Goddess in the context of "Minerva"

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Artemis (/ˈɑːrtɪmɪs/; Ancient Greek: Ἄρτεμις) is the goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, transitions, nature, vegetation, childbirth, care of children, and chastity. In later times, she was identified with Selene, the personification of the Moon. She was often said to roam the forests and mountains, attended by her entourage of nymphs. The goddess Diana is her Roman equivalent.

In Greek tradition, Artemis is the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and twin sister of Apollo. In most accounts, the twins are the products of an extramarital liaison. For this, Zeus's wife Hera forbade Leto from giving birth anywhere on solid land. Only the island of Delos gave refuge to Leto, allowing her to give birth to her children. In one account, Artemis is born first and then proceeds to assist Leto in the birth of the second twin, Apollo.

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Hestia (/ˈhɛstiə, ˈhɛstʃə/; Ancient Greek: Ἑστία, lit. 'hearth, fireplace, altar') is the virgin goddess of the hearth and the home. In myth, she is the firstborn child of the Titans Cronus and Rhea, and one of the Twelve Olympians.

In Greek mythology, newborn Hestia, along with four of her five siblings, was devoured by her father Cronus, who feared being overthrown by one of his offspring. Zeus, the youngest child, escaped with his mother's help, and made his father disgorge all his siblings. Cronus was supplanted by this new generation of deities; and Hestia thus became one of the Olympian gods, the new rulers of the cosmos, alongside her brothers and sisters. In spite of her status, she has little prominence in Greek mythology. Like Athena and Artemis, Hestia elected never to marry and remained an eternal virgin goddess instead, forever tending to the hearth of Olympus.

Polytheism is the belief in or worship of more than one god. According to Oxford Reference, it is not easy to count gods, and so not always obvious whether an apparently polytheistic religion, such as Chinese folk religions, is really so, or whether the apparent different objects of worship are to be thought of as manifestations of a singular divinity. Polytheistic belief is usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own religious sects and rituals. Polytheism is a type of theism. Within theism, it contrasts with monotheism, the belief in a singular god who is, in most cases, transcendent.

In religions that accept polytheism, the different gods and goddesses may be representations of forces of nature or ancestral principles; they can be viewed either as autonomous or as aspects or emanations of a creator deity or transcendental absolute principle (monistic theologies), which manifests immanently in nature (panentheistic and pantheistic theologies). Polytheists do not always worship all the gods equally; they can be in monolatrists or kathenotheists, specializing in the worship of one particular deity only or at certain times (respectively)

A deity or god is a supernatural being considered to be sacred and worthy of worship due to having authority over some aspect of the universe and/or life. The Oxford Dictionary of English defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans, but who interacts with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new levels of consciousness, beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life".

Religions can be categorized by how many deities they worship. Monotheistic religions accept only one deity (predominantly referred to as "God"), whereas polytheistic religions accept multiple deities. Henotheistic religions accept one supreme deity without denying other deities, considering them as aspects of the same divine principle. Nontheistic religions deny any supreme eternal creator deity, but may accept a pantheon of deities which live, die and may be reborn like any other being.

Dewi Sri or Shridevi (Javanese: ꦢꦺꦮꦶꦱꦿꦶ, Balinese: ᬤᬾᬯᬶᬲ᭄ᬭᬶ, Dewi Sri, Sundanese: ᮑᮄ ᮕᮧᮠᮎᮤ ᮞᮀᮠᮡᮀ ᮃᮞᮢᮤ, Nyai Pohaci Sanghyang Asri) is the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese Hindu Goddess of rice and fertility, still widely worshiped on the islands of Java, Bali and Lombok, Indonesia. She is often associated or equated with the Hindu goddess Lakshmi, the shakti (consort) of Vishnu.

A war god in mythology associated with war, combat, or bloodshed. They occur commonly in polytheistic religions.

Unlike most gods and goddesses in polytheistic religions, monotheistic deities have traditionally been portrayed in their mythologies as commanding war in order to spread religion. (The intimate connection between "holy war" and the "one true god" belief of monotheism has been noted by many scholars, including Jonathan Kirsch in his book God Against The Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism and Joseph Campbell in The Masks of God, Vol. 3: Occidental Mythology.)