People never ask me if I believe in Zeus. It's not really that surprising since no one literally believes in the Greek Pantheon. Clearly the stories of an angry, petty god killing mortals with lightning bolts, turning them into piles of salt, asking them to sacrifice things like their firstborn to prove their faith - those aren't real. What kind of all-powerful being would create natural disasters just to wipe out the humans they don't like? It's not really 'godly' behaviour, is it? It seems more like what a writer with aspirations of power would come up with.
And then there's the children. Ignoring for a second the morality of an omnipotent being impregnating mortal women, somehow the son (it's almost always a son) is the real hero. They're the one to save us pathetic mortals. They use their super powers - strength, imperviousness, walking on water - to help out humanity. It's like the Divine Cinematic Universe. A great show, but we all know it's special effects and not real life.
So the stories are entertaining and many even have a good moral buried in the details; but we don't need to believe they actually happened to learn from them. We don't need to believe there's a gray-haired man sitting up in the clouds on Olympus, fathering magical children who will save us with miracles, in order to learn how to be good people and treat others well. So the Greek myths continue to be told and retold, they continue to entertain and teach, but we can all agree that myths are mythical. No one should believe them to be real.
But people do ask me if I believe in God.
