Why are so many gods fashioned in our own image?

Maybe it’s because life is not only difficult and unfair. It can also be cruel, random, and completely capricious. And when something senseless happens, we want to believe there is a reason. We want someone—or something—to blame.

A harvest failed? Demeter must have been angry. A voyage ended in disaster? Someone offended Poseidon. A family was cursed because their ancestor Charon lost a card game? Okay, that last one is my own invention, but it works.

It may be terrifying to imagine all-powerful beings behaving like volatile children. But perhaps it is even more terrifying to accept that no one is in charge at all.

In The Styx, one of the gods says, “When your life is going well, you take the credit. When it’s going badly, you blame the gods.”

Which raises the question: do we create gods because we don’t want to take responsibility for our choices? Or because random suffering can feel so personal that we cannot help believing it is being done to us by someone—or something—outside our control?