Pixel
What did the greeks or romans do when they realized there gods did not exist as they thought?
I thought that you were going to ask - 'What did the Romans ever do for us? apart from ...." for one minute there. (Old joke).
Some continued to believe in their old gods until they died (the people that is, not the gods) and some converted to christinsanity. However, a belief system, which involved a deity that the good folks of Rome and Greece could pray to, believe in and go to when they died, still existed. They probably though that their old gods still existed but their new god was bigger, better and shinier. The colour of their comfie blankie had changed but their comfie balnkie remained.
The difference now is that there's gonna be an awful lot of people upset with their church for lying to them for all these years, and, there's gonna be no deity to pray to and believe in and no one to go to when they die. Their comfie blankie isn't about to change again, it's about to disappear.