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Magnus Manfist posted:Why would the gods not be utterly lovely? Sometimes you get good weather and your trade voyages go fine, sometimes a storm hits and everyone drowns. Sometimes you get a good harvest, sometimes the crops fail and everyone starves. Sometimes you think you're waging a righteous war that pleases the gods and a plague hits out of nowhere and half your army shits themselves to death. Plus every city has their own patron god/s, and you've been at war with those guys and by extension their gods for years. Because the idea is that these fuckers can create the world. The fact that they are portrayed as, at best, idiot drunks doesn't jive with a lot of how the ancient Greeks apparently saw them. They believed that good people suffered, sure, but they believed that the gods punished those that did not uphold things properly.
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Apr 10, 2020 12:16
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grittyreboot posted:Poseidon was a villain more often than not. Which makes sense considering that many ancient Greeks, a maritime people, probably lost a few loved ones to the sea. He was known to be petty even compared to the other gods and was a perpetual loser. Yeah, he really hosed up Laocoon and his two sons, sent giant serpents up from a sacred well in Troy to strangle them when Laocoon railed against the Trojan Horse.
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Apr 10, 2020 12:26
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I kind of like that the very first chapter in The Odyssey is the Gods bickering about Poseidon's vendetta against Odysseus. Athena spends the whole chapter just being all "Poseidon, seriously, you need to get over this, Odysseus is pretty cool overall!" I also loved a translation note where it mentions that a greek term that Athena uses, "Apopo" is translated based on context and who is using it and variably means anything ranging from "Oh dear..." to "FOR FUCKS SAKE!"
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Apr 10, 2020 12:39
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Apr 10, 2020 12:55
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She shat her pantsq
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Apr 10, 2020 13:27
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Don Gato posted:By ancient Athenian standards he really is a stand up guy, Zeus would have turned into a goose or something and then done unspeakable things and Hera would have turned her into a spider for a perceived insult. Perceived insult i.e. claiming you're better at weaving than the gods themselves and proving it by weaving fanart of their family members loving their way across all creation. Arachne knows what she did.
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Apr 10, 2020 14:33
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If you weave me a picture of myself loving everything I won't turn you into a spider but I will turn you 5 dollars richer.
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Apr 10, 2020 14:58
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Josef bugman posted:Because the idea is that these fuckers can create the world. The fact that they are portrayed as, at best, idiot drunks doesn't jive with a lot of how the ancient Greeks apparently saw them. They believed that good people suffered, sure, but they believed that the gods punished those that did not uphold things properly. Yeah but remember that a lot of these ancient pagan faiths are orthopraxic. Doesn't matter what you believe, doesn't matter if you have faith, as long as the right rituals and observances are kept. The relationship to divinity is contractual, much like the relationship to any other authority, and it's just life that the people/gods in charge are obtuse idiots so shut up and tithe or the furies will gently caress you up.
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Apr 10, 2020 15:01
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Josef bugman posted:Cult of the Sub genius then? Discordianism. Eris, specifically the Eris of Discordianism, is mentioned Subgenius literature though.
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Apr 10, 2020 15:04
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Josef bugman posted:Because the idea is that these fuckers can create the world. The fact that they are portrayed as, at best, idiot drunks doesn't jive with a lot of how the ancient Greeks apparently saw them. They believed that good people suffered, sure, but they believed that the gods punished those that did not uphold things properly. Nah, most of the standard Indo-European myths have the world being created by older, more powerful gods before being overthrown/wandering off.
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Apr 10, 2020 15:12
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Another thing about ancient religions was that they were regional, in that the gods ruled over specific regions. Foreign religions weren't wrong, they just worshiped the gods of their religion and/or people. Roman legions would observe the rites of foreign gods while abroad, in addition to their own. Mars may rule over legions, but Ra rules over Egypt so better sacrifice to both just to be safe.
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Apr 10, 2020 15:22
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Pigsfeet on Rye posted:Yeah, he really hosed up Laocoon and his two sons, sent giant serpents up from a sacred well in Troy to strangle them when Laocoon railed against the Trojan Horse. Made for some cool sculpture, though.
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Apr 10, 2020 15:28
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Lord Hypnostache posted:Another thing about ancient religions was that they were regional, in that the gods ruled over specific regions. Foreign religions weren't wrong, they just worshiped the gods of their religion and/or people. Roman legions would observe the rites of foreign gods while abroad, in addition to their own. Mars may rule over legions, but Ra rules over Egypt so better sacrifice to both just to be safe.
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Apr 10, 2020 15:33
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Most people are familiar with the Roman idea of Ares, aka Mars, who was a lot more prominent due to basically being the incarnation of the Roman Legions and organised warfare. Ares as the Greeks (Athenians particularly) portrayed him is basically somewhere between Kratos and Khorne. Mars wasn't "the Roman idea of Ares". Indo-European nations just had similar gods.
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Apr 10, 2020 15:38
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I bet his breakfast was heavenly.
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Apr 10, 2020 15:58
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why is his nose a carrot though
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Apr 10, 2020 16:01
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Krankenstyle posted:why is his nose a carrot though it was the style back in those ancient days
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Apr 10, 2020 16:12
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Krankenstyle posted:why is his nose a carrot though Probably pissed off Demeter in some way.
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Apr 10, 2020 16:17
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Krankenstyle posted:why is his nose a carrot though I mean, he's eating Zeus' kid. He's lucky he didn't get turned into a living stone or something
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Apr 10, 2020 16:18
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Thx y'all, that all makes sense 
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Apr 10, 2020 16:25
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Randaconda posted:Nah, most of the standard Indo-European myths have the world being created by older, more powerful gods before being overthrown/wandering off. In particular, the Greek creation myth is that the earth goddess just showed up out of nowhere one day, then gave birth to the sky god, and they hooked up and then there were things.
