No, for once I am not griping about modern academia. Instead, I am going to speak about a similar phenomenon, but from a very different time. That being the question of how those living in Greece and Rome between about 500 BC and 200 AD conceived of their religions.

I was thinking about this today, when I was struck by how uniform the answer is to this question from academics, and how little foundation underlies that uniform answer.

Actually, my first thought was to make an analogy to the most well known modern polytheistic religion, Hinduism. And when thinking of Hinduism, it is also academic tradition to ascribe an "enlightened" explanation and claim Hinduism thinks of the many deities as aspects of a single G-d, and that modern Hindus and even in the past they did not really have a full fledged polytheistic system.

The problem being that such a description is absurdly reductionist, and takes a limited range of opinions and ascribes them universal scope. Unfortunately, reality is not so tidy. While many thinkers may have seen each deity as an aspect of a single G-d, and even the common man might have been aware of this theological belief, that did not stop equally enlightened thinkers form dividing over the question of whether Shiva or Vishnu held preeminence, which suggests each was seen as something more than a mere abstraction. Similarly, the partisanship many locals held for the deities of their region, or those having prominent temples in the region suggests that many saw individual deities as having more than an abstract significance. And thus, it seems pretty clear, among the common men, and even among many more "elevated" thinkers, there was, and is, a position which ascribes more than abstract significance to the many deities, seeing them as more than intellectual categories or metaphorical descriptions of various facets of religion.

Which led me to ask whether the conventional wisdom about the classical period might be equally confused. The conventional wisdom currently is that all educated men thought the g-ds were nothing but myths, useful fictions. The quote "as it is useful for there to be g-ds, let them be" is trotted out with regularity. It is conceded that some peasants may have taken the tales more literally, but even there the belief is that superstition and peasant beliefs were more important than the Olympians. And so, it seems, the Olympians somehow went from objects of worship to mere civic fictions in a few short decades, and remained fictions until Christianity arose.

There are problems though. First of all that the religions persisted, even drawing individuals into mystery rites, long after the theory arose that thinking men did not take them seriously. But, why, if they did not take them seriously, did thinking men, the only ones who could afford to join mystery cults, do so? It seems there was more than a little faith among thinking men, if the cults survived for so long, and even drew enough attention for foreign cults to spread to Rome and attract members.

Second, and more significant, if the old religions were nothing but fictions, why did the ancients persecute Christians? Yes, I know the story that Christians, in their anti-idol zeal refused to sacrifice or swear and threatened the civic order, but that seems a small reason for full fledged persecution. Jews had the same restrictions and were not treated in the same way, at least not until they actually rose in revolt and attacked the Romans. If there was such anger over individuals abandoning their traditional g-ds for Christianity, it seems there was some feeling for the old g-ds beyond mere convenience and national loyalty.

Finally,the one argument which gave this post its title. Almost all of our beliefs about religion in the classical era come from a few writers. In other words, we are effectively looking at a handful of intellectuals and taking their view of religion as universal. It is as if we looked to Richard Dawkins and Michael Moore to decide how modern societies view G-d. Yes, the men we use to establish our views of ancient religion were the foremost intellectuals of their era, but that does not mean their views were average, or even common. It is quite possible they were as unusual in their beliefs as they were in their intellectual gifts. As a result, we may, and likely are, taking quite idiosyncratic views and assuming they represent the everyday. And that is quite a mistake.

Actually, there is one similar foolishness. The idea that "the Founders were deists." Well, some were, and some held beliefs somewhere between traditional Christianity and deism, but there were other founders who held pretty traditional views, and some who were involved in the religious revival movements which spread through the new nation a short time after its founding. So, while some founders were deists, it is absurd to argue that they were all deists. It is as much of a mistake as ascribing any single belief to all of them. ("The Conservative Trump Card")

Of course, it is possible some are being foolish or intellectually lazy in this overly simple belief. But I have my worries that it is more than that. As the Founder argument shows, these sort of "mistakes" often have another reason. In the case of the Founders, it is to show that the US should be as atheist as possible, and should in all ways oppose any organized religion as the "deist Founders" clearly would oppose any sort of established religion. (Which not only misrepresents the Founders, but also the 18th century beliefs of deism.)

And I think the classical beliefs of religion may be intended similarly. As Greece and Rome are viewed so positively by many, even despite the attempts to denigrate western thought, the idea that the most serious thinkers of Greece and Rome viewed all religion as myth and took none of it seriously is intended to suggest religious belief is somehow not worthy of serious consideration. Even more importantly, by position an agnostic classical era, brought to an end by a believing Christian revolution, transforming a golden age into a dark ages, is also a quite handy way to criticize Christians as well.

And so, though it seems nothing but poor scholarship or sloppy thinking, I am left wondering if there may not be something more in the tendency to take the beliefs of a few thinkers, always the ones expressing the most agnostic or atheistic beliefs, and then ascribing their thoughts to at least all intellectuals, if not the culture as a whole. It just seems too useful, too convenient, a mistake to be accidental.

POSTSCRIPT

I am well aware my description of Hinduism is absurdly simplistic. On the other hand, the views promulgated by "enlightened" multiculturalists which ascribe Smarta beliefs to all Hindus, ignoring completely the Shatki, Shaiva and Vaishnava beliefs, are even more simplistic. And at least I know I have simplified and I am ignoring many important distinctions, while many who claim to be culturally aware think their simplistic beliefs are accurate representations. So I plead guilty but ask that you forgive my simplification as unavoidable given the circumstances. And suggest that, while simplification is misleading, at least my simplification is hardly the worst possible.