Prominent secular and atheist commentators have argued lately that religion “poisons” human life and causes endless violence and suffering. But the poison isn’t religion; it’s monotheism. The polytheistic Greeks didn’t advocate killing those who worshiped different gods, and they did not pretend that their religion provided the right answers. Their religion made the ancient Greeks aware of their ignorance and weakness, letting them recognize multiple points of view.
There is much we still can learn from these ancient notions of divinity, even if we can agree that the practices of animal sacrifice, deification of leaders and divining the future through animal entrails and bird flights are well lost.
My Hindu students could always see something many scholars miss: The Greek gods weren’t mere representations of forces in nature but independent beings with transcendent powers who controlled the world and everything in it. Some of the gods were strictly local, such as the deities of rivers and forests. Others were universal, such as Zeus, his siblings and his children.
The Greek gods never left. Just visit any comic-book store.
On a more critical note, it would help if people not confuse the two common definitions of ‘god’: (1) a being possessing a mind and a spiritual body, more powerful/more intelligent than the average human being; and (2) the ultimate Source of all Being. Neither the Christians nor the Jews nor the Muslims would believe in only “one” god-#1, since all of them believe in angels, and what not; but they would all believe in only “one” god-#2. And if that is the case, then “monotheism” becomes inclusive of Hinduism, much of Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and a whole host of ancient and modern spiritual landscapes.
There was, of course, a lot of good that came from Greek/Roman culture, but their religion was not of it.
The Romans, of course, largely took their religion from the Greeks, so .
Curiously enough, I am currently studying a history of the Ante- Nicene Church and Tertillian’s apologetic writings. I seem to recall plenty of Greek/Roman violence against another religion, several (e.g. Celsus) who wrote strongly that their religion provided the right answers and Christianity did not, and a whole host of Martyr’s killed or confessors imprisoned and tortured because they refused to sacrifice to the Polytheistic Gods. I also recall that the Polytheists rejoiced in bloodshed at the circus, practised abortion and infanticide freely (seeing nothing wrong with it), and praised immorality, leading to a huge cost to the stability of society. Their “Gods” were immoral, violent, adulterous rapists (a fine example to follow). They freely practised and encouraged slavery, and saw nothing wrong with it.
So, given this inaccuracy, I find it hard to accept the rest of the argument. Christian civilisation, for all the failures of various Christian governments down the century, is vastly superior to what proceeded it. Going back to Greek and Roman pagan culture would be a mistake. Perhaps I should say, given the direction that Europe is going, is a mistake.
And Christianity does not? Has this lady not read Romans 1-3? Or Isaiah 55:9? Or …?
[blockquote]Zeus did not communicate directly with humankind. But his children — Athena, Apollo and Dionysus — played active roles in human life.[/blockquote]
After the first sentence quoted here, need we listen to anything else she has to say?
Something like a quarter of the entire Greek pantheon (including Dionysus) were children of Zeus by mortal women. If that’s not “direct communication” I don’t know what is.
Greeks may not have killed each other over their gods. That didn’t stop them, however, from spending an extraordinary amount of time killing each other, as any student of classical history (including the fine scholar Mary Lefkowitz) knows.