Conservatives love Stoics, Part 3: Religion

The notion that conservatives are religious while liberals are not is a stereotype, and an over-simplification.  The truth is, most Americans are religious.  It seems to me that most atheists are liberals (citation needed), but atheism isn't a huge fraction of the American population.

The Stoics seem to be a pretty religious bunch.  Almost every page of their writings have references to their gods.  Of course, these are what Christians would call Pagan gods.  Christians, in fact, seemed to have both respect for Seneca's philosophy and scorn for his Pagan status.  John F. Hurst, in an introduction to Seneca's writing, states:

[...] his philosophy is the final and hopeless exhibition of the inability of the pagan mind, after its long but futile attempt, both to solve the mysteries of our being and to establish safe rules of conduct

Ouch.  Reading this is amusing, because Christianity certainly doesn't do much to solve the mysteries of our being.  Science does that.  As far as safe rules of conduct, Stoicism seems to do pretty well (although the advice seems to be general to a fault).  I don't really think that any philosophy or religions is particularly good on that question.  And science is a long way from tackling these kinds of questions, although it is starting with research into game theory and similar subjects.

At any rate, for their time, the Stoics were religious, no doubt.  But I can't say that they were religious in a way that is more like a James Dobson (of Focus on the Family) than a Martin Luther King.  Therefore, I don't think their religion is particularly relevant to a discussion on whether the Stoics were closer to modern-day conservatives or liberals.