Fish must be very holy

[Smaug]

Oh, Because their assholistic manipulation and thievery from the common people who were afraid of death, is something to forgive simply because there are less sheep now? Fuck that. A burning at the stake is too good for them.
Remember, the men that wrote the bible knew that god didn't tell them shit, they knew they were making it all up. Just like the Gypsy with the crystal ball, they knew they were taking advantage of the stupid.

I prefer not to be so affirmative on this topic. Keeping in mind that people were far more into mythical thinking and mysticism and far less common with logical way of studying the world it's not hard to assert that a big deal of them could seriously believe that their experiences came from a divine sourse. Self-delusion stemming from ignorance and limited cognitive abilities is a very strong factor. Speaking of those who had passed down these myths and those who eventually wrote them down they were not an exception. It was not common to question antiquity back then especially in such conservative societies. Of course there had always been priests who more or less understood that there was not much behind the religion they preached. And they took advantage of their position. But strictly speaking this doesn't necessary mean that their general way of thinking was too different. What should be understood here is that people themselves were generally considerably different from us in terms of culture and their way of thought.

By the way, failure to understand such principal cultural differences is why European multicultural project fails so much. The people who arrive in Europe from Africa and Middle East are from a completely alien world. They arrive from countries that live sometimes more than two thousand years behind so-called First World. And they are grown people which means that there's no way to change them. There's no way they are going to assimilate. It's psychologically impossible. And it's natural that they grow their youth in their own traditions preventing further assimilation. There may be progressive people who are ahead of their times and are willing to assimilate but for the laymen it's plain impossible. It's as good as teleporting a peasant from Middle Ages and trying to adapt him to modern life. He may learn how to use water-closet and TV but is still going to remain a person with completely different culture and way of thought. Material goods and facilities that he aquires only corrupt him because he does not really place any value behind them. He does not really understand how these goods and facilities came to be and what living in modern society means. This cultural backwardness is the reason why people who arrive from aformentioned countries tend to flock into neighbourhoods where they continue to live the way they and their ancestors lived in their homeland. It's natural for them to live in such a way. The only way to deal with the problem of cultural inequality is to help these countries to elevate faster to the level of the First World. Helping them first and foremost means spreading culture. But this is a very non-trivial task. Because to really value culture and progress they have to overcome most of the difficulties lying on the way to modernity themselves.