Title is misleading, it's not what you get. I stopped 25% in because it got so tedious. How are you going to understand and convey understanding of religion when you spend all of your time arguing that gods did not and do not exist? Obviously religious people believe(d) their gods exist and the only way to understand their conception of the world is to acknowledge that. Reading other reviews, I think the main point may end up being that the concept of Pagan religion was a construction of the Christian other, and that for ancient religionists, "pagan" was just the fabric of reality, the water the fish are swimming in. That all makes sense. I'm just not going to be able to read any more tripe to get to that point.