Sunday, October 11, 2009

The Greek Gods Make More Sense Now

So, I was just playing scattegories with Caroline when the letter T came up for Greek Gods. Can you think of any??? I bent the category a little bit and wrote Titans, but then wanted to check to make sure they were Gods. I was pretty sure Zeus was related to them, so they'd have to be by family, but I wasn't sure.

Turns out Zeus is the son of Titans, so I count him. Wikipedia also informed me "Their role as Elder Gods was overthrown by a race of younger gods, the Olympians, which effected a mythological paradigm shift that the Greeks may have borrowed from the Ancient Near East." Greek Mythology make so much more sense to me.

The Greek Gods weren't the Gods as we understand them in an eternal, all-powerful being sense. They were child Gods who'd overthrown their parents. Seeing them as teenagers suddenly explained the endless drama and Zeus trying to have sex with everybody. They were just filled with God-hormones.

On a side note, I like the idea that Gods can just be replaced and the laws of space time can be changed. The big bang was just the ending of a phase under a God who really liked compact things.

2 comments:

  1. The Norse gods were interesting too, because they weren't immortal and in fact their doom was foretold in detail in a grand battle called Ragnarok. Not sure what that says about the vikings' outlook on life. And there were different types of gods: Aesir like Odin and Thor represented order, Jotuns (giants) like Loki represented chaos, and Vanir like Freyr and Freyja represented life and fertility. Mythologies are, in general, fascinating stuff.

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  2. Mythologies, I like them. I also like, "The big bang was just the ending of a phase under a God who really liked compact things."

    Thanks.

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