Gods and goddesses in mythology are used in allusions and often referred to in our daily lives, but do we truly understand them? We may not understand how or why they look the way they do, how they behave, what they are capable of accomplishing, or how they interacted with humans. These super-beings of extremely high status were the heart and soul of prayers and explanations of natural phenomena. They had a variety of natures and were represented in a variety of ways, by different religions.
To start, physical features and behaviours are crucial to the representations of gods and goddesses. When believers pray for material or emotional gain, they must have something to pray to - a statue or item that can represent the god or goddess to whom they sent their prayers. Humans made these statues, and gave the gods and goddesses that the statues represented human physical and emotional characteristics, in order to explain natural disasters or occurrences. For example, when the sea was rough or when a ship sailed into jagged rocks, the sailors would pray to Poseidon (Greek), Neptune (Roman), or whoever was in charge of the ocean in their religion, and think that the god of the oceans was unsatisfied or displeased with something or someone, thus wreaking havoc on the Earth. Divine beings conducted themselves in a royal fashion, them supposedly in charge of various necessities of life. They did as they wished, for they were immortal, the only restrictions being that they may be punished by the supreme god, which in Greek mythology, is Zeus. To prove, in the myth about the creation of the world's animals, humans were created in the image of the gods, but lacked survival capabilities. Therefore, a Titan named Prometheus stole fire from Mou...
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...had. Each god was in charge of their own aspect of the world. Zeus, in Greek mythology, was in charge of the sky (among other things) and thus had the power to control lightning. Following this example, every god and goddess could do as they wished only with whatever they were in control of, thus the power was unique. To illustrate, Zeus wouldn't be able to control the ocean unless he consulted with whoever was in charge of the ocean, which in this case, was Poseidon. As a result, the powers that the deities had were the reasons why they were so worshipped, and what fascinating abilities they were, to be able to control nature itself.
In addition, godly interactions with humans are what sprouts interest and further develops the religion. In Greek mythology, there were many instances where the gods would interfere, whether to aid or impede, with human activities.
In The Iliad, the gods and goddesses have completely different roles. The females are usually the ones in the battle fighting, while the male gods are putting courage into hearts, but that isn’t to say that is all that they do. This is a completely different role than the mortals have. While the men are out in battle, the women are knitting and cooking. The women are also described so that it seems like they are property and not humans, and that they don’t have any feeling. Where the female gods act and are treated as if they are equal, if not ranked higher.
From the beginning, the gods emerged from “cosmic forces” and slowly defined their individual personalities and forms, “their functions articulated in relation to each other” (Clay 105). The authority of Zeus forces the rest of the gods to keep their powers balanced by filling certain niches. In the Eumenides, Pythia begins by singing a prayer to honor the gods. Although she first honors Gaia, Pythia spends a few lines talking about Apollo and his relation to Zeus. When she calls on Zeus, she calls him “the Fulfiller, the highest god” (Aeschylus, Eumenides, p. 112, 17-19). Her approval and reverence towards Zeus is made clear immediately. Even before that, Pythia acknowledges that Apollo was “Zeus inspired” and the “spokesman of Zeus,” thus making him higher up in her hierarchy of gods (Aeschylus, Eumenides, p. 112, 17-19). Zeus is known for his many godly offspring who were all “Zeus inspired”. Along with Apollo, god of music and arts, this list also includes Athena, goddess of wisdom and war. Being made from the same cosmic forces, all of the gods developed their own strengths to fulfil certain niches (Clay 106) At the end of this individualization process, there is the “emergence of a stable, ordered, and harmonious cosmos” (Clay 106). As a result, new standards of conforming and being uniform became apparent through the
They believed that exercising the opportunity to choose between a wide array of gods to worship offered them a great sense of freedom that they treasured. After all, the Greeks were known for their intellectual distinction, of which their means of worship played a huge part. Each city-state, or polis, thus had an affiliated god who protected and guided its residents. Within a given polis, the belief in common gods unified the people. Ultimately, the Greeks yearned for unity and order in the universe, which is a characteristic that is not unlike that of people today.
How did people revere their gods differently among three civilizations? Did they worship with the same general intent? What were gods’ role(s) in people’s lives? A brief exploration into the religions of Egypt, Greece, and the Hebrew people may bring insight to these questions. Although the main idea of higher beings remains constant throughout societies’ religion, their form of presence in people’s lives varies. I will present the relationship between the leaders and the gods, as well as resemblance to monotheism and systems of government.
gods, each given a personality and purpose. And was the subject of many myths and legends that would be told for many generations to come. They were to become the basis for a religion that would last for hundreds of years and would yield thousands of followers to believe in the made stories of these enchanted people or gods as they were called.
The gods and goddesses were thought to control different parts of the universe. For example, Zeus is the king of the gods, controlled weather. Or like Athena who was the goddess of wisdom. You learn about different gods and goddesses in myths. A myth is a story about a god or goddess. Homer, a blind poet, is famous for telling myths. He told myths because no one could read or write.
