Thumbing Your Nose at Zeus

[Igel]

1. It struck me as commonly accepted that many of the references in

classic literature, esp. Greek, was simply a system of commonly understood tropes and figures. One didn't need to genuflect before Washington's portrait to refer to "chopping down a cherry tree" any more than one needed to periodically sacrifice to Zeus to refer to a story with Zeus in it.

Philosophers may worry about the distinction between being an atheist and a non-believer; but for the most part, non-believing could be done quietly, and fades discretely into agnosticism. Rather like when I took Arabic I was taught the "Muslim" and non-Muslim greetings, and also that alhamdulillah and such expressions that dripped off conversational speech did not necessarily reflect a deep-seated piety any more than Valley-Girl "OMG" is a sign of fervent belief.

Or perhaps that's just a reflection of my world literature professor's very explicit views on the matter of belief by Aeschylus, etc., back in '76 or '77, whenever I took that class.