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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   3271 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 10, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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perhaps calling Republican Rome atheistic is a stretch

It's not a stretch, its just entirely wrong. It would be wrong for Imperial Rome as well. Like, there are many, many dissertations written about the importance and universality of religious ritual in Rome, but if you really want to experience it first hand, just go there and tour any of the hundreds of temples they built. They didnt do it for aesthetics.

In addition to the rituals of the active civic Roman religion, ancient Romans (and all ancient people) were incredibly superstitious to an extent modern people struggle to imagine. Magic and the supernatural were very obviously real to them. Worldly events, good or bad, had supernatural causes, or at least nudges, and the original Roman religion was the organic accumulation over time of how, when, where, why, and who interacted with this supernatural reality. Of note these needs did no go away when the empire adopted Christianity. Many changes were made to the religion of the apostles to satisfy the Romans need to interact with the supernatural forces that obviously drove all events on Earth.

Old pagan religions had different virtue ethics systems so it can often be easy to miss how devout these civilizations were despite all the drinking killing and whoring. Also people forget that the cynical libertine city slicker/salt of the earth rural farmer divide has existed forever, and a small strata of the urban upper class isn’t going to accurately represent the beliefs of society as a whole.

Indeed, as Bret Devereaux (from the ACOUP blog) often points out: it's important to remember that people in the past actually believed in their religion.

This is useful reminder about people in the present as well.

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