I didn't actually post this one.
It grew out of the following discussion on rec.arts.sf.written, which I'm leaving in usenet format:
Jo Walton
>In article <5nm8k3$pm3@excalibur.gooroos.com>
> graydon@gooroos.com "Graydon Saunders" writes:
>> Perhaps religions can't readily make the transit into spacefarers, and if
>> the mechanism of colonization is such that the colonists are drawn mostly
>> from spacefarers, it could well be a long time before an actual religion
>> appears anywhere.
>
>You mean until they find/make/grow the gods appropriate to the place?
Yup.
>I'm still boggled by the implications of this. There are a _lot_ of things
>that could be done with that idea.
Very much so, I think.
I think it would be difficult to portray with an adequate strangeness,
though, both in results and process.