II. SECTS AND INFIDELS IN GREECE AND ROME.
When we arrive at Greece we find a nation possessing a mental caliber seldom equaled, and furnishing many philosophers with brains sufficient to enable them to see through the errors and the absurdities of any system of religion. Hence infidels were more numerous than sectarians; and those infidels (better known as philosophers) nearly succeeded, by the force of superior logic and wisdom, in banishing all systems of religious superstition from the nation. But questions of controversy were more on philosophical subjects than on religious themes; because the dogmas of the popular religion of Greece, like that of all other countries, were so absurd that the Grecian philosophers could dispose of them without much mental effort. As a proof and illustration of this statement, we will cite the case of Stilpo, who, on being asked by Crates (B.C. 331) whether he believed that God took any pleasure in being worshiped by mortals, replied, "Thou fool, don't question me upon such absurdities in the public streets, but wait till we are alone."
Greece, and also Rome, furnished intellectual minds of a high order; and all their numerous philosophers were skeptical on the prevailing forms of religion in those and other nations. It will be observed, then, that nearly all the religious orders of antiquity gave rise to numerous sects, and also numerous infidels and skeptics, alias philosophers.