If you had been in Athens around the year 52 A.D., you might have arrived in time to hear an odd little Jewish guy give a speech to the most sophisticated, best-educated audience in the Greco-Roman world. The odd little guy was St. Paul, and this is what he said to them:
“Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.’ Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
“God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain of your own poets have also said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’
“Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead.”
And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked… [Acts 17:22-32]
Paul made few converts in Athens. They were all too smart to be interested in eternal life.
Some things never change.