>>21722362“Each Roman home has its own protective deities, the Lar (plural Lares), protecting the household or family; the Penates, protecting the stores-cupboard or pantry (penus) in the inner part of the house; the Genius or guardian spirit of individual members of the household, especially the paterfamilias; and Vesta, goddess of the hearth. The shrine to the Lar, generally known as the lararium, was sometimes in the atrium, the more public part of the house near the entrance, but more commonly in the kitchen area. Just as the home had its tutelary deities, so too did the entire property [Warrior, Roman Religion at 28-29] …”
“the Lar familiaris [is] a kind of demon of the ancestors and the continuity of the tribe as well as being the familiar spirit of the household [Turcan, The Gods of Ancient Rome at 15] …”
Consider the Lares Familiares and the Tutelary deity. The Hellenic Hekaterai. Consider consciousness, ego and the divine spark. It is created from trillions of cells working together. Is it far fetched to consider god as existing in a hierarchy of ever expanding groupings of consciousness from you to your family, to your clan, to your tribe, to your ethnic group to your race and later to all of life itself?
Does a nation not have a soul of its own? Does it not have a will and agency? As such is this not considered a higher form of existence beyond the individual. One that is from the human perspective immortal yet can be killed.
Look up the Chinese Kitchen God or the Japanese ancestral kami(kamidana) and tell me that there are no similarities in the concepts.
