Why this word is great
ZOOTHEISM — [Noun] The worship of animals or animal deities; zoolatry. From zoo- ("animal") + -theism ("belief in gods"), ultimately from Greek zōon ("animal") and theos ("god"), it is the veneration of beasts not as symbols or vessels, but as gods themselves. Unlike "theriomorphism" (which depicts deities in animal guise) or "animism" (which imbues all nature with spirit), zootheism reserves its devotion for the clawed, the furred, the scaled. It is the golden scarab rolling dung toward the rising sun, the ibis-headed Thoth inscribing wisdom with his beak, the sacred cows of Varanasi shuffling through temple smoke—a recognition that divinity, too, must hunger, bleed, and die.