I think of the Greek mythology as being analogous to the Bible. All Christians claim to believe in what the Bible says, yet very few have actually read more than a couple of pages. Most Christians believe in some parts of the Bible, while ignoring or even ridiculing others. I’d say that all Ancient Greeks equally believed the Greek Mythology. Any one person only knew a fraction of the stories from oral tradition, and actually believed in only one or two gods in private. Yet when called out on it, would profess belief in whatever the community demanded.
Well…
Santa’s Village
Santa’s workshop
Santa’s Town - right down the road from me, and extrordinarily lame.
Not to mention, of course, The Temple of the Giant Rat, The Other Temple of the Giant Rat, and The Other Other Temple of the Giant Rat.
And such places as the Temples of the Bear, Temples of the Fish, Temple of the Berry, and of course The Modern Pantheon.
Now, granted, few people who visit these places believe in the ‘god’ they were created to ‘worship’ (and those who do, are usually the very young), but the purpose is the same… to profit from those who visit them.
Another point to make - we have a weird view of the world, tempered by the belief that everything about the earth and heavens can be explained by rational scientific method, and the faith that if we can’t explain it, well, “we just ahven’t figured out the rational scientific explantion yet”.
Ancient times was very diferent. Things happened, shit happened, the world did funny things around you and to you with no logical reason. The gods provided the reason (logical or not). The shit that happened, was because the gods were sometimes just as petty as your annoying neighbour. Dreams are as real as anything else you experienced, unless you had a better explanation - they were warnings, or shadows of the real world or something…
All in all, the world was a mysterious place and it was not difficult to believe that the party line - Zeus et al - was as likely an explanation as pink leprechauns or dancing elephants.
After all, most people who believe in modern monotheistic religions swallow that party line because they were told it was so by their parents and community. There is no more such proof for that than for Thor.
However, we might believe that the average Joe from Greece or Rome probably concluded the Gods had minimal interest in him personally, not being descended of a god and not being the pivotal figure in some mythic oddessy - so just do your temple sacrifice, go about your business, and hope not to be caught up in the wake of some olympic brouhaha.