What I mean is back in history people worshiped lots of different gods who we now no did not exist at all, even though these people truly believed in them, what makes the gods that we believe in today so real when others have been proved to be make believe?
You have a skewed understanding of what those Gods meant (and still mean to some of us) in context.
It drives me *bonkers* that “Greco-roman mythology” is taught in American English classes as though the Gods are just characters in a story. “Zeus is the God of Thunder,” says Miss Teacher, “and his Roman name is Jupiter.” Ugh.
Zeus IS thunder. Thunder is the god. Thunder is real, and if you live in a primitive society where a lightening bolt is a major show of power, there’s no real wonder why one might tremble before the Thunderer. Jupiter is a different guy, who is also thunder, but not exactly the same thunder…
Aphrodite is my favorite example of this. If you got a time machine and went and told a true Hellene that Aphrodite was a non-existant fantasy, he would weep, for you have just explained to him that he shall never know the fervor of love, that passion is an impossibility, that lavishness in life is a joke. Because *that’s* what Aphrodite is. The tale of the Goddess born of foam is an analogue of how the emotional turmoil that is Aphrodite can be real.
I actually find it harder to believe in a God whose only evidence is words in a book. I can believe in love, in war, in thunder, in growth, in the green things, in the hunt, in networks and plenty and drunkenness far easier than i can believe in a single compassionate (yet jealous and punishing) being who declaims all those others and only exists in a book.
Lovely and intelligent explanation of how the Gods are in being first and second in literal word.