“The Roman did not, like the Greek, think of his gods as having human form; he called them simply numina, or spirits; sometimes they were abstractions like Health, Youth, Memory, Fortune, Honor, Hope, Fear, Virtue, Chastity, Concord, Victory, or Rome. Some of them, like the Lemures or Ghosts, were spirits of disease, hard to propitiate….Never had a religion so many divinities. Varro reckoned them at 30,000, and Petronius complained that in some towns of Italy there were more gods than men.”

Having gods in everything is not all that different from monotheistic belief that God, their single god, is in everything which is certainly a lot easier than having to remember the names of all the different gods. However, I rather like the notion of many gods. I thank the cedar shingle god who has placed the right size and number of shingles in my hand before climbing the ladder; I thank the stone god for missing my bare foot when I drop a stone unwisely; I thank the rain god for holding the rain back until I am through picking the beans and if I give thanks prematurely, I laugh at the joke being played on me.

I suppose those who believe that a loving god could be so self-centered as to make the first three of His Ten Commandments be all about himself will be sure that I am on a course for hell. It is my hope that their beliefs make them as happy as the playful relationship I have with my gods makes me.

The quote above is from The Story of Civilization: Part III Caesar and Christ by Will Durant which I am currently enjoying. I have read four of the eleven volumes and highly recommend them to anyone who enjoys reading history