"The external struggle for liberation from the belief in God only began and could only begin when this belief was laid down in hard words, like an imperial law, a so-called dogma. The Greeks and Romans had persecuted enough people who disturbed the religion of the country or city by mockery or by the introduction of new cults; but no church or secular authority wanted or was allowed to prevent that nature research and philosophy (more modestly expressed: a little observation of nature and a lot of reflection) found the gods of the popular religion childish or immoral. Such criticism was actually only directed against the poets. Only with the rise of the Christian church power did the new mythology no longer refer to the words of poets, but to the word of God, the interpretation of the dark words of God, no longer to the oracles, with whom it anerka.