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Apr 10, 2020 17:01
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I just wanted to say, this made me laugh more than anything in a while. A true
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Apr 10, 2020 17:12
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ChubbyChecker posted:Mars wasn't "the Roman idea of Ares". Indo-European nations just had similar gods. Rome literally just ripped off the Greek pantheon for their own, and was huge on importing foreign gods, including Egyptian ones. They were always pretty shameless about ripping off any aspects of foreign cultures they liked.
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Apr 10, 2020 17:42
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Rome literally just ripped off the Greek pantheon for their own, and was huge on importing foreign gods, including Egyptian ones. They were always pretty shameless about ripping off any aspects of foreign cultures they liked. Incorrect.
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Apr 10, 2020 17:54
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Not sure if you can talk about a Ares and Mars being traced back to a shared Indo-European pantheon, lots of cultures have a war god and they're pretty different. None of their names are Indo-European.
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Apr 10, 2020 18:08
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Grevling posted:Not sure if you can talk about a Ares and Mars being traced back to a shared Indo-European pantheon, lots of cultures have a war god and they're pretty different. None of their names are Indo-European. Ares and Mars are both Indo-European names.
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Apr 10, 2020 18:14
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Rome literally commissioned official fanfiction linking them to Greek myths.
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Apr 10, 2020 18:25
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Rome literally just ripped off the Greek pantheon for their own False. Most of the similarities are surface level, and most of those are the standard Indo-European pantheon load out
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Apr 10, 2020 18:25
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Rome literally commissioned official fanfiction linking them to Greek myths. Romans liked doing that kind of stuff, and linking their gods to foreign gods, but their gods weren't copied from the greeks, they were just similar.
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Apr 10, 2020 18:27
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ChubbyChecker posted:Romans liked doing that kind of stuff, and linking their gods to foreign gods, but their gods weren't copied from the greeks, they were just similar.  As they were similiar to the Norse pantheon, and the Indian pantheon, and the Celtic pantheon, among many othersthe only Indo-European group I know off the top of my head that went a total different direction are the Persians.
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Apr 10, 2020 18:30
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Were they the same and just copied, there'd've been little reason to have the fanfics written up, now'd've?
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Apr 10, 2020 18:31
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Randaconda posted:
3D Megadoodoo posted:Were they the same and just copied, there'd've been little reason to have the fanfics written up, now'd've? Yeah.
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Apr 10, 2020 18:41
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ChubbyChecker posted:Incorrect. Is this based on some new scholarship? Because for as long as I was old enough to read about this sort of stuff I always heard "Pluto is just the name the Romans gave to Hades." Although this might be one of those "amateur historians think Hitler was a supervillain, experienced historians know he was a buffoon" kind of situations.
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Apr 10, 2020 18:41
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Moon Slayer posted:Is this based on some new scholarship? Because for as long as I was old enough to read about this sort of stuff I always heard "Pluto is just the name the Romans gave to Hades." It's some poo poo they thought was true in the Victorian era, I think, and it just stayed around.
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Apr 10, 2020 18:46
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Randaconda posted:It's some poo poo they thought was true in the Victorian era, I think, and it just stayed around. Pretty much this. Pop history just likes to repeat old myths.
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Apr 10, 2020 18:48
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ChubbyChecker posted:Pretty much this. Pop history just likes to repeat old myths. You mean like the Romans did? 
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Apr 10, 2020 18:55
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Talking of gods
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Apr 10, 2020 18:58
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3D Megadoodoo posted:Were they the same and just copied, there'd've been little reason to have the fanfics written up, now'd've? Well the Greek and Roman conceptions of their pantheons weren't exactly the same but it's not as if they'd developed in complete isolation from each other either, what with Italy having a bunch of Greek colonies for centuries, etc. [1] Neither was either pantheon a static uniform thing; different aspects of the Greek gods were venerated in different city-states, and in ways that changed over time (ask two dudes from the same city born 400 years apart to explain their religion, and you'd probably get pretty different answers). Same with the Italian/Roman pantheon. Things weren't organized and standardized on the same sort of level as we're used to seeing in major world religions these days, to put it mildly. Predominantly oral traditions, no real hierarchies above the single-temple level, etc. Late-period Roman thinkers (when their religion was being used to help prop up the central authority of a huge fuckin' empire) sure were pretty keen on the idea that their main gods could be identified with the Greek ones, and with those of other civilized lands. And they'd bend over backwards to find correspondences, and write fanfic to support it. Then 1800 years later I guess some Victorian history buffs read those guys' stuff and got hung up on the idea that that was all there was to it. [1] Supposedly some villages in southern Italy have preserved their own weird dialects of Greek until the 20th or even 21st century. Groke has a new favorite as of 19:03 on Apr 10, 2020 |
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Apr 10, 2020 18:58
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Syncretism is fun, but beware oversimplification.
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Apr 10, 2020 19:10
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Finnish also have their own pantheon of gods, completely separate from the Norse in West and slavic in East. And obviously, everything was "chistianized" after the 12th century. Fun fact, the original name for the Ukko's representative, a bear, was considered sacred "True name" of the chief god and saying it out loud was very no-no and brought bad times, so several work-around names were invented. For example the current most common Finnish words for bear '(karhu, or also mesikämmen, kouvo, kontio, otso, metsän omena, metsän kuningas or nalle) are all work-arounds, and the original word for bear is believed to be lost since we really didn't write that stuff down until the Swedes showed up in the 11th century.
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Apr 10, 2020 19:22
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