Ancient Greek And Roman Religions Had The Better Deities

The way I see it, is that the gods of Ancient Greece operated much more realistically. Unlike the modern religions of the world with only one god. In Ancient Greece each deity served their own purpose and their own special power. Each of these gods and goddesses got in arguments and disputes. They had their own flaws and biases. Much of the time they had the same relatable problems to the people they ruled over. For example Apollo's son Phaeton disobeyed his father, took the sun chariot out for a spin, and crashed it into the earth.

But then along came the Jews, who had an all powerful, all mighty, know-it-all singular super God who had no flaws. This is the same god that is worshipped by the most influential religions around the world to this day including Christianity, Islam, and Mormonism. This god isn't a very likeable character to me. He's too perfect and lacks any relatable traits to the reader of the fairy tale.

 

Aphrodite was perfect but only to the extent that she had the ability to change her appearance to whatever you most desired,
and she wasn’t afraid to use her beauty to get what she wanted.




Hotwater

 

I find the fact that Greek Gods were so numerous and human-like to be a flaw of that religion. It diminishes the idea of universality and connectedness, which I think at some level, most humans have a conceptual sense of. If you consider some of the other ideas from the Greeks, like Plato's Form(s), that remedies this a bit by providing a sense of the eternal but I've never really understood how that philosophy ties into their understanding of the Gods. The closest approximate of reconciliation I've read is I vaguely recall a discussion regarding the demi-god Eros having some passing qualities and some persistent qualities, but from the gist of what I recall, it made me entertain the notion that they personified Eros (concept of love), rather than firmly seeing 'him' as an actual autonomous Deity, but it's been awhile since I've read that stuff.

The Greek Gods seem to have kind of a "proto-Comic Book Characters" quality to them, which has even been realized in the video game series God of War.

Several of the notions of a Personal God in the Western Monotheistic Religions are just as absurd as the Greek Religion, but I think the universality presumed in these religions is appealing and they seem to foster more of a binary understanding on the Universe in there being a Supernatural World and a physical world, which I think generally speaking is more in line with the way the human mind operates.

 

Greek mythology is interesting if a bit limited in scope. Personally, I find the mythology of India goes much deeper and manages to reconcile having huge numbers of gods and goddesses with an over-arching and all inclusive One of which the gods (and indeed we ourselves) are seen as more or less limited forms or aspects.
The Mahabharat is IMO far superior to either the Odyssey or the Iliad, but not really very well known in the west. I'd also say it's a much better read than the Bible, a book of myths which some believe to be literal truth.

I think one advantage of 'pagan' pantheons and their myths over monotheism is that only a complete idiot could or would take such stories literally with all the nonsense that entails.

And in fairness to the Greeks and Romans they did have their mystical cults, some of which are quite interesting, such as the Eleusinian mysteries, and later developments like neo-platonism. But these were somewhat elitist in nature. Christianity, as well as Islam later on, were meant as religions for the masses, just as was popular or even civic paganism. Given that the masses in the ancient world were an uneducated rabble (not much changes does it) what they believed is probably not going to take the discerning seeker of truth very far.

 

^I was going to say something similar about Hindu gods

Also, I wouldnt necessarily describe the Jewish or Old testament god as perfect. The old testament frequently refers to God as jealous and wrathful. The idea of perfection, and of humanity being made perfect through God, didnt really come along until Jesus and Christianity.

generally I do prefer the idea of a kind, forgiving, loving god to an all powerful, controlling and wrathful god - and I think a lot of mythological gods are actually lacking in the good qualities of human nature, although to be honest I'm not very well versed in Greek or Roman mythology but what I have read seems to be more of a reflection of the worst flaws of humanity rather than a reflection of both the best and worst characacteristics. Most of the good traits reflected in mythology seems to be more superficial, such as beauty and strength.

 

 

I see what you're saying. I suppose the main reason people seek religion, is that people have unanswerable questions they want answered. Which is why every religion has an origin story of Earth, Space, and Time. And for that reason, an all knowing all mighty singular god seemed to appeal to more people than a bunch of gods with limitations.

I also like your proto-comic book character analysis as well. One of the main reasons why I don't like Superman that much is because he is way too overpowered and uninteresting. Superman is basically invincible aside from being in the presence of kryptonite, a fictional element only to be found on a different planet. All the other famous superheros have their limitations and flaws, and thats what makes them more interesting and relatable characters.

With more gods, a person's faith doesn't have to lie into the expectations and satisfaction of only one being; they have other deities to fall back on.

 

 

 

Indeed. I agree I shouldn't refer to the Old Testament god as perfect either. Not even the one in the New Testament for that matter. This God seems to be very two faced; he gets very pissed off and floods the world, bans Adam and Eve out of paradise for eating a fucking apple, and then sends dissidents and heathens to burn for the rest of eternity. But HE LOVES US ALL.

Hindu, eastern religions, and even Native American religions are also good examples of multiple deities. But in school and my upbringing I mostly studied Ancient Greece more so than the deities of eastern religions.

 

Perhaps some of the aforementioned polytheistic religions such as Hinduism, Paganism and Native American Religions differed from the Greeks a bit and provide more of a compelling synthesis of the natural world with Multiple Gods and the divine and I'd say the only one of those I've had any exposure to irl, which is Paganism, was more compelling in a way but it's kind of difficult to try and place my mind in a distant place and time in a completely different culture. Still I think this is a interesting topic to entertain.

