My New Super-Cool Religion: EPIC Rides!

I've been cooking up my own homegrown, Purgatory fermented religion and I realized what the faith needs -epic rides.

Think about it, you can have all the funny hats, numbers, and busy work for the faithful to do, but what if their deity (or deities) rolls up in a Vespa scooter? Don't get me wrong scooters are an excellent choice to get around in an urban environment. However, if you are the god of kick-ass and you roll up in one then you have zero street cred and gods live and die by how seriously they are taken.

Odin, aka  All-Father; aka Terror; aka head badass of the Norse Gods, needs a ride that goes with his high status. That's when Sleipnir, the eight legged horse, comes in. Sleipnir is not your run of the mill eight legged horse either. He was the love child of Loki (god of mischief) and the super-horse Svaðilfari. Yes, Loki and an uber-horse had a love child and that child was the eight legged steed for Odin. That's not the odd part of the story, however. Loki, who is a male deity, was the momma. He had shape shifted into a mare and daddy horse had his way with Loki. That must have made for some interesting conversation around the kitchen table.

Mercury/Hermes was the Greek/Roman god who had style. As you can see from the photo to your right that the god had winged sandals - the talaria. With these sandals Mercury could fly like the bird. And the talaria were very stylish since they were made of gold. I'd imagine that the golden sandals couldn't have been very comfortable, but any religious or mythological problem can be solved with a wee bit of Sky Fairy dust. *POOF!* Problem solved!

I'm just glad Christianity/Islam doesn't rely on such mumbo-jumbo.

Hindus have many deities. My personal fave? Ganesha, the elephant headed god. Ganesha was the child of Shiva, one of the Hindu Trinity, and his wife Parvarti. Don't worry, my Jesusite friends, I'm sure that the much older Hindu faith took the idea of a three part godhead from Christianity.

I'm glad we go that issue resolved.

Why does Ganesha have an elephant's head anyway? Well, the humdrum version of the story is that's the way he was born. Who knows how that wacky deity DNA is going to behave. The more interesting stories have Ganesha's head cut off (by his dad, no less) or that an evil god gave the baby Ganesha the evil eye and burned the kid's head off. Luckily, there was an elephant who wasn't using its head just hanging around. *Plop!* There goes the elephant head on baby's body - all is well.

Ganesha's ride reflects the god's idiosyncratic appearance. You see, Ganesha rides freakishly big mouse named Kroncha. What else would an elephant headed god ride?

Man, if you believe that then you may think a guy could walk on water.

I haven't figured everything out about my new super-cool religion, but it will have epic rides!

LiP