When the ancient Romans looked up at the red dot in the sky and thought “Mars,” did they really believe they were looking upon the glowing form of their god of war, or did they realize it was some other object that had simply been named in honor of their god of war?
Do modern Americans look at the Earth and think “created in seven days”? Some do, some don’t.
Off the top of my head and IIRC, it was a planet which exerted certain influences on the Earth and which was associated with the god, but nobody thought it was actually a god; it wasn’t supposed to be. Same with the other planets.
Now that I’m back from my morning walk, here’s a longer explanation: according to the Aristotlean/Ptolemaic model of the universe, the globe of Earth is surrounded by a series of hollow, transparent, concentric globes, each larger than the next (like matrushka dolls), called spheres, heavens, or sometimes elements. They are made of a substance called quintessence. Each of the first seven spheres has one luminous body affixed to it, which are of course the seven planets. The next sphere is that of the fixed stars, or stellatum, and after that is the Primum Mobile, which is inferred in order to give motion to all the others.
Each planetary sphere exerts its own influence. Mars is known as Infortuna Minor; it exerts a bad influence, starting wars, but also giving men a ‘martial temperament’ --strong, sturdy, and hardy. Mars also makes iron. Planetary influences do not work upon people directly, but upon the air, which then affects affects people. The planet Mars is associated with the god, they belong to each other, but the planet is not supposed to be the god.
(You should know that Ptolemy, a Greek astronomer writing in the 2nd century AD, wrote that the Earth was, on a cosmic scale, a point with almost no magnitude and that the stars were supposed to be extremely large and far away. This model of the universe, which was the accepted standard until Copernicus and Galileo came along, was far larger than most modern people realize.)