celo's commonplace blog

If people learned from earlier on that e.g. the greek and roman gods were worshipped differently across time (or even in different parts of any given country), and that this was often influenced by the cultural ideas of any given city, then it would be clear that there is no "one true version" of any myth. Instead there are (and were back then) versions of the gods that appealed to certain groups, and liking/disliking any version of them isn't a problem at all. The problem is being a dick about it, really.

You like Dionysus as a young party boi? sure go ahead. You like Aphrodite the way she was predominantly worshipped in Sparta and Kythera, where she wasn't only the goddess of love and beauty, but had a major connotation of war? Go ham.

But don't be mean to people who like middle age man Dionysus, or Aphrodite Pandemos or Urania, even if they are not "the original version" according to what you learned in school.