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Greek gods influence on modern society
Greek gods influence on modern society
Modern day associations with Greek gods
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To start off with, an Oracle is a Temple or a shrine where a priest or priestess would sit and are said to have contact with the Gods of Greece. They would sit in Oracles as people came to ask for answers to questions and advice. To explain the meaning of the priest or priestesses' words, there would be someone else beside them. When people came, they would have to pay an entry fee, sacrifice a goat and look for omens in its entrails. An omen is basically good or evil. For example, I can sense a good omen coming from that girl over there. And entrails are like the insides of something. One of the most famous Oracles was in Delphi. The priestess Pythia would sit at the Temple Apollo in Delphi as thousands of people came to see and ask her questions. It was said that she would sit on a …show more content…
tripod and inhale light hydrocarbon gasses that came from a chasm on the porous Earth. She would then fall into a trance and mutter words not understandable to mere mortals. The priests of the sanctuary would then translate her words into a common language in that area to those who were seeking for answers. But the words Pythia muttered always had two and different meanings. It was believed that her visions came from the God Apollo who was the God of Music, Truth and Prophecy. If you look closely you might be able to see the dot showing you where Delphi is on the PowerPoint slide. Delphi was inhabited in Mycenaean times (or in other words from about 14th to 11th circa B.C) by small settlements that were dedicated to the Mother Earth deity.
The worship of the God Apollo established in the 11th to 9th centuries. In the next five centuries, the sanctuary slowly grew in importance and size. During the 8th circa B.C Delphi became internationally known for the Priestess Pythia’s oracle powers. There was other ways to get answers to questions from the Greek Gods. People would write their questions on lead tablets, and they would receive their answers in the wind of a Sacred oak tree. And of course there are many more Oracles all around Greece. Oracles were there simply for people in need for guidance and help. When people didn’t know what to do with their lives, they would go see oracles and ask for help. In fact, most important decisions were not confirmed or made official before someone asked an oracle what the future would bring for them. For me, I find Oracles in Ancient Greece an interesting topic to talk about. And I am intrigued by the Ancient Greek culture and religion. And I realized that the citizens of Ancient Greece, did rely on the oracles a
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Atsma, Aaron J. "PHOEBE : Greek Titan Goddess of the Oracle of Delphi ; Mythology : PHOIBE." THEOI GREEK MYTHOLOGY, Exploring Mythology & the Greek Gods in Classical Literature & Art. Web. 14 Oct. 2011. .
In addition, I love the fact that Sumer was able to regain its power and place as being the most advanced society during that time period. Also many people would not have thought about picking a topic as this one with so many negative effects. Lastly, Sargon would be my all time favorite person who harmed others during the Ancient times. These are the reasons why i chose my topic.
Mythology is critical to Greek people’s everyday life, just like how religion is in our modern day age. Everyday events, such as a thunderstorm, can be linked to a god or goddess. For example, when an earthquake would happen, it would be Poseidon crashing his tritan on the ground. People’s lives revolved around the whole ideology and it served as a way to explain the unexplained and to help them in times of need. All of the stories of these great gods and goddesses were passed down generation through generation, each time becoming more extreme and distorted.
The ancient Greeks practiced a religion that was in effect, a building block to many ensuing pagan religions. This religion revolved around their reverence to the gods. Essentially, the Greeks worshipped numerous gods, making their religion polytheistic. 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 this unity and order in the universe, which is a characteristic that is not unlike that of people today. It might seem contradictory that they believed in many gods and sought organization at the same time, for larger numbers are inherently unstable. But, to the god-fearing Greeks, each god represented a different facet of life that together upheld an organized universe if each of these gods was properly appeased. To satisfy these gods, the Greeks participated in activities such as prayer and sacrifice and erected divine temples and centers for oracles in honor of specific gods. There is evidence of this institutionalization early on in the reign of the Olympian gods, thus forming the Olympian religion.
When we look at Greek Mythology we often run into the gods of that era. Sometimes they are merely backdrops to the human element of the story but in stories such as The Odyssey the gods play a prominent if not vital role to the central themes of the story.
These men and others went to Egypt and studied with Egyptian priests and students and returned to Greece with these teachings and ideas and passed them off as their own. When Alexander invaded Egypt and destroyed their library the Greeks also got their hands on ancient Egyptian books and manuscripts that way. In reading Greek history there is no known records of the schooling of these Greek philosophers prior to them coming forward with the knowledge that they claimed was their own. All that is ever said is that the probable dates of birth and their probable dates of education. Nothing is for certain. Some of the Philosophers besides Socrates were also tried and put under investigation because of the fact that they introduced new divinities, also known as gods to Athenian culture. Proving once again that the culture and teachings of the Egyptians were stolen, there is no way to explain the fact that the Greek philosophers could've created new gods.
