Hercules because he was the strongest man in mythology.
Permalink | Report

I identify most with Demeter...the goddess of motherhood. Her love for her child ruled her life--and as a consequence the world, producing the change of seasons.

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/d/demeter.html
Permalink | Report

Isis. She's an Egyptian goddess of magic and the patron saint of women, mothers, and children. My boyfriend and I named our daughter after her (Evelyn Isis). To tell you the truth, I didn't like the name very much at first, but I didn't know who Isis was at all. After learning more about her, I grew fond of the name and I now realize why my boyfriend wanted to name our daughter after her.


Source(s):
http://www.ancient-egypt-online.com/egyptian-goddess-isis.html

Permalink | Report

Mythological Gods and Godesses weren't a very nice bunch by and large were they? Most of them have qualities that would be great to have, but combined with other "qualities" like extreme vanity, a propenstity for raping anyone that took their fancy, and murdering their family members.

My shortlist would be Zeus, Apollo and Athena.

Zeus - King of the Gods, God of the sky, and apparently upholder of justice and peacemaker too.

Apollo - God of various cool things including light, intellectual inquiry, poetry, music and dance. Also the plague. :)

Athena - Goddess of wisdom, war, the arts, industry, justice and skill.

I'll go for Zeus. Because being supremely powerful, and able to bring peace and justice instead of violence are qualities that would be great to have. Also hurling thunderbolts, though I think I would rather more restrained about it than Zeus. Maybe I'd only hurl them at inanimate objects. :)

http://www.netpurgatory.com/web_stuff/zeusmp_releases/The_Chariot_of_Zeus_-_Project_Gutenberg_eText_14994.png
Source(s):
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/z/zeus.html

Permalink | Report

I don't think this one is a god, but a figure in Greek Mythology:

Sisyphus who was condemned to repeat forever the same meaningless task of pushing a rock up a mountain, only to see it roll down again.

Kind of like, well, Life.
Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Sisyphus

Permalink | Report

I'd have to go for Yahweh. Omniscient, omnipotent & omnipresent (heck, any word one can preface with "omni") with a decent sense of the poetic & a heaping helping of wrath. Beat that, Jupiter!
Permalink | Report

Prometheus, his work allowed humans to eat meat and have fire. Even if it meant having his liver being eaten by a bird everyday for all time.
Permalink | Report

I'm a huge fan of Bast - Egyptian Goddess of the home, crafts, etc. When things started going wrong the priests would throw festivals to Bast to bring happiness to their land.
Permalink | Report

apolon
Permalink | Report

The idea of Anubis is an amazing one. The egyptian version of Hades, he weighed the souls and decided whether they went to "heaven" or "hell".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anubis

Even though not strictly a god, but a figure with god-like powers is Azrael, the Angel of Death. He was most likely the inspiration for the grim reaper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azrael
Permalink | Report

Anubis.
Anubis was the Egyptian god of the dead, and was once considered the most important of the Egyptian deities.
Certainly one of my favorites because of the images in which he is portrayed - he is often seen as a figure of justice as well, weighing souls before they move onto the afterlife.

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anubis

Permalink | Report

Death facinates me.
From the 9th level of Mayan hell, the deepest and nastiest level, I pick Ah Puch.
http://www.mayas.uady.mx/imagenes/articulos/ah_puch.jpg
Source(s):
http://www.godchecker.com/pantheon/mayan-mythology.php?deity=AH-PUCH

Permalink | Report

Thor...All the way...

Obviously, a Viking god is going to be an unbelievable badass.

http://graphicworlds.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/thor.jpg

He has a hammer that shoots lightning bolts. He rode his wagon across the Earth, thus creating mountains. He has his own comic book, people!

http://www.superherotimes.com/newsarchive/ThorFlic.jpg
Source(s):
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/thor.html

Permalink | Report

Most of the gods don't do a whole lot for me, given that reading about them is a lot like reading ancient soap operas. You know: As Olympus Turns; Yggdrasil Hospital; All My (Weird and Immortal Roman) Children.

Still, one that seems to have escaped a lot of the petty in-fighting/incest is Athena. Goddess of wisdom, weaving, disciplined war, and heroic endeavor and patroness of Athens, she didn't have all the weird love triangles/incestuous things that many of the other gods were involved in. The earliest stories have her origins as the parthenogenous daughter of the Titan Metis (wisdom). Later myths have Zeus taking Metis as a consort, and swallowing her so her children wouldn't be greater than he. But Metis was already pregnant with Athena, who burst from his head. This bursting from his head was part of most later versions of her origins.

And, other than once getting chased by a rapist god, most of her stories have her helping heroes in the cause of justice.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Amphora_birth_Athena_Louvre_F32.jpg
Permalink | Report