h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

GREAT ZEUS!!!

I think that Patron Saints are just Recycled Muses... it is shameful!!! Everyone knows that Greek Mythology came FIRST!!!!

Those Catholics... pretending they are not polytheists... HA!!!

Catholics aren't polytheists, nor are they disputing Greek mythology. A number of those whose lives were considered to merit beatifying or canonising have feastdays and areas of patronage that were cunningly grafted on to existing pagan feasts. This was to allow the Christian celebrations to over-ride the pagan. For example; Christmas was originally celebrated, and is still in the Orthodox church, in early January. It was moved back to supercede Saturnalia, and all the other varied mid-winter festivals. Easter was placed around the Celtic feastival of the goddess Eostre. You have to admit it was a shrewd move. The early church knew that cyclical feasts are important. It made a lot of sense to them to encourage broadly similar rejoicings to take the place of the pagan rites. Research now shows that once all people were monotheistic. The multiple gods were developed from the idea that the Great Spirit was so vast and unable to be understood, that facets of this being had to be viewed individually, in order to make them comprehensible to human minds. Hence these facets acquired individual traits similar to humans, with a magical spin to make them immortal. From these came the gods and muses of the Greek mythology, as well as the many other gods found in other faiths. It is only Jews, Christians and Moslems who are monotheistic.