I am waiting for the day when I read an article in a popsci publication about a new Egyptian discovery and I don't see Zahi Hawass taking credit for the tireless work of other excellent Archaeologists/Egyptologists.

I can say without a doubt that there is high wealth disparity in NZ (I have lived there at several points in my life). Public sector pays poorly relative to cost of living, and many private sector jobs pay below their equivalent overseas. It is absolutely necessary to be a dual income family, and many women are forced to have new partners they barely know move in with them, just to pay the bills. It puts women and children in extremely vulnerable positions. Also due to its small population and tight supply chain, wholesalers rake in massive profit margins. Once you include retail profit margins, you see prices up to 200% above other countries. Energy is also incredibly expensive, and you have to get used to being cold in the winter, or paying through the nose for electricity, as most houses have very poor (if any) insulation and winter temps do dip below 0C. One thing I noticed as a Canadian expat living there is how 'user pay' a society it is. There are very few truly 'free' events there, and most public fairs or gathers or festivals will have entry fees on top of paying for all activities. Its a beautiful place which can afford a variety of lifestyles and varied landscape, but it definitely comes at a high cost.

As several others have said, the gods are powerful entities over their domain and as such require propitiation to work toward your best interests. In this way, many polytheistic practices require "magical thinking". The domains of life outside human control are personified and your actions towards those personified entities can produce (sometimes)predicatable outcomes. Sometimes this may demand certain modes of living, but generally meant "giving cult" to the religious practitioners representing the deity.

That is one if the reasons why philosophy became so prevalent in ancient polytheistic societies. Philosophy is what discusses the meaning of life and the mode of attaining that meaning through modes of being or living. In most monotheistic practices, this role is collapsed into the head religious practitioner. Paul, to a certain degree, sold Christianity to Greeks and Romans as a new philosophy, as that would demand life change, rather than just another deity to offer cult to.

Paul Hadot's book "Philosophy as a way of Life" demonstrates this well.