Socrates acts on traditional legitimation in the same manner as Oedipus. He approaches Apollo in search for answers and to gain truth. Apollo states Socrates is the wisest man (Plato, 1954, p.44). Socrates seeks to test the claim, and concludes the Delphic oracle is in fact correct; no man i...
This was so because unlike us, the Greeks believed that they already had explanations for trivial questions such as, “Where the world came from?'; “Who are we?'; and “Who controls the world around us?'; To them all these questions could simply be explained by looking at their own mythology. It is hard for us to really understand how deeply these beliefs were rooted into their personalities, to the Greeks if some natural phenomenon occurred it occurred because one of their gods had decided to make it occur, it was just as simple as that. The existence of the God’s to the Greeks was something just as simple as that the fact that the sky is blue is simple to us. The strength of these preconceived ideas can be seen in Strepsiades’s words while he argues with Socrates in Aristophanes’s The Clouds:
Socrates high respect for himself also may have started with the oracle from Delphi, when Chaerephon, “…asked the oracle to tel...
Divination is a common method of dealing with uncertainty, and is practiced in various ways. In ancient China, oracle bones were one way to seek answers relating to the near future. Oracle bones are ecofacts of turtle plastrons or bovine scapula that have been inscribed with ancient Chinese characters. Their creation involves a meticulous process. First, the bones are polished, then small holes or pits are drilled into the backside. They are then inscribed with a preface which includes the date and name of the diviner. Then, a “charge” is etched into the bone or shell. A “charge” is a query that involves topics such as warfare, religious rituals and sacrifices, hunting, journeys made by royalty, the royal family’s health, births and deaths, meanings of dreams, and predicting natural disasters. A hot, glowing brand is nested into the pits which heats up the shell or bone, creating cracks which are then interpreted by the diviner. A prognostication, or interpretation of the cracks is determined by the diviner and a course of action is inscribed afterwards. Rarely, a verified outcome may be recorded (Zhentao).
Though Apollo and Zeus had other Oracles in Ancient Greece, Apollo’s Oracle at Delphi was the most famous and important Oracle in Ancient Greece. The Delphic oracle was located in the city of Delphi. “It was believed [that] Apollo … spoke through the mouth of an inspired woman known as the Pythia, who in turn conveyed the message to a priest, who relayed it to the person who had made the inquiry” (Rubin). People would ask this Oracle a variety of different questions; one ...
They are widely known for their gods and goddesses. The Olympian gods were the main gods of Ancient Greece. After overthrowing their ancestors, the Titans, the Olympian gods became the rulers of the World (Cosmos), representing the civilization of the world. To the common Greeks, they envisioned their gods as a family of immortals who intervened in the lives of human beings. Unlike Mesopotamia and Egypt, Greece made their gods out to be more human like than animal like. These gods were immortal, but took on many characteristics of the humans who worshipped them. The gods lived atop a mountain in Northern Greece called Mount Olympus. Mount Olympus was home to many of the gods, each had there own palace atop the mountain. Zeus sat upon the summit of the mountain while the other gods were surrounding him in their own palaces. Gods would take sides in human combat, seduce mortal woman, and meddle in the lives of those they felt were worthy of their attention. One of the most known gods, Zeus, was the supreme god in Ancient Greece, the father of the Olympian gods and the ruler of all mankind. He and his wife Hera were exalted by the Greek Pantheon as the ruling deities of Greece. In a epic poem called Theogony or The Birth of the Gods, it recounts the history, genealogy of the god, how they came to be and how they established permanent control over the Cosmos. In the poem it says that, “Verily at the first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundations of all the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth, and Eros (Love), fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within
I have chosen to write about Aesops because they interest me and I like animals. The moral at the end gets an extra bonus from me. The morals are fun to learn and can sometimes be funny. It also interests me in how stories that were written as far back as thousands of years ago were written and the themes they had. It is intriguing to know why they still hold relevance in modern day life. Learning about Asop has also lead me to learn more about Greece’s practices and other famous slaves. I picked fables because it has more of a variety of short stories versus the other topics and I like diversity. One of the reasons I think stories such as fables are important to people is because they let people express complex ideas in an easy to understand fashion.
American best-selling author, John Maxwell once stated "A leader is one who knows the way, goes
Goddesses play important roles protectors and guardians of men and are demonstrated as being wise and knowledgeable in Homer’s Odyssey. Circe knows the directions to the underworld, and Eidothea, Proteus’ daughter knew where Odysseus was and was able to outmaneuver her father by telling men of how he will try to shift his shape and sh