Images Gods and Goddesses
Ancient Greek Mythology, Religion, Art
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When people think about Greek religion or mythology, they naturally think about the myriad of Greek gods and goddess - but it is important to remember that none of these divinities can be entirely understood alone. Each is defined in relation to the others and separating one from the rest is like trying to separate a single strand of thread from a blanket. Atheists and theists accustomed to strict monotheistic faiths like Christianity may not realize how integrated the gods of polytheistic belief systems tend to be, much less how aspects of them continue to be reflected even in contemporary religions and deities. Knowledge of both can be very important, though, for anyone attempting a sustained and informed critique of modern religion and modern theism.
One complicating factor is how the nature of the relationships and attributes of Greek gods can all vary from city to city, depending upon which gods happen to be dominant in a particular region. There was no real "orthodoxy" in Greek religion, thus demonstrating not only that religion doesn't need to have an enforced orthodoxy, but also that the lack of such an enforced orthodoxy doesn't cause either religion or society to break down. This stands in sharp contrast to how conservatives and fundamentalists in religions like Christianity behave.
Because neither the attributes of the individual Greek gods nor the organizational structure that links them is exactly the same from one place to the next, it is difficult to talk about any single Greek religion. Issues like this are one reason why some scholars argue that there was no genuine Greek "religion," just Greek culture - and indeed that the entire concept of "religion" is itself an academic invention, including in the context of modern societies. This is applied even to religions like Christianity because if you examine it closely, you'll find a lot more national and ethnic variation than Christian leaders typically admit to - or that should exist if the claims made about the divine nature and origin of Christianity were true.
Gods & Human Beings
The Greek gods, unlike the gods and goddesses of many other cultures and certainly unlike the gods of contemporary monotheistic faiths, are very similar to human beings. They fight, they lie, they make war, had favorite people or cities, and they experienced the entire gamut of human emotions. To be quite frank, the Greek deities were not especially moral beings - a far cry from the moral perfection ascribed to the Christian god.
The polytheism of the ancient Greeks is an excellent rebuttal to the common Christian claim that morality itself cannot exist unless it comes from a god and that a god is necessary to provide moral leadership, instruction, and guidance to humanity. It might also be used as a rebuttal to some atheists' complaint about how religion is used to impose moral views on people by attributing them to a god in order to remove the moral rules from public debate.
The Greeks simply did not think in such terms, nor is it necessary for a religion to be constituted along such lines. The gods and goddesses were neither good nor bad, they just were. Mortals might consider their actions unfair, but it wasn't the place of mortals to judge the immortals; instead, all that was required was honor and respect. In this, there are strong parallels with modern monotheistic religions - but whereas humans today are not supposed to judge God, it's because God is by definition good and humans simply have no independent standard by which any evaluation can be made.
Greek gods were, furthermore, apt to take on human form in order to mingle with mortals. What this meant was that any stranger, any person encountered on the street, or even indeed any relative could actually be a god or goddess in disguise. Expecting to experience the divinity in any randomly encountered person was a key factor in the Greek value that all strangers must be honored and treated well. This is analogous to the Christian belief that strangers should be treated as images of God, but Christians don't believe that any random stranger really could be Jesus or God.
Gods & the Supernatural
It can be easier to think of the Greek deities as not being supernatural in the sense that God is thought of being in the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim contexts. Greek mythology doesn't describe their gods as creating nature; instead, they arrive on the scene long after the universe already exists. They have great power and great roles to play, but they do not exist outside of nature or even outside of certain natural constraints. They are more powerful than mortal human beings, but they aren't better than mortals. Greek religion thus helps demonstrate that not all religions, and not even all theistic religions, need be based on belief in the supernatural.
It may have been this absence of a daily reinforcement of supernatural beliefs that allowed the early Greeks to begin developing a naturalistic, materialistic science. Gods might appear or intervene at any time, but not being supernatural they couldn't transcend any laws governing the behavior of the natural, material world. This meant that the natural world could be studied and understood without concern for whether any gods might suddenly change things on a whim - an ability which supernatural deities, like the Christian god, are not only believed to have but are supposed to have done on a number of occasions.
Religion vs. Mythology
Perhaps one of the most important things to remember about ancient Greek religion should be among the most obvious: people then were as devout and as sincere in their beliefs in the existence, power, and relevance of their gods as people today are in theirs. There are even people today who believe in and worship the Greek pantheon of gods. There is no substantive difference between the belief and worship in the Greek pantheon and the god of Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others.
Despite this, ancient Greek religion is commonly described as "mythology" while Christians, Jews, and Muslims commonly object if their own religious beliefs and stories are categorized as "mythology." Separating some religious beliefs into "mythology" and others into "religion" seems to help some religious theists imagine that their beliefs are more sensible, more rational, and more true than ancient superstitions.
Revealing the reality of ancient religious beliefs can thus be an important tool in undermining the arrogance of popular religious beliefs by revealing how much they really have in common with ancient beliefs too often derided as superstitious and mythological. Religion can be much more complex than most people realize, but religions are often much more similar than most people realize as well. Only a broad study of religion, including ancient "mythology," is enough to overcome popular ignorance.
| Images of Ancient Greek Gods and Goddesses | |
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| Aphrodite | Apollo |
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| Ares | Artemis |
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| Athena | Demeter |
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| Dionysus | Hades |
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| Hephaistos | Hera |
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| Hermes | Hestia |
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| Nike / Victory | Poseidon / Neptune |
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| Zeus | |
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