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As I have said to many, both on and off Gaia, the best way to gain tolerance is to learn about the faith. Here I will post each God and Goddess with as thourough of a description as I can, using references from the Egyptian Prayerbook and other books and online rescources. It should also be noted so there is no confusion, when I say Greek Names, I mean the names that the Greeks used in referencing the Egyptian Gods and Goddesses before the fall of Egypt and thier sychronizing the Names of Netjer with thier own Gods. These Greek names for the Kemetic (Egyptian) Gods and Goddesses were written upon greek pupyri, which is what archeologists use when refering the the ancient Gods and Goddesses of Kemet (Egypt)

Amun: The Hidden Lord (Greek Name: Amen)
Amun is King of the Netjeru, Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands (Upper and Lower Kemet), a major Name of Netjer in Uaset (Thebes) in Upper Kemet. As Lord to the Limit as creator of all things, Amun the God represented in the hidden wind and intangible sunlight eventually syncretized with the royal cult of Ra to emerge as Amun-Ra in the Middle Kingdom. Successions o Uast's rulers propelled Amun's fame to national and eventually international status. Even Alexander the Great sought Amun's blessing before beecomming Kemet's ruler.

It is possible that conceptions of Amun and Amun-Ra influenced conceptions of the Hebrew/Jewish (and later Christian) God. We do know that He influenced concepts of Greek Zeus and Roman Jupiter, as both the Greek and the Romans considered 'Amen' to be a form of the same divinity.

Amun (as well as the Amun-Ra syncretism) is generally depicted as a man bearing a long, curved sword called a khopesh, wearing a tall crownwith two feathered plumes and a red and white pleated kilt. Less frequently, He is shown as a ram with downturned horns (not to be confused with the wavy, outstreched horns representing the God Khnum), as a ram-headed man, or as a criosphinx, a ram-headed seated lion. Often his skin is colored blue, symbolizing lapis lazuli, an expensive imported gemstone said to be a substance the Gods chose to embody Themselves in.

As offerings, Amun is very much enamored of scents and incenses. He is known from a very early age as 'Lord of Myrrh' and this remains one of the best offerings to Amun a person can give. it has been reported by His children and other worshippers, in antique and modern references, that when Amun comes to bless a person the sweet, pleasant smell of myrrh or other incense fills the air.

Amun is often referred to in relation to Zep Tepi or 'the first occassion', a kemetic reference to the beginning of time or the moment of creation, as in the following hymn where he is not only the first God, but a God who created Himself:

Amun, Atum, Khepera, Ra,
One who made Himself millions,
Ptah-tatenen of Zep Tepi.
You made Yourself of Your own hands,
by Your own will.

Aten: Splendid Disk of the Sun
Aten is the physically visable sun, the physical yellow sphere in the sky that can fructify or scorch. The Aten-disk was venerated as a form of Shu, Ra or Heru from the late Middle Kingdom and onwards and was not, as is often mistakenly believed, invented by the New Kingdom ruler Amunhotep IV/ Ahkenaten.

However, in the New Kingdom and particularly during the rule of Akhenaten's father Amunhotep III, the Aten-disk did enjoy a higher level of worship. During Akhenaten's reign, for reasons not entirely clear in historic record, Akhenaten declairs all other Gods and Goddesses invalid and Thier priests useless, and ordered Kemet to worship Akhenaten himself as the Sole One of Aten, who would take his people's prayers to his Father. He did not actually order them to worship Aten; contemperary texts state that only Akhenten was allowed to do so as the Disk's personal intermediary.

It is important to realize that Akhenaten's religious reforms did not represent a shift to monotheism, another common but incorrect assumption. Akhenaten, like all other kings before and after him, still offered an image of Ma'at in friezes, and his own hymns refer to the sun-disk by the full name of Ra-Heruakhety in His Name of Shu Who is in the Aten indicating Akhenaten's 'destruction' of the other Gods was rather selective, and that his intent seems more to have been to create a cult of personality than to negate other cults.

A number of ancient images and artifacts confirm Akhenaten's true heresy, in replacing the religious traditions with himself as the focal point of worship as he names himself to be Shu and his Great Royal Wife Nefertiti to be Tefnut, the first two children of the Self-Created One in traditional Kemetic mythology. Akhenaten's so-called 'new religion' sought to remove the gods from the unseen world and force them firmly into the seen, transplanted to a utopian new capital city, Akhet-aten the Horizon of the Aten, carved out of a desolate area of Middle Kemet where no city had ever been placed before.

