"First of all, consider the deity as an indestructible and happy being according to the common conception of the deity. The gods, after all, exist, and knowledge of this is obvious; they do not, however, exist in the way that the crowd imagines. The irreligious one is not the one who rejects the gods worshipped by the crowd, but the one who shares the crowd's opinion about the gods. After all, the judgments of the crowd are based on false assumptions." - Epictetus, Letter to Menoeceus