many pages for many gods

4/7/2006 11:40:22 AM

Quote :

"You formulate an objection to polytheism"

There's no evidence for polytheism.

4/7/2006 1:13:56 PM

“There's no evidence for polytheism.”

As with Christianity we found cities where events occurred... although for long time they were lost to us and people believed they were made up like Troy, Mycenae, & Knossos. We have the stories of homer, hesiod, and countless others. And there’s a lot of evidence that polytheism was practiced for thousands of years in western civilization. In addition to historical arguments I’ve made more theological/philosophical arguments like if you can find atleast one god in the limited knowledge humans have while being an intolerant monotheist, its atleast conceivable that there are many more out there. Also in inclinations, and spiritual experiences are evidence of god, then a polytheist system includes the most of these since it can incorporate in broadly believed set of gods. And another argument is from irreducibility in that even if you can combine gods like Hesiod & Hyperion… there is no way to compress Love & Justice (real & powerful forces that we’ve surely all noticed) down into one. Monotheism is on the right track in finding divinity… but it tries to force in unity & perfection so hard as to make like troubles for themselves about when it looks like god is acting inside of time or changing, when it’s a mystery how evil is in the world, how different forces can be condensed into one etc…
It seems like a god that struggles to help us is better anyways than a god who can do anything by the flick on an immaterial wrist. All that unity and perfect makes him immaterial which in most cases means not real… where as the gods of polytheism are easier to grasp… they are still very powerful, and can take many forms, and travel to Olympia and the heavens… but when they help us out we know its not a cake wake pansy effort, we can see that they work for us.

4/7/2006 1:56:05 PM

To make the ideas a little more concrete I thought I’d through in a few pictures of the Gods.


Here’s Aphrodite.


Here’s Hades & Persephone & maybe a hell hound.


Here’s Hermes. He eventually gave his staff to his older brother who have it to his son (half mortal/half god) Asclepius who was like a minor god or really strong mortal for medicine. We still have his staff as a symbol on a lot of our hospitals & ambulances etc.


Here’s Athena.

[Edited on April 7, 2006 at 2:06 PM. Reason : .]

4/7/2006 2:05:34 PM

Quote :

"bigben1024: This reminds me of when I applied every homo sympothizer argument to defending incest. Except I did that for personal reasons."

because... you had a "funny uncle" ?

4/7/2006 2:10:03 PM

^Of the non-virgin greek gods they were largely openly bisexual (and in this sense the greek & roman societies which existed in western civ for thousands of years were less conservative than some modern countries like the US but on par with more progressive countries like south africa)... but bigbens statement is kind of off topic to formulating objections for me to respond to about polytheism.

4/7/2006 4:42:58 PM

Oh heres a picture of the son of God... this style of Apollo picture was later adopted for making pictures of jesus.



Heres his twin sister Artemis

4/7/2006 5:29:32 PM

Those statues are all very beautiful

4/7/2006 6:48:39 PM

so why doesnt some powerful god just rape athena, artemis, or the like?

4/7/2006 7:42:05 PM

why don't humans rape each other? they do occasionally, but they recognize that even if they are stronger than an individual, that the social group as a whole can over power them. also most of them fought on the same side in battles as God... hes not gonna let that happen to his, perhaps favorite, daughter athena. Shes not gonna let you rape her anyways, she was born in full battle gear and could beat up most anyone who tried. Artemis is good shot with the bow & her brother apollo, and father zeus are quite strong as well. They've got a whole social contract thing going on... if any god was that disrespectful to a powerful virgin goddess they'd suffer for eternity. When you hear about the people with the worst tortures in the bad parts of the underworld one of them is usually Porphyrion who tried to rape Hera once. There would be no way to get away with raping a god. You can’t kill your victim since she’s immortal, and shes going to tell, and God’s knowledge is so vast he would figure out even if you found a way to silence her. Maybe theres also a little bit of looking out for your own… but theres so many reasons not rape. I don’t know the exact reasons, but I am fairly confident that most people would never try, that no one would succeed (atleast against these militant virgin types), and that there would be no way to hope to escape justice.

4/7/2006 11:13:34 PM

id argue that she wanted it....it would totally work. from my own knowledge and your argument id definately pick ms. godess of the hunt. if ive learned anything from videogames it is that archers suck up close...where the raping happens.

4/7/2006 11:19:14 PM

you get too close to here and she'll metamorph your butt into a kitten and crush you. she has plenty of powers that work up close too.

4/7/2006 11:29:55 PM

Christians are polytheists. they worship 3 gods. and catholics worship 4.

4/8/2006 1:44:48 AM

What if the world we perceive to be the universe is really just a creation in a laboratory. Will the scientist and lab technicians that surely can have an effect on our universe be like polytheistic gods? If they themselves are imperfect being (motivated by the same things human scientists might be motivated by), can they still be gods?

4/8/2006 2:11:17 AM

lab technicians aren't immortal. that alone is enough to knock them off the candidacy for godhood.

4/8/2006 10:43:07 AM

If a scientist dies, his work doesn't usually die with him. He passes it on to someone else, until it's complete.

4/8/2006 3:03:54 PM

the lab technicians are watching reruns of x-files, not fornicating with their subjects.

4/8/2006 6:33:27 PM

"If a scientist dies, his work doesn't usually die with him. He passes it on to someone else, until it's complete."

Yeah but passing on your work and ideas doesn’t give you immortality, or the vast majority humans would be defined as gods.

4/8/2006 6:55:57 PM

Here’s there Greek equivalent of Jerusalem – Delphi. It was a religion, cultural, and even considered physical center of the world. (& on a round planet its atleast tied for as central as you can get… but it really was a central place physically to in Greece atleast)

You work your way up the sacred way to a temple of Apollo where his Pythia (priestesses) had kind of fits of madness from which prophecy was interpreted.

Here’s a reconstruction of the sacred way up to the temple of Apollo.

While each city-state had its own patron god… Delphi was the most religious place of all, honoring all the gods. Each city-state had little temples/treasuries around here.

Past the sacred way & temple of Apollo is the theater.

The theater would have held dramatic contests, just as the gymnasium would have held physical/sports contests. The Delphic games were 2nd only to the Olympic games. But I believe the Delphic games had a broad array of contests.

You can’t really see the sacred way, but you can see the temple of Apollo at the bottom, then the theater, then the gymnasium at top.

There are plenty of other holy buildings & areas that weren’t pictured, but this is enough for a general overview for a Jerusalem equivalent.

This certainly isn't the most spectacular architecture or temples you’ll find in Greece, but the mountainous views could be awe inspiring, and it was one of the most multicultural places around.


This map doesn't show the Greek colonization off to the west so delphi looks a little off center, but if you were just looking at Greece, or looking at all of their colonization it would look central.

[Edited on April 8, 2006 at 10:48 PM. Reason : added map]

4/8/2006 10:44:33 PM

Another point: Polytheism is further from atheism than monotheism... chew on that.

Athens - Democracy started here. That idea, these buildings, this city... all of it is much older than the relatively novel idea of Christianity.




Here's Olympia

Quote :

"Note the Temple of Zeus in the center, the gymnasion in the lower left, Temple of Hera in the top left, and the line of treasuries along the top leading toward the stadion in the top right. "

I believe it would have had a giant gold or gold plated statue of zeus inside.

wiki:
"any climb to Mount Olympus starts from the town of Litochoro, which took the name City of Gods because of its location in the roots of the mountain."


"Mount Olympus is the highest mountain in Greece, at 2,919 meters high and one of the highest... of Europe"



I could go on and on with countless pictures of Sparta, Mycenae, Knossos, Troy, Argos, Corinth, Arcadia etc... but I'll stop at the home of the Gods for now.

wiki:

Quote :

"In Greek mythology, Mount Olympus is the home of the Twelve Olympians, the principal gods in the Greek pantheon. The Greeks thought of it as built up with crystal mansions wherein the gods, such as Zeus, dwelt. It is also known in Greek mythology that when Gaia (mother earth) gave birth to the Titans (the ancestors of the gods) they used the mountains in Greece as their thrones since they were so huge, and Cronus (the youngest and most powerful of the Titans) sat on Mount Olympus itself. The etymology and meaning of the name Olympus (Olympos) is unknown, and it may be of Pre-Indo-European origin."

The grandeur of this culture & religion makes Christianity look young. Pre-Indo-European origin for some elements, how do you like that?

[Edited on April 9, 2006 at 1:34 AM. Reason : .]

4/9/2006 1:26:05 AM

NCSU offers a couple of ancient/medieval philosophy courses (intro in phi also covers a little early stuff), an intro to ancient history, history classes focused just on the ancient near east/egypt, just greece, just rome, there are ancient greek language classes, latin language courses, several great western lit class/early western lit classes that cover some ancient materials, a history class on ancient/medieval science, an english class on ancient influences on later literature, the couple of astronomy classes we offer here go into ancient stuff some, & countless possibilities with inter-institutional classes with UNC’s classic (ancient studies) department.

Though if you only wanted to do one class and do it at ncsu then I’d recommend ancient mythology with Dr Packman. She’s a great professor and it’s the most focused on the gods of the greeks & romans.

But with every class I mentioned at ncsu & the inter-institutional options one really can get an excellent training in all things ancient from ncsu. I’ve taken or audited the vast majority of the classes I mentioned. I know some people talk about how weird it is to be around tdub long enough to have dreams involving it… well I’ve been around the greek gods like enough to have them start entering my dreams. Most recently I had one where Ares was sending dark warriors after me to terrorize my dreams for being to boastful, but Aphrodite came in just before I was overwhelmed and told me to wake up. Being the goddess of love waking me was interesting b/c just then the person I’m dating told me to wake up.

It’s hard to pick favorites. Aphrodite seems like a fun goddess… and she’s atleast nice to me in my dreams. Apollo is cool b/c he’s a god prophecy & music… and since I went greek with a music fraternity that fits… and we are both the 2nd born in a pair of twins. Poseidon is cool (& pictured below) since he was the God I was assigned in the greek festival sort of thing my highschool did way back when. He was the first I learned much about. I’ve always liked Athena too since my major is philosophy (love of Wisdom) & she’s the goddess of wisdom.



And here are a few Greek heros from the trojan war.
Here’s the mask of Agamemnon (although it was found in his home city, the timing is a little off to be a greek king of Mycenae during the times troy was destroyed based on the evidence for when troy was sacked from the ruins left over at troy today – but maybe its still a king or noble blood line related to whatever king was in place at the time of the conflict). Like with the King Arthur stuff... its hard to pin point anyone who could have actually been him, especially considering this would have been thousands of years ago... but there are several possibilities for the stories and legends were based off of. Troy was sacked once by Hercules & his army, and later more notably during the trojan war under the command of Agamemnon. And I believe there is physical evidence found in the last couple hundred of years confirming that Troy was sacked multiple times. One of the refugees from Troy was a mythological founder of Rome so the Romans felt a connection to all this and lined up all their gods with the greek gods.



& of course the Greek Gods have found ways to stay in our culture too.



I think I see the resemblance.




This is a part of western heritage older than christianity, everyone should know a little something about it. But I think I'll try to turn back to hearing objections and responding for a while now.

[Edited on April 9, 2006 at 2:05 PM. Reason : .]

4/9/2006 1:42:39 PM

Here’s Apollo with some sort of crown around his head... the better picture I had of his halo won’t be back up until wikipedia comes back up. Christians later adopted this halo portrait style wholesale, even though the greek god's are thousands of years older than christ. (i think its maybe DirtyGreek who knows alot more about what christians adopted wholesale from earlier religions than I do)


The son of God here is seen as against the half goat/half man lessor god creature. Satyrs were often consorts of Dionysus, god of drinking & revelry, who is often juxtaposed with Apollo.

But if you believe christianity is correct, then insofar as christianity stole from older religions like Greek polytheism, Greco-Roman polytheism is correct.

[Edited on April 9, 2006 at 5:25 PM. Reason : .]

4/9/2006 5:18:01 PM

Do you not know anything about other polytheistic religions, or are you simply ignoring them?

4/10/2006 4:22:47 PM

I said I wanted practice defending a theological position. I've used Greek stuff specifically for concrete examples as ancient polytheistic religions (mostly greco-roman ones) are what I'm familiar with. I’m looking for theological objections more than historical based objections. The atheists why is their evil question, or the monotheists philosophical reasoning for believing there is only one god etc.

I would have the monotheist atleast consider, since God in their view has presumably been around for eternity, that he was around during the time of the Greeks even if he didn’t do the whole incarnate thing yet… and that their theological intuitions and observances of the world (the same one we observe with intelligent design) might have some credit to them.

4/10/2006 4:52:50 PM

You should talk to Dr. Need who teaching hinduism among other classes. He will amek teh argument that Hinduism is a monotheistic religion

4/10/2006 5:03:33 PM

Monotheist & polytheistic are almost two terms for the same thing. they both have a hierarchy of the most powerful supernatural creature, several lower supernatural creature, important persons who are born of a god father & mortal mother by immaculate conception, mortals, demonic creatures, serpents, and goat men. (i'm talking about pre-christian polytheism... i dont know much about modern polytheism)

Someone off hand wanting to make an argument for how polytheism is really just monotheism seems like someone trying to rationalize their own beliefs… but I can’t really judge b/c I haven’t had the class. Arguing they are pretty much the same thing seems more acceptable. But since they both have a whole host of supernatural creatures then poly seems more applicable.

[Edited on April 10, 2006 at 7:05 PM. Reason : .]

4/10/2006 6:46:59 PM

i had dr. need for a "religion in film" class. ugh. teh films were good, but i dont think i would ever want to take another one of his classes.

I do like hinduism tho.. the red curry is my fave

4/11/2006 2:04:06 AM

I know people like to look at things on this spectrum
atheism -> to monotheism -> to Polytheism
with an ever increasing quantity of Gods.

Here’s another way took at things on a spectrum of increasing tolerance
monotheism -> atheism -> Polytheism
(note this doesn’t apply to specific individuals, just ideologies as a whole)
Where monotheism only accepts its own ideas as the Absolutely correct. Atheism is more moderate appreciation for natural forces but not as much respect for them to ever call anything god. And Polytheism is more apt to respect all forces highly like the bringing together power of Eros in gravity, the Chaotic force of entropy, forces like Love, & Justice that are all different and powerful things. The heightened respect & tolerance of Polytheism would seem like good values for the functioning of society (where as subversive, meeting in secret, intolerant monotheists or not highly respectful atheists might be bad). I know for a monotheist one might say atheists aren’t tolerant enough of my intolerance, but there’s some cognitive dissidence there.

But my main point here is that the heightened respect & tolerance of Polytheism would seem like good values for the functioning of society.

Right now I’m just throwing out random arguments that you can accept, reject, or maybe see some value in but not fully commit to, & I’ve been throwing out information about Greco-Roman worship for more concrete examples to work with. But I really thought more people would have more serious objections to polytheism.

4/11/2006 4:40:40 PM

double

[Edited on April 11, 2006 at 4:46 PM. Reason : posted]

4/11/2006 4:40:41 PM

DARKSIDED!

4/11/2006 4:41:19 PM

supplanter, i think the problem with that is that polytheism is no more tolerant than monotheism. why was socrates given the death penalty? he "challenged" the existing structures of society.
i also dont think atheists are any more tolerant.

humans just love to hate those that are different.

4/11/2006 9:21:09 PM

thats government, not polytheism specifically. he was given the option of exile, he could have lived in in cary instead of raleigh, but he was old anyways and ready to go.

polytheism incorporates anyones god(s) that have wide belief as long as they don't say to believe in this god you have to give up your traditional beliefs. that does make them more tolerant.

4/11/2006 9:31:48 PM

good point. but im still kinda hesitant on the incorporating of new gods.

4/11/2006 9:43:55 PM

the romans discovered the gods on their own, thats why they have different names for all the greek gods. once they found out about the greek gods the lined up the names some, and pulled over the ones they hadn't discovered. so uranus & apollo survive as their names from greek to latin, where hades & zeus become pluto & jupitar. they pulled in near eastern gods too. Yaweh could have easily been another name for Zeus (since zeus was often refered to just as God or the God). they could have incorporated their own ideals about god & educated people on their understanding of him if only they hadn't been so adamant about him being the only god.

they managed to wipe the slate clean of all the old gods, but then repopulated the cosmos with a whole host of supernatural creatures the same way the polytheists had.... just with their own flavour. we could have a much more interesting world if the arch angel Michael was seen as a parallel for Ares or Lucifer as the chief Satyr or one of the powerful serpent from ancient times.

The reason so many religions have similar themes is because polytheism is right, but when you have the intolerance of monotheism you don’t see all the religious intuitions & revelations so you see with a skewed view. You don’t have to have religious warfare when everyone’s honest interactions with the divine can be tolerated and respected by all. You can still have wars over territory, money, honor, etc… but atleast it could create more religious unity.

4/11/2006 11:29:16 PM

i dont think the romans incorporated the greek gods because of any morally pure reason.
in my opinion its a step or two down from what the early christian church did with pagan holidays (hi christmas). that would ultimately make it a political not religious decision.


where do jews or muslims who believe jesus was a prophet but not the messiah or the son of god fit into this?

4/12/2006 12:54:15 AM

the romans already had gods for most of the same forces/ideas before encountering the greeks. if two people both believed in a death god, a wisdom god, and a love god independently and then met up... its not unreasonable for them to think just because they have different names means they're different gods, nor would incorporation be for purely political reasons. Although I can see the political benefit of recognizing and incorporating all religions.

"where do jews or muslims who believe jesus was a prophet but not the messiah or the son of god fit into this?"

the ancient greeks allowed for variations of stories, as long as you got the point across. they could easily say jesus is a prophet or son of god... either way you see he's important and did good things. in such conditions a question like that could never lead to religious killings or warfare.

4/12/2006 8:37:02 AM

I hadn’t been following the Gospel of Judas stuff, but apparently in it 2 lower gods create the world, but Jesus is tied to a higher realm of God(s) according to NPR segment that I just heard on it with like a UNC professor/biblical scholar.

4/12/2006 12:58:22 PM

That example was just to show that polytheism isn't that far out there... even some christian types have bought into it before. The show also seemed to talk as if both Christ & Judah had a determined destiny... which fits in well with the greeks fatalism that many but not all held (w/ the fates who cut the life strings of people at death).

4/12/2006 1:52:13 PM

^^ it shows that judas and jesus were gnostics.

it's a gnostic gospel.

4/12/2006 1:54:31 PM

I heard a new argument today. That the length of time Christianity has survived proves its right. I think there was some biblical saying about only the true word of god having sustainability. If this is true then I suppose that groups like Kyklos Apollon and other modern followers of greco-roman polytheism prove that ancient Greek religion is even truer since it’s older than christianity.

[Edited on April 12, 2006 at 6:38 PM. Reason : .]

4/12/2006 6:38:25 PM

explain the DARKSIDED thing to me...

4/13/2006 6:50:06 PM

GARGYLES!!! THEY DON'T EVEN BELIEVE IN JESUS!! GET OUT! GET THE HELL OUT OF MY HOUSE, IN JESUS NAME I PRAY!!! I DON'T WANT YOUR MONEY!! IT'S TAINTED!!! DEVILS!



[Edited on April 13, 2006 at 7:11 PM. Reason : *]

4/13/2006 7:11:12 PM

You should be women and yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so

4/13/2006 10:07:05 PM

Helen of Troy was born out of an egg... because her father Zeus had taken the form of a swan. Taking on other forms shouldn't be too foriegn to people, I mean Yahweh enjoys being in the form of shrubbery.

4/14/2006 12:28:11 PM

Do not have any other gods before Me

All chieftain gods make this claim. I'm sure Uranus, Kronos, and Zeus all said something to that effect. Being at the top of the pyramid doesn't mean there aren't other beings/forces worthy of praise.

4/19/2006 4:05:37 PM

Quote :

"I had the kykos apollons, a revivalist group, in mind specifically when I said that, but here’s something I just found on wikipedia. Many neo-pagan religious paths, such as Wicca, use aspects of ancient Greek religions in their practice; Hellenic polytheism focuses exclusively thereon, as far as the fragmentary nature of the surviving source material allows. It reflects neo-Platonic speculation (which is represented in Porphyry, Libanius, and Julian), as well as Classical cult practice. The overwhelming majority of modern Greeks are Greek Orthodox, although there is a growing minority of people following the ancient Greek religion, especially among the educated classes. According to church estimates, they are around 40,000 out of a population of 10 million. It makes them a much larger group than Greek Jews, who currently number around 5,000. But followers of the ancient religion isn’t limited to people living in the Hellenic Republic (I believe that’s Greek’s actual official name) so the number is higher than 40 k I’d imagine."

I just said this in another thread, but I thought the number of followers of the ancient religion might be of interest to people who read this thread.

4/25/2006 6:21:11 PM

Polytheism can also provide moral lessons. Particularly this week the anti-genocide message found in the story of the Danaides comes to mind. The 50 daughter of Danaus, ancestor of the Greeks, were instructed to kill the 50 sons of Aegyptus, ancestor of the Egyptians. All but one did so & that couple produced a successful dynasty which I believe resulted in some of the later Greek heroes.

Also Gods & Goddess like appearing as foreigners or as old men or women or poor/hungry people to emphasize the message that people should look out for the worst off/weak/unable to defend themselves classes in society.

With the way modern preachers work, looking to scripture for stories to draw upon, it’s easy to see how well the Greco-Roman could fulfill the same spiritual desires we have today… not as surprising that there are so many followers still.

4/25/2006 7:56:10 PM

While there are 40 k greco-roman polytheists in greece, I imagine even more in the areas ruled by Greek & Roman empires throughout the ages, and pockets of revivalists all round… there are even tax exempt churches of the ancient religion in the US that ordain clergy. And other groups who have included the Jesus into their polytheism. Some forms of Hinduism & Buddhism can also be seen as polytheism. Even wiccans have prayers to some of the Greek gods. I’d be interested in finding hard data on how many ancient polytheists there are out there.

4/26/2006 5:26:44 PM

people who have been interested in this discussion might also be interested in
http://www.thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=404807

4/28/2006 9:01:32 AM