seen death in the way most people seem to. I’ve never understood the obsession with extending ones life as long as possible, even to ones own detriment. Like, we joke a lot about Billionaires uploading their brains to the cloud or escaping to Mars and we see every day people dedicating their entire lives to being as physically healthy as possible. I mean, good for them, if that’s what they want for themselves. I think the people should live the life they want (minus the billionaires because they are actively interfering with other people living the way they want). It’s just not for me. I wholeheartedly accept that I likely won’t like to be ancient. It doesn’t sound like it would be comfortable or enjoyable. Quality of life is more important to me than length of life. As long as I’m generally happy and able to enjoy my life for whatever time I have, I’m cool.
Of course, that means beliefs systems where death isn’t depicted as a villain we’re all supposed to be running from appeal to me. I see death in a similar-ish way to how Anubis is portrayed within his mythology. Thus, he’s a perfect second place to me because I haven’t seen many other concepts or ideas of what being dead might look like that align with my view of death.
1st Place - Thoth (Egyptian)
Two Egyptian gods? Yup, two Egyptian gods. Come on, you seriously thought you were making it through a writers list of favorite gods without encountering a god like Thoth? He’s Egyptian god of wisdom, writing, math, science, and pretty much everything that has to do with being a nerd—if you didn’t know. In fact, my obsession with Thoth runs deep enough that I stumbled into an academic text about him I wanted to read, which was of course only available in academic libraries. So, I called every academic library in a two hour radius of me to try to convince them to let me in. When that failed, I went to my public library and asked them to try to get an academic library to lend it to them to lend to me. They told me they’d ask but that my chances were only 20% and that it might take months. I said okay and they tried. Luckily, the kind people at the University of Vermont ended up shipping the book all the way to Maryland for me to nerd out on for a few weeks. If that story doesn’t tell you why I align so well with Thoth, I don’t think there’s another way to explain it. There is no better god to hold my top spot.
That’s about it for this weeks segment of Nerdology 101. Hope you’ll come through again next Friday! Until then, have a nerdy week!
