What do you know today that you didn't know yesterday?

[Anomalocaris]

which seems quite natural for the general bronze age and early to middle iron age religious landscape on euroasia,  prior to the widespread knowledge of the odd exclusionary sects like Judaism and later christianity, if you think about it.

religion was not seen as a separate thing with distinctive manifestations from other phenomenons observed in all parts of life,  furthermore different people’s religionious practices are not seen as mutually contradictory or exclusive,  they are all seen as grading into eachother, and grading into other phenomenon in life,  so there is no such separate and distinct thing as religion.

It actually seems pretty odd, given that impiety was a crime. There was no word for ‘religion’ (in the modern sense), but being irreligious (again, in the modern sense) could get one into tonnes of trouble with the state.

Boru

I think being pious is probably seen in societies where religion wasn’t regarded as a separate stand alone phenomenon in much the same way being humble is seen in our society.      It is not a specific requirement of religion, but a requirement for generally not being anti-social where religion is central and yet grades seamlessly into each aspect of social interaction.