>>And as to your second sentence, that is also highly questionable. Many of the Greek philosophers often referred to "the gods" (some later Christian theologians translated Plato using "God" [singular, upper-case G] instead of "the gods" in the original, but that's spurious)<<

They spoke of the gods allegorically. It is extremely obvious they were never asserting these gods were for real. I believe it was the denial of gods that led to Socrates taking the hemlock.