Because polytheistic gods are limited, they are far less subject to atheistic criticisms. Under polytheism there is room for chance in nature, society, and individual life. But there is also room for necessity since the gods have some limited power over their domain. The gods are immanent in nature and allow for responsible human intervention into ecological challenges through collective creativity and reciprocity. Furthermore, polytheists are not missionaries out to convert the world. Polytheists are happy with cross-cultural variation
Humans creatively participate with the gods and goddesses in ongoing earthly evolution with no need for promises of an afterlife because life on earth is erotic and pleasurable, rather than a reform school. There is no far-fetched expectation to believe in a God who created the world out of nothing. Instead, nature has always been here, infinite and eternal. Rather than obedience to God, polytheists claim to "do as thou wilt", provided it harms no one. There are no apocalypses in polytheism. There are disasters within cycles, but because nature is infinitely creative, nature recovers from local disasters and keeps on spinning.
It is true that hard polytheism is on a collision course with atheism because atheists do not believe in the existence of God. But we must remember that the two kinds of soft polytheists can accommodate atheism because the gods are products of socio-history or psychology. But even hard polytheism is mostly accommodating to scientific atheism if we examine polytheist answers to the categories in the table. Please see the table at the end of our article on our website for a summary of the differences between polytheism and monotheism:
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