"I vaguely recall something a philosopher said once, to the effect of 'If God didn't exist, people would make one up'."

"From my perspective that just seems like a terrible idea!"

"Well, it's not like making up a deity gives them the ability to smite people."

"Yes, but I would not have wanted to be the one to test that theory!"

"To be fair, I do not think Abraham or Akenaten or Siddartha Guatama or whoever had ever heard of the failure modes."

"...Mm?"

"...Famous founders-of-religions," she elaborates.

"Mm. I dunno. It just seems..." He shrugs.

She shrugs. "I get where you're coming from."

"...If I thought there were gods in this world my first thought would be - how do I hold them accountable - and I feel like that isn't the thought going through most people's heads."

"Yeah, no."

"Yeah."

"People do yell at deities they believe exist and are responsible for their woes, sometimes, but not in anything I would call an effective way."

"Yeah."

"It's kind of hard to hold a deity to account for things when they don't show up."

"True. Also hard when they do, admittedly."

"Well, depends on your resources."

"True."

"Once I'm a Great Mage I could probably go into space and yell at the sun in person but I don't think that would help much either."

Giggle.

"That's actually something I like about my religion, like, you can argue all you want about whether the sun is God or not, but you can't deny that it exists and does stuff for people."

"Heh. True enough."

"Also a lot of religions produce way cool music."

"Do they? Should I listen to some?"

"Do you want to? I can sing pretty well."