George Michael: "You gotta have faith-a, faith-a, faith"

Regarding the books on the syllabus thus far, two of the three authors heavily address religion, and not entirely in a positive light. (Does Link do that too?) We established in a class discussion that Ford is not a fan of Christianity, and that his theme of the death of gods continues to pump through the veins of Pratchett's Monstrous Regiment. However, Kalen got me interested with all his fancy talk of Small Gods. I discovered upon researching it a bit that "Om" is another god in Discworld on the decline due to lack in believers. (Yet another reference that a god is whoever we want it to be, and as long as there exists faith, there exists somehow a god of our very own.) But Om in Small Gods isn't losing credibility; he is losing "listeners" (I don't know how else to put it... it's late). I mean, his followers have completely shifted their focus from the true essence of his godliness toward the shallow and superficial order that comes with higher religion, i.e. heirarchy among the clerics. His people, in a sense, became idolaters. The same thing is happening to Nuggen in Monstrous Regiment. People no longer care about the whats/hows/whys of *pleasing* their god, only about how not to anger him. Thus, his many Abominations are his downfall. I just found it interesting that the religions were not being criticized by Pratchett due to lack of credibility as I have seen in a handful of Fantasy works; religion is criticized here because people lose sight of the more important aspects of their faith. I like you, Mr. Pratchett. You point out how people do stupid things, especially as masses. Casey, if by chance an idea hits you and you change your mind about the “death of gods” as a paper topic, I would absolutely love to take a crack at it.