Greece and Rome are antecedents to Western civilization, you're literally reading Latin text right now.
Egypt is an indirect antecedent, very well established in the West.
As foundational elements of the Western Canon, they're going to be well known.
The names of the planets are the names of 'Gods'.
Aztec culture was 'discovered' in the Western context, very recently, still not particularly well understood, and not particularly well documented.
You'll also note that each of the Aztec gods presented carried knives with human blood, for 'sacrifice' and 'auto-sacrifice' - their chief concern being of providing human blood and sacrifice, which they did, en masse.
It would be rational to argue that the Aztec religion was thus a 'Death Cult' at least by some purview, which would be viewed as 'more than very scary' by any classical standards, and 'tolerable' only from the most modern perspective wherein we can disassociate ourselves with the act of 'constant sacrifice' from a moral purview and just investigate the culture itself without judgment. And even then, it's hard to ignore; it's deeply unsettling.
Greece and Rome are antecedents to Western civilization, you're literally reading Latin text right now.
Egypt is an indirect antecedent, very well established in the West.
As foundational elements of the Western Canon, they're going to be well known.
The names of the planets are the names of 'Gods'.
Aztec culture was 'discovered' in the Western context, very recently, still not particularly well understood, and not particularly well documented.
You'll also note that each of the Aztec gods presented carried knives with human blood, for 'sacrifice' and 'auto-sacrifice' - their chief concern being of providing human blood and sacrifice, which they did, en masse.
It would be rational to argue that the Aztec religion was thus a 'Death Cult' at least by some purview, which would be viewed as 'more than very scary' by any classical standards, and 'tolerable' only from the most modern perspective wherein we can disassociate ourselves with the act of 'constant sacrifice' from a moral purview and just investigate the culture itself without judgment. And even then, it's hard to ignore; it's deeply unsettling.