Virtually everyone high and low reacted and adapted to this radical new situation in a variety of ways. Many did so, unfortunately, in standard Hegelian Dialectic fashion with the creation of rationality's and philosophy's opposite and antithesis: the mystery cults. Altho' few today realize it, all contemporary religions are just old, tired, lame, sorry, post-reason mystery cults which have been lightly adapted and updated.

The essence, heart, and "soul" of this mystery cultism and "religion" -- both today and always -- is immortality. It is not "god." God is just the mechanism or ad hoc vehicle toward the great desideratum of immortality.

No-one wants to die. Mystery cultism prevents this. All new-style post-philosophy "gods" are a kind of slave which obediently grants infinite life upon human demand. In this way our natural, normal, healthy terror about, and hatred of, death is successfully eliminated.

Thus our invention of "god." This creation of "the one true god" -- made in our own image -- is, historically and psychologically, completely natural and inevitable. It's also profoundly wrong.

But something had to be done about the 'bad' side of this newly-created rational intellectual endeavor and the stunning progress and changes thereof. The Miliseans and Ephesians may have uncovered and created the beautiful institution of wholly legitimate and highly efficacious logic and problem-solving. But they also left us with one hell of a gap in our daily existence. This psychological and spiritual void can only be filled by philosophy. (And direct psychology and spirituality.) But initial philosophers failed to do their job on this. So have current ones.

After reason was invented, there was a great anomie and chasm in Greek life. Thus the old less-powerful humanlike earthly gods were famously replaced by just the one new superpowerful inhuman alien god. Now, this preposterous and malignant belief, believe it or not, actually constitutes a step up. It is clearly more intellectually plausible and reasonable -- such as it is. Zeus is well dead -- obliterated by "lord god almighty" -- and thus we're all better off (sort of) with today's inscrutable, ineffable, unknowable, impossible "omnigod" or "unigod."

The genesis of this superpowerful generic deity -- concocted from the various highly similar mystery cults -- was good in that he allowed us to keep experiencing our new and unprecedented sweetness and pleasurableness of life forever. This supernatural entity was bad, however, in that he absolutely, positively, no-doubt-about-it didn't exist. "God" was and is made up whole-cloth from the clear blue sky.

The problem with this freshly-created and generic ultra-deity is that all evidence whatsoever -- then and now -- practically screams that this superbeing is pure fantasy and a product of rank self-delusion. "God" in his real form is basically a result of a variegated mixture of hallucination, dementia, and pathological delusion. God is self-deception on the grand scale. So too is any hope of some version of an incorporeal immortal "soul" and physical or mental "heaven."

Ultimately all people -- then and now -- who advocate such cultist/theistic lies and pretentions are quintessentially ignorant lowlifes of deliberate stupidity and calculated malevolence. These champions of evil are guilty of spending immense quantities of their time lying to themselves. Then they lie to others. Then they force the others to lie back.

Ironically, the creation of rationality and philosophy by the noble Ionians made all this pernicious insidious nonsense possible. Pure versions of evil, irrationality, dishonesty, and self-deception came into the world for the first time under them. All these horrors became an available option to humankind two-and-a-half millennia ago. And so did a kind of previously unknown super-unhappiness.

Obviously, at some quick point, the desires of the vermicular god-fearing are legitimate and understandable. Maybe even virtuous and heroic. After all, all they want is an infinite quantity and quality of life. All they want is to live forever in ecstasy. Who doesn't?

But at some other quick point -- swimming in a vast and fantomless sea of pure lies, irrationality, and evil -- these cultists are to be condemned, hated, feared, and perhaps destroyed. Their godly motivations, methodologies, and results -- for themselves and all others -- are intensely destructive and depraved. Practically all of history shows this. So does practically all of today.

Ultimately, now that reason is here and possible, we humans need to learn to live with the perhaps exquisite pain knowing about our eventual death. We need to openly deal with our own mortality -- preferably like a man. We need to bravely, honestly, fully turn to reason and philosophy -- and figure out a way to deal with it. We need to confront reality and face the truth boldly about all this -- and yet still live a life of high success and great happiness.

In the intellectual and cultural history of man, glorious sacrosanct Reason began around 600 BC or so. But by 500 BC or before, there was already a battle royal for the "soul" of man being waged in Athens, Attica, Ionia, Greece, and the world. This battle still rages. This incredibly important war basically consists of good and scientifically-minded men from sixth century Greece like Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Hericlitus, and Xenophanes fighting ferociously with the flagitious, superstitious, faceless men of the Eleusinian and Orphic mystery cults.