“In the Odyssey by Homer it is evident that the Greek gods and goddesses have an active role in the everyday life of the epic Odysseus”. Have you ever heard of Greek gods? In the Odyssey, many gods and goddessses that helped the main character Odyessus. Zeus,Circe, and Poseiden. They all helped Odysseus in a good way and a bad way. Odyessus was on his way home to Ithaca from Troy fighting in the Trojan war when he got stuck on his journey back home in many places he was not aware of. A god or goddess will do anything to get what he or she wants just like Odysseus did within trying to get back home. In order to get you have to give!
Many people would blatantly state that the importance of the gods in Greek society derives from the fact that Gods in any society are usually used to explain phenomenon that people cannot logically comprehend, but in ancient Greece gods were actually entities that took part in the workings of society itself. Even simple aspects of day-to-day life such as sex and disputes between mortals were supposedly influenced by godly workings. Unlike modern religions such as Catholicism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, where an omnipotent force supposedly controls the workings of the world, a hierarchy of Gods characterized religion in ancient Greece. Working as one big family, which they actually were, each one of the Greek gods governed a certain aspect of the world in a way that usually reflected their own humanlike personalities. These unique personalities also contained many human flaws such as envy and greed, and were where the Greek God’s importance lay. Greek religion was more concentrated on the way an individual dealt with situations that popped up in the world around him than on understanding the world itself. In other words the Greeks were more interested in the workings of the mind than in the workings of the environment around them.
Ancient Greek religion was a polytheistic religion that believed in many gods and goddesses. To Greeks, these gods and goddesses would be able to control everything. Each god or goddess had his or her own distinct personality and territory. “Greek myths explained the origins of the gods and their individual relations with mankind” (Hemingway). Unlike current religions, like Christianity and Judaism, Greek gods were not known for being moral or being truly good or evil. Many of the Greek gods and goddesses were disorganized and self-contradicting. Although this was apparent to the Greeks, the Greeks believed that their religion was to brighten their own lives, rather than give them godlike guidance. The best example of a self-contradicting Greek god is Zeus – father of all gods and humans (Cunningham and Reich 32-33).
The myths which prove the contradictory behavior of the gods, acting as both benefactors and tormentors of man, can readily be explained when viewed in light of the prime directive for man, to worship the gods and not “overstep,” and the ensuing “Deus ex Mahina” which served to coerce man to fulfill his destiny as evidenced by the myths: “Pandora,” “Arachne, and “Odysseus.” Humankind and it’s range of vision over the gods beauty and power portrayed them to be benefactors but unseemingly it depicted their affliction towards humans.
Throughout Homer’s epic poem, The Iliad, gods are presented as remarkably human in almost every way. While it is assumed that gods are divine entities incapable of human transgression, they are portrayed with all the flaws of mortals in The Iliad. The gods are a manifestation of human emotions consequently helping to explain the behavior of the humans in The Iliad. The actions of the heroes are what determine their fate, not divine intervention. Ultimately, the humans in The Iliad have inherent characteristics that provide the driving force behind their actions: the gods simply act in concert with them, allowing the human beings to exercise free will of
The concepts of the gods and fate were created to explain things. In Ancient Greece there was a lot that was not understood; science was in its infancy and everything that happened could be explained by the will of the gods or fate. The gods were the height of power; they supposedly existed since the beginning of time. They were immortal, omnipresent and omnipotent. However, the different gods had different personalities. In this sense they were anthropomorphic. Having such mastery of the world would enable them to control man's behavior, as is shown in King Oedipus.
Greece, which had endured its own dark ages millennia beforehand, became the cradle of the western artistic ideal. It’s society was like none other. Organizationally, it preferred a unique form of government called democracy, when other societies around god-kings and despotic strong men. Its ambitions asserted the perfection of man, his unique place in the world. As stories became myth and myths became legends, humans (or human like) gods began to appear in the religious centres of worship. Unlike the gods of Egypt, who almost always have some animalistic component to their physiology, the Greek gods were human-like. Zeus had a human body, hands and feet; for all intents and purposes, he was the first super-man. This was an epic reversal. Where once man relegated himself to the animals, now the Greeks had placed man above the merely natural and into the realm of the supernatural.
Because of the under development of science, Ancient Greeks used mythologies and associated to the gods anything that they could not explain or understand, which also have revealed many aspects of their culture and society, including their views toward gods. Through the survived works of ancient Greeks, one can see that the concept of exchange plays a center role in the relationship between human beings and gods; and that the ancient Greeks had absolutely and undeniably respect for their gods, who are human-like and demand to be glorified.
Throughout studying many myths, I came up with many new observations. Many questions came into my mind about these myths. Greek mythology takes us back to a time when people had a connection with nature and when nature played a major role in people’s lives. The religious beliefs of the people who wrote the myths are found in the background of these myths; however, they are not to be read like religious texts. The myths try to offer explanations of “how”, which makes us think deeply about the purpose of these myths and the questions they draw to our minds. According to the myths we studied in class, the world created the gods, not the other way around. The gods were always created in the image of man, which shows how much men were important in their society. Furthermore, many of these Greek myths show us the difference between the views of the Greek then and our view towards many aspects of the society, including nature. Monsters appear in Greek myths and have different representations and roles. Greek mythology reflects a view of the Greeks towards the world and how certain aspects of their lives are similar and different to modern society.