1) There are billions of gods in the world. they swarm as thick as herring roe. Most of them are too small to see and never get worshiped, at least by anything bigger than bacteria, who never say their prayers and don't demand much in the way of miracles. They're the Small Gods- the spirits of places where 2 ant trails cross, the gods of micro-climates down between the grass roots. And most of them stay that way... because what they lack is belief.
...what gods need is belief, and what humans want is gods.
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2) "... I never did thundering. demarcation, see. Bloody I've-got-a-big-hammer Blind Io up on Nob Hill does all the thundering."
"You said there were thousands of thunder gods."
"Yeah. And he's all of them. Rationalization. A couple of tribes join up; they've got thunder gods, right? And the gods kinda run together- you know how amebas split? Well, its like that, only the other way."
"I still don't see how one god can be a hundred thunder gods. They all look different..."
"False noses. And different voices. I happen to know Io's got 70 different hammers. Not common knowledge, that. And its just the same with mother goddesses. there's only one of them. She's just got a lot of wigs and of course, its amazing what you can do with a padded bra."
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3) People said there had to be a Supreme Being because otherwise how could the universe exist, eh? And of course there clearly had to, said Koomi, a Supreme Being. But since the universe was a bit of a mess, it was obvious that the Supreme Being hadn't in fact, made it. If he'd made it, he would, being Supreme, have made a much better job of it, with far better thought being given, taking an example at random, to things like the human nostril.
Or, to put it another way, the existence of a badly put-together watch proved the existence of a blind watchmaker. You only had to look around and see that there was room for improvement practically everywhere.
This suggested that the universe had probably been put together in a bit of a rush by an underling while the Supreme Being wasn't looking...
So, reasoned Koomi, it wasn't a good idea to address any prayers to a Supreme Being. It'd only attract his attention and might cause trouble.
Koomi's theory was largely based on the good ol' Gnostic heresy, which tends to turn up all over the multiverse whenever men get up off their knees and start thinking for 2 minutes together, although the shock of the sudden altitude means that the thinking's a little whacked. But it upsets priests, who tend to vent their displeasure in traditional ways.
-Terry Pratchett (
Small Gods)
