/lit/ - Literature

Christians were Atheists to the Romans, because the Christians didn't value anything in the world and held nihilistic and solipsistic views by contrast to the native polytheists who had essentially all the same gods but just different names for them.

I would argue that 'good' examples of christians or muslims also do not literally believe in the god in the same way (today anyway; historically also st. basil or st. benedicts good deeds didn't hinge on their faith in the god of the bible), but it's impossible to tell apart two people who both claim to believe but one does bad and one does good; that's the flaw inherent with verbal profession of unverifiable beliefs.

>the essential nature of religion is mythological, and not intellectual.
They'e complimentary; with the best examples of polytheism the 'state gods' are the focal point for the related industries w/ priests as the custodian and teachers of those industries - how far we want to connect this with the practical sciences (industry specific) is maybe another topic (lengthy essay required), 'but' ... insofar as mythologies/theologies relate to the temples/gods these are lessons 'of' the character of the god and so would be intellectual (be it early science - predicting weather - or poems like ovid), whereas 'religion' - or familial piety - would be 1000% about ones own personal ancestors and not so much about the gods as people themselves.

This is the difference between state gods and personal gods, anyway; the state is around the person and it's good that the understand it, but the personal gods - the ancestors - exist/ed and so don't require this "belief" aspect that the christian/muslim/etc. requires of 'their' god.


>1) the gods/temples/guilds were useful in major ways and didn't need to all back on 'faith in unknowable things' - the temples were like guilds and banks and hospitals and colleges etc. so the origin point for 'faith' in the sense muslims/christians think about the religion has nowhere to come from,
>2) believing venus is a real person is not that different from thinking father christmas is a real person; that is: a kid or a very mentally enfeebled adult might think of the gods as people but anyone with sense would not - is this belief a serious intellectual poiiton that would provoke debate or requre refutation by the ancient romans or greeks? fuck no. find me a serious textbook refuting belief in father christmas, this would be an absurd thing to write because the 'belief' isn't a serious thing in the first place.

most importantly though:
>3) the roman, anyway, was more focused on the ancestors than the gods; the ancestors are real people who don't require faith to believe they exist/ed lol (and this ancestor thing is far more common across the world than focus on specific gods - east asian shinto e.g.)