I want to thank you all for last week's conversation thread. I didn't have a chance to reply to the last few meaty comments, but I've been thinking on them (mostly I had to concede that I very much resemble the almost-talking dog sdi brought up, and I have to simply take all the discourse on gods on faith that somebody knows something even if I don't!).

I still haven't quite moved all that far beyond the myths-as-literal mindset (ok, I admit, I haven't been actively trying, but that's why I'm reading Sallust), but this conversation https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/64329.html?thread=5493321#cmt5493321 (in which I inexplicably posted anonymously) was very helpful at disabusing me of the notion that the gods really are literally the way they appear in the myths.