Carefully note the difference.
The ancients were humble enough and wise enough to recognize that there are other spiritual entities larger than themselves, who control certain aspects of the world.
That they invented pagan deities to meet this need is irrelevant. The more important fact is that the ancient civilizations all acknowledged the presence of divinity in some form.
Only modern, Christian, western, enlightened beings were arrogant enough and vain enough to cast off all the ancient wisdom and declare themselves atheists. Only in the west, only in formerly Christian countries do you see atheists.
There were no atheists in the ancient, pagan world. (Mic drop).
Xenophanes
Clitomachus
Perhaps you should pick up your mic.
Wow are you ever 100% wrong. There were plenty of atheists in the ancient world, especially in the Greek and Roman world. And don’t drop mics, it’s incredibly rude to the sound guy.
They were basically deists, not atheists. The Epicureans decided that, yeah, there was something, but they didn’t know what it was and all we had was right here, right now.
I recently listened to an excellent book by N.T. Wright on the Psalms, and he said that essentially that is what the modern world has chosen.
But other Classical thinkers - we have to remember that the official state religion was a mixture of polytheist and emperor worship, which they rejected tacitly so they didn’t get persecuted - went much more into the mystery of why we are here, who created us, and what we’re supposed to do with our time.
Yes, we should read them. That’s why Dante picked Virgil as his first guide (until he reached Paradise, which Virgil could not enter because he wasn’t baptized). They used to be referred to, prior to VII, as the “virtuous pagans,” that is, abiding by Natural Law, which is available to every human being.
Of course there weren’t atheists back then. The fedora was centuries from being invented, and Reddit came even later than that.