In any case this new religion did not long outlast Akhenaten; a backlash agianst the Atenist movement after his death resulted in the loss of much of Aten's prestige, and Aten was never restored to His level of worship prior to the Amarna period. The Kemetic Orthodox do not disavow the worship of Aten as a Name of Netjer; we agree that Aten is a form of Ra-Heruakhety, just as ancient hymns praise Him. We do not, however, embrace Akhenaten's form of Aten's worship, where only one person is permitted to speak to the divine and all others must worship that person.

Offerings to Aten are simillar as those given to Ra, Heru (particularly Heruakhety), and Amun. He prefers citrus fruits, sweet cakes and vegetables and seems not to respond well to animal meats or alcoholic beverages other than wine or beer. Aten should preferably be worshipped outdoors in full sunlight whenever possible.

The universal properties of Aten-as-symbol lend themselves well to the poetry of this hymn:

Hail Aten, daytime sun Who forms all living creation,
Great Falcon with multicolored feathers,
Scarab Who created Himself,
Who came into being alone and was not born.
Heru of the sky,
Who hears men shouts praises at His rise and set,
Who created Earth and its forms;
Khnum Who formed mankind,
united the Two Lands;
Mut, highly praised by Gods and men;
Gentle craftsman, great One Who tires Himself endlessly creating,
Brave One Who protects and shelters His herd and makes them live.
Hapi running His course, noble Khepera,
Rising perfect over Nut, shining disk over the Two Lands.
Nun Who created Itself, standing alone over creation,
Who goes to the world's end each day while all watch,
Shining from heaven in His Name of Sun, making seasons;
Hot or cool as He passes, making bodies weak or watching them flourish.
Every land rejoices in praise at His rising.

Bast: the Invisible Paw (Greek name: Bastet)
The 'Devouring Lady' (from bas, to devour, with a feminine ending), Bast is one of Kemet's earliest-documented Goddesses, with Her first-known appearance during Dynasty 2. Bast is first and foremost a protectress; specifically of the royal house and the Two Lands. During Dynasty 4, She was a patroness of Lower Kemet, paired with Hethert as a patroness of Upper Kemet, as Wadjet and Nekhbet are often depicted in later times. The Valley Temple of the Pyramid of Khafra at modern-day Giza near the Sphinx, contains a Protal of Bast that once displayed statues of Bast beside the king. Bast's earliest depictions are as a desert cat with tuft, pointed ears or as a lioness-headed woman.

Over time, Bast's image metamophosed to become similar to Hethert's, and Her visage changed from a lioness to that of a domesticated feline; eventuall, into the Classical period, Bast would be equated to the Greek virgin huntress Artemis and considered a protectress of children and pregnant mothers, musicians and a Goddess of all types of excess, especially sexual.

However, Bast's original visage did not include a cat as a sex symbol archetype, and Her syncretisms with the Goddess Sekhmet and the God Ra, as well as Her syncretisms with the Goddesses Mut and Pakhet, bear this out and show a very fierce, violent side to this sensual Goddess.

Incidently, it is also from the Greeks that an erroneous belief in Bast as daughter of Aset and Wesir derives; Artemis had a twin brother, Apollo, and the Greeks believed Apollo to be the same as the Kemetic Heru-sa-Aset, they then decided that Bast must be Heru-sa-Aset's twin.A play on words in Bast's Name also resulted in her equation in later times with the 'Soul of Isis' (ba-Aset); This was probably in keeping with Aset's gradual syncretism into the Roman Isis of Ten Thousand Names.

Bast, like Aset, appreciates luxurious offerings. One of Her titles is 'Lady of Perfume', and so scent is also a welcomed offering, as is jewelry, fine foods and succulent fruits. Of all the Kemetic Deities, Bast truely enjoys the fine decadence of fine chocolates and cordial liquers, something She could not have been offered in antiquity.

An ancient myth protrays Bast and/or Ra as the Great Cat, Whose knife and claws rent the evil serpent Apep, as in this hymn:

Praise the Great Cat, kissing the ground before Ra the Great God!
O peaceful one Who turns to peace,
You have shown me for that which I have done.
Make light for me so I may see Your beauty.
Turn to me, Peace-loving one Who knows forgiveness,
May You give me life, properity and health.

Djehuty: Ever Wise (Greek name: Thoth)
The ibis-headed Lord of Time, Writing and Wisdom, Djehuty is said to have invented the hieroglyphic script and negotiated five extra days from the moon to perfect the 365-day Kemetic year that Julius Caesar later made the basis of our modern calendar. As a result of these mythological connections, Djehuty can be considered the patron God of writers, teachers, accountants and all persons involved in the dissemination of knowledge, writing and/or calculation.His consorts are alternately Ma'at, Goddess of Truth and Order; and Seshat, patroness of record-keeping, libraries and building construction.

