At one time in history a large population of people believed in “The Gods”, Zuess, Thor, Murcury, etc. Mostly Romans and Greeks.
Are there any groups who actually still believe in this?
I seem to recall a letter in a newspaper columnist’s weekly correspondance from a lady who mentioned that she was a devout believer in the old Greco-Roman Gods. Unfortunately–that memory is so far back in my mind that I can’t dig up any details…except that I thought it was weird to know that there were still believers.
There are many neopaganist sects that worship these gods, but do so more as symbols than actual deities.
Years ago, I read about a book that someone had written about religious practices. The author had found an amazing variety of tiny obscure cults, including, if I remember correctly, small groups that still worshipped Greco-Roman gods.
What about the old Norse and Egyptian Gods?
They’re ALL still around.
Worshipping Greco-Roman gods is now Hellenic Neopaganism.
Worshipping Norse gods goes under the name of Asatru nowadays.
Worshipping Egyptian gods falls under Kemetic Orthodoxy, the “current-day practice of the traditional religion of Kemet (known today as Egypt)”.
Polytheism is alive and well in India, idols and all.
Just so nobody gets confused, the name of the Greek Big Daddy of the Gods was Zeus, not Zuess. The Romans called him Jupiter. Both were philandering numbskulls who cheated on their wives (Hera to the Greeks, Juno to the Romans) incessantly. Needless to say, those gods fathered many of the deities and heros in their respective cultures’ mythologies.
And I’ll point out that Thor was not a Greco-Roman, but a Norse deity (a relative once told me how he had named all his dogs after Greek gods- Zeus, Thor, Cleo!). Mercury, I think, was the Roman name for Hermes.
Agatha Christie was probably not a believer in the gods, but she did have a reaccuring character called Harley Quin. He befriended another reaccuring character, Mr. Satterthwaite, who eventually caught on that Mr. Quin was Hermes.
Minor nitpick: The Roman god Jupiter was not a philanderer, as the Roman gods were not anthropomorphic and had no mythology. The Greek Zeus is a well-muscled man holding a thunderbolt, but the Roman Jupiter is the thunderbolt, itself. It was only with the Greek conquest (I’ll let the philosphers and historians argue about who conquered whom :)) that the names of the Roman gods became associated with the Greek gods and their myths.
A friend of mine from Norway was telling me that alot of young people over there are following the old norse religion these days but its more a trend than actual beliefs (Getting tatoos of Mjollnir, learning to write runes…etc).
True story (you can look it up): In “What makes Cecil Adams the world’s greatest reference librarian?”, (Paul S. Piper, American Libraries, February, 1995, page 147), the author, described as a “grade-school chum of Cecil Adams”, recounts Unca Cece’s assumption of his exalted destiny: