Aidonian's blog

the notion that myth is also religion is ridiculous. Myths are stories which in a time were used to describe certain things like how the world was formed, how mankind came to be, etc….Than you have pure theological stories about the Gods and how they came into being. 

I would rather say that the stories about the birth of the Gods are more about how they came into being in our world. 

The myths of the ancient Greeks were passed down to us through monks who took the time to copy them. But they aren’t canon. By which I mean that the myths aren’t our bible. So far we can tell, the ancient Greeks never had anything close to a bible. They didn’t really had a organised priestly caste like Ancient Rome, Egypt or civilisations in Mesopotamia had. Each head of the household could be a priest, and the priests who worked in the temples were there not full time. I don’t know how it worked but so far I know the priests maintained the temples and performed rituals. But these priests weren’t the same as the priests in Ancient Rome or in Christianity. When Celts invaded Hellas and took Delphi, the city-states organised a march to liberate the site from the barbarians. They called anyone who didn’t speak Greek barbarians. I think this was the closest that they came to a holy war or crusade. 

I think it had more to do with the fact that Delphic oracle was a rich place where leaders go to get council and pay tribute. 

Some people might incline to think that the myths are also religion. In that, they are wrong. They are meant to be taken allegorical and not literally. If you take them literally, you will run into problems with certain Gods like Zeus and Hera who come af as kind of villains. Zeus who rapes women and is unfaithful to his wife and his wife Hera who exact revenge on the mistresses of her husband and his illegitimate children. Or Poseidon raping Medusa in Athena’s temple and Athena punishing Medusa for it. When viewed through a modern lens, these stories are so wrong to put it mildly. And rightfully so. Punishing the victims for something they could do nothing about it is plain wrong. Even though it’s still being done today when a rape victim comes forward. 

If you look at myths, you would think that certain Gods are not popular but far from it. Zeus and Hera had a lot of shrines and temples in ancient Hellas. While Haides doesn’t play a large role in these stories, he has shrines and some temples dedicated to him. While they feared his underworld aspect, they tend to focus on other aspects of the God like fertility of the land, riches. The same goes for his wife Persephone. 

When viewing the the creation myths, which there are several of due to Orphic and Dionysian influences who created alternative creation myths. This also showed that they didn’t really think about how the world came into being. They accepted it as fact and that mankind was part of it, part of nature. This is the opposite of the Christian creation myth that states that God created the world and gave it to mankind for stewardship over it. 

When the Protogenoi came into being in this universe, they gave form to it after which the mantle went to the Titans who governed it and pass it on to the Olympian Gods who now govern the universe. While they may appear part of our universe, they are at the same time not part of it. When our universe dies, the Gods will still be there. Considering the fact that some scientists think our universe cyclical which means that when it dies, it begins anew again. 

While the myths present the Gods are anthropomorphic, they aren’t anything like that. The myth of Semele proves that when Hera tricked Semele into forcing Zeus to show his true self, it killed her and burned down the castle. This clearly shows that ancient Greeks knew that the Gods weren’t anthropomorphic in their true nature. 

The way the Gods are portrayed in plays, Iliad or odyssey are not religious stories per se but more fictional retelling of events that happened. In one way or another anyway. Which does not mean that modern polytheists can not write their own stories and they do. Which is good because we need those type of stories to modernise the myths. 

We need new stories where the Gods are involved, written by polytheists.And Bibliotheca Alexandria is spearheading this, publishing books for and by polytheists.

One can hint needs to be clear. And philosophers in Ancient Greece already tackled it. The Gods in myth differ from the Gods they worshipped. The philosophers weren’t atheists but they didn’t worshipped the Gods like they were represented in Homeric stories. And rightfully so. It’s a good way to create a connection with the Gods on a human level, but the Gods are anything but human.