Djehuty is head of a group of creator Gods called the Great Eight (Khmunu in Kemetic, Ogdoad in Greek) honored at the city of Khmun (litterally 'Town of the Eight', Hermopolis Magna). The Great Eight are four pairs of natural syzyrgies (God-and-Goddess pairs) in that city's theological construct: Eternity (Heh and Hehet), Darkness (Kek and Keket), Water/Potentiality (Nun and Nunet), and Wind/Hiddeness (Amun and Amunet)

Djehuty stands at the side of the scales in the Hall of Two Truths to record the verdict that Yinepu delivers after weighing the heart of the deceased agianst the feather of Ma'at.

Scribes in Kemet usually offered the first few drops of ink as a daily libation to Djehuty. In modern times, this would still be an appropriat offering as would computers, writing instruments, papers, books and communications projects.

Prayer to Djehuty:
Hail Djehuty,
Lord of Morning.
I own ma'at and reject isfet.
May your light open the darkness.

just as a side-reference, you notice ma'at in this isn't capitalized. Ma'at is the Goddess of Truth and Order while ma'at is the concept of Truth and Order.

Hapi: God of the Nile (Greek Name: Hep)
Hapi was probably a predynastic name for the Nile - later on, the Egyptians just called the Nile iterw, meaning 'the river' - and so it became the name of the god of the Nile. ('Nile' comes from the Greek corruption - Neilos - of the Egyptian 'nwy' which means 'water'.) He was mentioned in the Pyramid Texts ("who comest forth from Hep") where he was to send the river into the underworld from certain caverns, where he was thought to have lived at the 1st Cataract. The Nile was thought to have flown through the land of the dead, the heavens and finally flowing into Egypt where it rose out of the ground between two mountains which lay between the Islands of Abu (Elephantine) and the Island of Iat-Rek (Philae). Hapi was also mentioned in the Pyramid Texts as a destructive power, but one that worked for the pharaoh.

As a water god, Hapi was a deity of fertility - he provided water, food and the yearly inundation of the Nile. He was also known as 'Lord of the Fishes and Birds of the Marshes,' indicating that he provided these creatures to the Egyptians along with the Nile itself. Without Hapi, Egypt would have died, and so he was sometimes revered even above Ra, the sun god. The depiction of Hapi himself, though, was that of a rather well-fed, blue or green man with the false beard of the pharaoh on his chin. Other than showing his status as a god of fertility by his color, the Egyptians showed Hapi as having rather large breasts, like those of a mother with a baby.

During the inundation flood, the Egyptians would throw offerings, amulets and other sacrifices into the Nile at certain places, sacred to Hapi. Hapi was thought to come with the inundation (the 'Arrival of Hapi') with a retinue of crocodile gods and frog goddesses, and the sacrifices were given in the hopes that the flood would not be too high, nor too low. If the inundation was too high, many homes would be destroyed (the Egyptians built their homes and even palaces out of mud brick, which was easily washed away in a large flood). On the other hand, if the flood was too low, there would not be enough water for the fields and cattle - Egypt would be in drought. During inundation, statues of Hapi were carried about through the towns and villages so that the people could honor and pray to him - it was a solemn occasion.

There are no known temples of Hapi, but his statues and reliefs are found in the temples of other deities. He was worshiped throughout the land of Egypt, but especially at Aswan and Gebel El-Silisila.

Hymn to Hapi:
Hail to thee, O Hapi! Who manifests thyself over this land, and comes to give life to Kemet!
Come and prosper!
Come and prosper!
O Nile, come and prosper!
O you who make men to live through his flocks and his flocks through his orchards!
Come and prosper, come,
O Nile, come and prosper!

Heru: The Soaring Falcon(s) (Greek Name: Horus)
Heru (meaning 'high' or ;who is above') is a collective title given to not just one form of Netjer, but two Deities, both of Whom symbolize leadership of all sorts and especially the leadership demonstrated in the position of the Nisut, the king of the Two Lands. Heru is also a name for a Nisut's throne and of a Nisut him- or herself; the identification of kings and the institution of kingship with the Heru-Gods is very close in all periods, even into classical and modern times.

Both Heru-Gods, divided as Elder and Child of Aset and Wesir, are associated with leadership, justice, strength and many other posative traits, and have many similarities. Within a monolatrous theology, They and all of Their individual, localized aspects can also be considered aspects of the same God.

