Gods of Many Hats?
A particular thread on "the devil you know" v. "the devil who gets the job done" from an earlier post got me wondering:
As a matter of personal preference, would you rather stretch the attributes of one of your patron deities to help you with a particular problem, or would you rather go searching through the proverbial Deity Yellow Pages to find a specialist?
Sub-questions: Would you rather wait for Hogswatchnight to create Bilious the Oh God of Hangovers, Jeff the God of Biscuits, and Aqanuksiauq the God of Regretting You Poked the Hive of the Angry Bees, or would you rather practice Conservation of Belief* and generalize under the attributes of an existing deity who may not be your patron? Does specialist-hunting contribute significantly to eclectic paganism, or has it more frequently a broader, more intuitive motivation?
* ...by which I mean refraining from creating smaller, specialist gods, and instead going to those with a more diversified portfolio, saving belief for those who already exist and thus already have a certain gravitas. Some people like to personalize, though.
As a matter of personal preference, would you rather stretch the attributes of one of your patron deities to help you with a particular problem, or would you rather go searching through the proverbial Deity Yellow Pages to find a specialist?
Sub-questions: Would you rather wait for Hogswatchnight to create Bilious the Oh God of Hangovers, Jeff the God of Biscuits, and Aqanuksiauq the God of Regretting You Poked the Hive of the Angry Bees, or would you rather practice Conservation of Belief* and generalize under the attributes of an existing deity who may not be your patron? Does specialist-hunting contribute significantly to eclectic paganism, or has it more frequently a broader, more intuitive motivation?
* ...by which I mean refraining from creating smaller, specialist gods, and instead going to those with a more diversified portfolio, saving belief for those who already exist and thus already have a certain gravitas. Some people like to personalize, though.