If in doubt, skip any mention of deities (God or gods).
Lunar deities, gods and goddesses who personify the moon and its cycles, are comparatively rare.
Solar deities, gods personifying the sun, are sovereign and all-seeing.
Witches believe in many deities, Gods and Goddesses but usually only work with two deities; the God and Goddess.
A lot of societies have imperfect deities: jealous gods, lustful gods, prankish gods, and the worshipers say, look, they are just like us.
They worshipped a number of nature-based Maya deities, particularly gods of mountains and dangerous mountain passes, gods of rivers and whirlpools, and of crossroads.
In between lies a host of variations in which planets behave like deities (Solaris), gods walk the Earth in the guise of dodgy mortals (Neil Gaiman's American Gods), gods turn out to be "not what they seem" (a large number of Star Trek plots), or in which gods are simply as numerous as beetles (swathes of epic fantasy).
Americans, it seems, have been trading in these legends for newer deities -- gods of credit card and freeway, of Internet and telephone... gods of plastic and of beeper and of neon," who are "puffed up with their own newness and importance".
Surprise of surprises, as Israel aspired to greatness and sought to make a name for itself, surrounded by vast empires, Yahweh got bigger and bigger, until he became so grandiose in their theologies that it no longer made sense to refer to the other national deities as gods at all -- so vastly superior was Yahweh to the gods of other nations, according to Judean propaganda literature.
"One mask was the goddess of the stars, one was the king of the universe – they each had deities and gods and goddesses – doing this whimsical dance, going down a staircase, with a chandelier and then a gauze of flowers made of acrylic roses".