With the Ancient Greeks, the two areas I've read about are the mythology and the philosophy and aside from brief bits here and there, there's not much overlap. I get the impression of like 2 disparate patchwork understandings of the world, granted they probably had many works destroyed/lost in time. Perhaps the Romans may have even 'refined' some of this...

But I contrast the Greeks with Christian theologians and philosophers and I find the ideas from people such as Thomas Aquinas and René Descartes are much more comprehensible, in the sense they elucidate their religion within the framework of their philosophy and ideas. Perhaps this doesn't necessarily speak to the concerns or ideas of the standard person at the time but to me I think it suggests some broader sense of cultural functioning and religious understanding and I'm not so sure many people living in these respective times would really have considered something like choosing their God(s).

 

All those fancy pantsy Greek and Roman gods still got nothing over our Germanic pantheon!

The one thing our ancients got right, our gods are not immortal. Our gods still struggled with the same things we struggle with and face on a daily basis right here in this age, which I think is why Norse Mythology has really exploded lately. TV shows and Marvel Movies got them out in the open, but many people are starting to get into the mythology of the Vikings too.

Like I've said all along it's not what God/gods you think are the right for you, it's what speaks to you internally.

So for me, being well documented German, no way do I find enlightenment in Jesus, Greek, Roman, Muslim etc. they aren't my people, they aren't my gods.

It'll always have me mind boggled how the mass population that live in big cities can even fathom taking sides with Christ, man that shit is for far off desert sand people, not us strong hardy white folks. We need strong hardy white gods. =p and they come in the form of the Æsir and Vanir.

 

^^^ These "my god is better than all your gods" is basically what gets Holy Wars started

 

actually the god of aramaic religeions, jew, christian, islam, the predicessors of judaism and the decendents of islam, does have one big major glaring flaw, and that is wanting to be feared at all.
generally speaking, the better known polythiestic pantheons, such as greek, roman and norse, also share this flaw.

yet there ARE other beliefs, who's god or gods do not. and it is a human flaw, one a human is more likely to have thought of then anything with the options and powers of a god.
nor do i see being more human like as an advantage for a god who may be responsible for and to sapient beings unlike in appearance or culture, from each other, from one world to another, in a universe, or even one galaxy, with billions of suns most of which having planets, many of those capable and likely of supporting sapient life.

i perceive as much more likely, a god or gods, having no physical appearance nor form at all, neither of species nor of gender.

i will concede however, on each sapiently populated world, such god or gods, every thousand years or so, give or take a few hundred, picking some random person, of that world's dominant sapeint species, to be channeled by.

the point of all beliefs, what they're really about, isn't so much gods, or the known or unknown, other then being about how people treat each other, and what kind of world they statistically create by doing so. in other words culture, in the anthropological meaning of the term.

i don't believe judaism appeared magically out of the aether. rather that it was the 22nd milinial itteration of the tribal religion that began with who the aramaic religions call first man, or in other words 'adam'.
christ being the 23rd, mahammid being the 24, the bab and baha'u'llah being the 25 and 26th respectively, though basically not two seperate itterations, but one that required the work of two manifestations in sequence to complete.

at any rate, such is my perspective on the aramaic perspective, and again there are other, totally non-aramaic beliefs i find in most ways as or even more compelling. indiginous nature spirits and eastern beliefs such as budhism, hinduism, and shintoism among them. well i have my reservations about some aspects of hinduism, and the whole big oxcart little oxcart thing in buddhism.

at any rate, i really don't see 'gods' (or human beliefs and perspectives of them) as being a positive or adventagous thing for them to be more human like.
after all, isn't the whole point of gods being gods, to transcend the limitation of physical beings, even sapient ones?

 

Tales of how the Greek Gods interacted with each other, got into fights, slept with each other, had children who misbehaved. This would make for a great sitcom.

 

actually those of indigenous cultures, that aren't limited to or by humans. sorry i find human-like gods tedius, annoying, and not very convincing as to their godness.
now coyote, i wouldn't want to get into his kind of trouble, but he's fun to watch. also bear and fox and all those like them.

greeks and romans and norse and even celts, had too much human ego crap.
i just don't find convincing the idea human stories about gods having anything to do with anything i would consider a god.

i mean gods and wild creatures are people too, but what makes them wonderful is precisely they're NOT having to be stupid like us in the same ways.
(and not having to look so idiotically repetitive of human appearance either. i'm not talking about 'the uncanny valley' ether, but so far the other side of it, not even that applies)

 

i love it because there are so many possibilities to be had, so much art to be arted.

 

Missed the meat of the convo, but to throw it in - what I love about the ancient mythology is that the structures that arise out of each culture generally resonate a very similar archetypal modality. The effigies of humanity are inevitably directed towards shared instinctual behaviour, the differences arising out of unique adaptations to environmental integration.

The human ego is a necessity that needs to be indulge in, as it represents the critical mass of our total integration. Aspects of the psyche should be purified and realigned however, getting lost in devotion doesn't yield a realisation of our honesty to self.

I don't feel like monotheism yields as rich of a template to satisfy differential behaviours, but simplifies the aspects in order to coagulate a dominant order.