Greek+Gods+by++Megan

**__The Background before Greek Gods__** This took place in Greece. Before the Greek Gods,there is some background that you need to know. First off, in 1100 B.C through 750 B.C, the greeks were going through a dark age. Food was not coming in the quantites that they needed, trade became slow, and earth- quakes troubled the city. Because of the lack of food and money, teachers lost their jobs, so the greeks lost their writing system and their ancient language. One of the good outcomes of the dark age was that the greeks moved to present day Turkey, which spread greek religion and culture.After the Sparta invasion and the Peloponesian War in 146 B.C., the Battle of Corninth came about in the 6th or 8th B.C. They fled again and created the city of Greece.

**__The Creation of the Greek Gods__** The Greek gods were created by nomads in the second milleneum BCE. These gods came along by the word of mouth. Stories and legends were passed down from generation to generation. These stories were about famous battles and heroes. The stories got so far fetched from generation to generation, that they turned into people with supernatural powers. People like Homer were one of the people who made these stories into legends and fantasies. Homer was a play and story writer. Just like all other poets and play writers, they had to keep their audience captivated throughout the whole play or story. From that point on, the stories were not told through the word of mouth. They were now written down, and the stories stayed the same ever since. The stories told that the Gods were born on Mt. Olympus. The Greeks were polytheistic, so each god controlled one aspect of their lives. The gods were used to explain things that were unclear to them in nature.

**__Impact on the Greek Society__** The greeks built many shrines and temples for the gods. They also had household shrines to give thanks to the gods. To make their lives better on earth, they would sacrifice animals and other things to them. There were two types of relationships you could have with a god. The first one was personal. In a personal relationship, they thought you could interact with the god and have special connections. The second relationship was geographical. In this relationship, a god or goddess favored a city or state. The Greeks wanted as many gods and goddesses as possible on their side. They would try to outwit a god or goddess so it would go in the greeks favor. Other than outwitting a god, they would go to a temple or shrine and pray with a priest so they could get a blessing or bring peace to their family or city.

It all started with Uranus (Chaos) and Gaea ( mother nature). Then there came nine kids. Two of those kids, Cronos and Rhea, got married and had Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hera, Demeter, and Hestia. At the time, his father had eaten all of his other syblings besides him. His mother, Rhea, hid Zeus in a cave and disguised a bag of rocks as Zeus. These rocks were eaten by Cronos, and then he spit up all of his syblings. Years later, Zeus and his father were at battle. It was Cronos's Titans against Zeus's army. Zeus won, and he sent his father deep down into a mountain. That mountain would moan and groan and spit out hot lava. That was where the creation of volcanos came along. After that, Zeus, Posiedon, and Hades wanted to divide up the earth into three kingdoms: the air, the under-world, and the sea. They rolled dice, and Zeus got the sky, Posiedon got the sea, and unlucky Hades got the underworld.
 * __ The Start of Zeus's Kingdom __**

__** Enduring Impacts of Greek Religion in our Religion Today **__ I will be comparing Christianity to the Ancient Greek Religion. In Christianity, we believe in one God. The Ancient Greek Religion were polyotheistic, but Zeus was the leader of the Gods. In our religions, one God controls everything, where the Greek Gods split up the power between themselves. God made the earth and everything on it. Ancient Greek Gods came from the sky and the earth that was already created. Our god is morally pure, or in other words, He is perfect. The gods in Ancient Greece had human personalities, and did as much of good as they did bad. They felt jealuosy, rage, and pride,as much as they felt love and kindness. Our God loves us and is very forgiving, where Ancient Greek Gods depsised man and only liked those who were heroes or sacrificed something to them. They usuallly punished man on a daily basis. Our God wants to be worshiped. He wants to be known for being merciful. The Ancient Greek Gods wanted to be known for their powers. Our God will answer our prayers where the Greek Gods will answer prayers only when a sacrifice is given to them. The sacrifices could be wheat, barley, fruit, olive oil, ect. The best sacrifice was the ox. Our god is everywhere, where the Gods of Greece were usually on Mt. Olympus. Other gods were in rivers,forests, trees, woods, seas, and so on. Our God is invisible where the Greek Gods were taking the forms of humans or other animals. Both religions explained natural happenings ( the sun and the fertility of crops) by their Gods.

Our moral code is contained in the Bible or the Word of God. All of our unnatural happenings are contained in this book. The Greeks did not have a specific book. The closest to a book was people like Homer writing everything down. Usaually, there were many different versions of one myth. Christians and Jewish people met in synagogues and churches. The Greeks met at a temple like us, but they had service outside on an altar. Christian and Jewish priests today are usuallly men that used the Bible as their concience. They were responsible for the masses and forgiving people's sins. Greek priests could be men or women. They carried out the religious rights properly. They interpreted the God's signs and will using animals and how they flew, ect. That was how they got messages from the Gods ( they were called seers or a mantis). Christian souls went to heaven and sinners went to hell. Greek people would go down to Tartarus, or the underworld, where Hades ruled. There, their souls would be judged and the "man" in charge of it, would speak to people that knew that person. That person would go to the wicked side, and the good would go to the good side ( Elysium). In our religion today, our sacrifice would be to pray, devote, and show good behaviour to God. The Greek Gods wanted animals, whine, fruits , barley, grain, and olive oil (just some of the examples). The best offering was the ox.


 * __My Sources__**

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