How is any of the above any different from,
Hercules and the Giants
"Zeus wasn't always the king of the Greek gods. Ouranos was the king of the first generation of gods, but he was overthrown by Kronos, who was his son. Kronos was father to Zeus and the Olympians, and he, too, was overthrown by his son. Even after Zeus took charge, succeeding generations and different races of gods still competed for control of Olympus.
While Zeus was establishing himself, the Earth gave birth to a new, monstrous set of gods, the Giants, which were fathered by the Sky. The Giants were as tall as mountains and so strong as to be unbeatable. The Olympian gods were anthropomorphic, which means that they looked a lot like human men and women. But the Giants were frightening to look at. According to Apollodorus, their shaggy hair drooped from their heads and chins, and they had dragon scales on their feet."
It certainly doesn't follow that your gods are to be believed when the Greek gods are obviously the true gods.
All beliefs are
not equally valid. People may be equally free to embrace any belief they wish to, but doing so in no way lends any validity to some beliefs over other beliefs. There are valid beliefs which conform to the strictures of knowledge (empirical evidence, consistency, adherence to logic, repeatable results, falsifiable) and those that are assertions without benefit of any standards (i.e., theistic claims of all stripes, each devoid of any real evidence.)
Of course. Why hold anyone to a standard of demonstration? Could it be not to do so is just cowardly?
By and large, the pagans of the ancient world fully realized that there wasn't literally an omnipotent bearded guy named Zeus walking around on Mt Olympus chucking lightening bolts around. The gods were abstractions representing the various natural and metaphysical forces of the universe. The rites and rituals (practices) were the important part because they helped to attune the practitioner with those forces.
If you go to a Catholic picnic, you'll find a wide variety of opinions around the picnic table on subjects ranging from politics to the sciences to what have you ( I would say in California that less than 5% take the Creation stories in Genesis to be literal). Half are Democrats and half are Republicans. Again, what is important is the practice. Participate in mass, shake hands with your neighbor, say "peace be with you", sing the hymns, put some money in the basket, confess your sins, have a charitable vocation, eat some burgers at the picnic, etc..
The first universities were Catholic, and the first telescopes, and you can go down the list of every single one of the sciences and find Catholics were there from the start. The Origin of the Species was never banned by the Vatican, though there were plenty of local parish priests who railed against it. But, look, Darwin's work was based on the work of Mendel, a priest, and the father of genetics. The dude (Lemaitre) who first proposed the Big Bang theory was a priest.
Some of the posters here seem unable to wrap their minds around how it could be that a deeply religious person can also be an intellectual. It's as if they think that the theory of evolution is absent from the University of Notre Dame, Georgetown, Marquette, USF, Xavier, Dayton, Boston College, etc..
If Godwin's Law refers to the truth that all internet discussions devolve into someone pulling the Hitler card,
Treeshepherd's Law now refers to the truth that all online discussions about religion result in an atheist pulling the Santa Claus or Tooth Fairy card, as if it were impossible to have a deeper understanding of the nature of the gods.