The Pantheon of Greek Gods - History

The Greek Gods were different than other gods of other religions. They were human-like, with feelings and personalities. Other gods were thought of as monstrous creatures that had no personalities or needs.

The connection between the Greek gods and people was that the people felt that they could really be close to the Gods. The people could talk to the gods anytime they wanted and they would talk in their own language, not the language of the gods. The Greeks hated the idea of sacrificing humans because they believed that the human body was beautiful. The Greeks sacrificed food and wine and animals to their gods. The gods of other religions seemed to reside beyond the reach of man. Only priests and kings could communicate with these other gods and only during special ceremonies and through the god’s language. The gods would scare the people into submission. To try and appease these gods the people would give them gifts that were the most valuable to them. An example would be the sacrifice of a human life.

The personality of the Greek Gods reflected real life and real people. The Gods had feelings and personalities, they could cry and laugh and had human-like emotions that made them easy to idolize and honour, because the people felt closer to the Gods than if they didn't have any feelings. The Goddess Aphrodite for example was the goddess of love and was caring. The Gods of other religions had no personality, no appetite and no feelings. This made these gods very hard to relate to and made it easier for people to fear, because the gods didn't have any human-like needs. This is why people used magic tricks and amulets to defend themselves from the wrath of the gods.

The appearance of the Greek Gods was human-like. The people believed that the Gods were the most beautiful of all. This made the Gods less frightening because they looked like humans, not ugly monstrous creatures. The other gods were terrible to behold. They were huge and monstrous creatures that were like nothing that had ever lived on earth. They were awful and controlled the people by scaring them.

In every religion, people try to answer the question “where will I go when I die?”. In the Greek religion, people believe that they will go to the Underworld, ruled by Hades, Zeus’ brother. In the Egyptian religion, people believe that once you die, you will be punished if you have been bad. In the Christian religion, people believe that you will go to hell if you have done wrong. This is how the gods of other religions controlled people, because if they don’t follow them, something bad would happen to you after you have died.

In conclusion, Greek Mythology clearly demonstrates what human beings were like in the past. The mythology was a manifestation of the values of the Greeks. The Gods of Olympus were way less brutal and more human like than any other god of that time.

I chose to post this piece because it shows the level of work that was expected of us from our enrichment history class in grade eight. This was one of the harder assignments that we had to do last year. Learning about the Greeks and the Romans was hard, but also very interesting.