"I would like to see reviews of ancient greek restaurants, explorations of comparative mythology with a view to relating the roots of Western mythology to the giants of Genesis, maybe Ovid re-told for today's add folks..."
They are clearly insane. Epicurus or Ἐπίκουρος, wrote the definitive guide to ancient Greek restaurants years ago, though I admire Anonymous's ability to spell 'restaurant' correctly, something I cannot do.
As to 'comparative mythology', I can't venture to do more than make things up entirely and post essays from other people and claim them as my own.
I do find it interesting though, that modern man believes everyone in the past to be morons, that we must have evolved from ape-like knuckle-dragging dolts, mouth breathing imbeciles too stupid to do more than hit his own useless fingers with his recently invented hammer, while the ancients believed their predecessors must have been descended from gods.
Whether this is because of insane pride on the part of ancients or modern man is hard to say (it is entirely because of pride), imagine Aristotle and Richard 'The Mouth' Dawkins picking up a fossilized bone and think of the difference in their interpretation. Also, which one is more arrogant?
We, of course, have the 'advantage' of genetic science, so we know that we share a lot of DNA with sea-sponges and thus, must be related to Brillo pads.
I suppose many might say that myths are fairy tales that the uneducated believed, that intelligent ancients didn't believe them anymore than intelligent modern man believes in the tooth fairy. Perhaps. That didn't stop the ancient intelligent minds from giving lip service to these myths at least, showing that they found value in establishing an ideal for society to live up to. It is a useful thing to be able to say 'if granddad fought a hydra once, you can pick up a gecko, dummy.'
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