Stringsinger said:

Dave O, none of these gods really existed. They were myths.

Exactly. You and I can agree that they never "physically" (or metaphysically) existed, and I didn't say that Mazda, Jupiter, Krishna, Friga, YHWH, and their ilk actually exist(ed). But the ideas represented by those names were and in some cases are real enough to those who believe(d); their belief and influence exist(ed). And that's what a god is. They had their own sort of reality in the cultures involved.

And that's what my recent post was mainly about: I find it meaningful to go along with our culture in capitalizing "God" when it is used in our culture to refer to the Judaeo-Christian god as a name substitute, and not when that three-letter word refers merely to one of the class of ideational "objects".

Dave Oesterreich