Forms of Heru are known even before the advent of writing from depictions on Predynastic pottery and monuments, where we observe hawks and standards with a hawk sitting on top of them: Predynastic and early Dynastic kings wrote thier names within a serekh, a drawing of a palace and a hawk sitting upon its roof. The Kemetic people observed in the hawk theopanthy the quickness, intellegence, alertness and staying power of a just ruler; nothing escaped Heru's watchful eye, and no wrongdoer escaped His claws.

The older, both chronologically and mythologically earlier forms of Heru, including Heru-wer (The Elder Heru) and Heruakhety (Heru of Two Horizons, sometimes considered an aspect of Ra) depict Him as being an abstract sky God, with sun and moon described as His eyes. Heru in his Elder form is sometimes equated with the Gods Shu, Heka or Ra, is the twin of Set and brother of Wesir, and given the form of the sun-disk with two hawk wings appended. The winged disk would later be placed as an artistic element above temple doorways and at the top of monuments and stelae as a sign of divine victory over the forces of evil; Heru-wer and all of His forms are invoked as very masculine, strong Gods of magic, healing and protection.

The later forms of Heru depict him in a younger position as the son of Wesir and Aset, under the name of Heru-sa-Aset, nephew of Set and Heru-wer. In mythology, Heru-sa-Aset battles with Set for kingship of the Two lands after Wesir becomes Lord of the Dead. Heru-pa-Khered or 'Heru the Child', is the most popular aspect of the younger Heru. which influenced early Christian concepts of Jesus and Saint George through the Kemetic Copts. The younger Heru has a mydrad of various aspects, including Heru-sema-tawy (Heru, Uniter of the Two Lands) and Heru--nedj-it-ef (Heru, Savior of His Father).

The following portion of a New Kingdom incantation explains how Heru-sa-Aset's words can be used in magical ways to bring about desired results:

Heru's words keep death away, restoring life to those whose throats are closed.
Heru's words renew life, making years long for the one who invokes Him.
Heru's words put out fires. His heka heals disease.
Heru's words can save a man, even from his fate.

Imhotep: In Peace
Imhotep is one example of the "personality cult" of Kemet, whereby a learned sage or otherwise especially venerated person could be deified after death and become a special intercessor for the living, much as the saints of Roman Catholicism and forms of Orthodox Christianity. Imhotep the man is recorded as having lived during the Third Dynasty of the Old Kingdom. He is said to have been a chief lector-priest (kher-heb/hery-hebt hery-tep) as well as a famed architect and physician. The Step Pyramid complex of King Djoser at modern-day Saqqara is just one monument attributed to Imhotep's design. In the Late Period, Imhotep was identified with the Greek demigod Asklaepios and attributed with feats of miraculous healing. During this period, Imhotep was declared the son of Ptah and Sekhmet in the Triad of Mennefer (Memphis), and was sometimes identified with Their son, Nefertem.

As of right now, I do not know of any offerings to give to Imhotep.

Hymn to Imhotep:
We rejoice in You, Imhotep the Great, son of Ptah, the god with the merciful heart,
Come into your House, into your temple at Thebes! We wait for you with joy.
Condescend to come to eat (our offerings) and to smell the perfume of the incense,
And let your body be rejuvenated by the ritual ablutions…

You meet Amon at the Feast-times of the year, because your cities are close by,
The god Montou of Ermant, Lord of Thebes, strengthens your arm,
You master the North wind, and direct it toward your House in the South.

You watch the light of the golden rays of the sun on the doors of the Lord of authority,
So you see the Houses of the gods on the four sides of your home,
You receive offerings of bread from who place them on your tables of offerings,
Your thirst is quenched by water offered by your priests.

The managers of your Divine-domain allocate you your offerings, which are of the very best things; the
aumoneses and daily foods are the red wine, crocks of beer and of milk, as well as holocausts when the evening comes.

Let your Ba come down each day from the sky into your home to hear the praises and songs of your priests and see the transfigurations of the one that gives sacrifices for your Ka.

Men praise you, and women give you homage; all without exception celebrate your success as a healer. You are the one that gives them life, as you renew your father's creation.

They bring you their offerings, they dedicate their sacrifices to you, they sacrifice their possessions so that you would partake of their bread, and that you would drink with your brothers, the ancient gods, and that you would share your meals with those already transfigured.

All wise men, and especially the first among them, your brother, Amenhotep, (Son of Hapou), the one whom you love, all praise God for you. He is with you and is close to you, so that your bodies are completely purified, and your Bas receives the offerings which your son Kaisaros Sebastos brings.