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| '''Greek Mythology''' is the polytheistic myths and legends beliefs of the ancient Greeks.
| | #redirect [[Greek Mythology]] |
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| ==Primary Gods and Legends==
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| In Greek mythology, there are many other demi-gods and heros, but the most well known gods are the immortals who sit upon the thrones of Mt. Olympus. The Olympian gods represent a specific natural element or energy force. They are the following:
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| * '''[[Zeus]]''': The god of the heavens, or as later mythology would determine, the God of the Gods
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| * '''Posiedon''': The god of the seas, who would challenge Athena for the title of patron of Athens
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| * '''[[Hades]]''': The god of the underworld, whom oversaw the sould of the mortally deceased
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| * '''Hera''': The goddess of marriage, who served as Zeus' primary and exceedingly jelous wife
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| * '''Demeter''': The goddess of the harvest, whose daughter was the delicate Persephone
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| * '''Hestia''': The goddess of the hearth, who tends Mt. Olympus' sacred fire
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| * '''Hephaestus''': The god of blacksmiths and craftsmen, who forged lightning bolts for Zeus
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| * '''[[Athena]]''': The goddess of wisdom, who became the patroness of Athens after bestowing the city with an olive tree
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| * '''Artemis''': The goddess of hunting and wilderness, who was the twin sister of Apollo
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| * '''Apollo''': The god of music and light, who was the twin brother of Artemis
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| * '''Ares''': The god of war, who was quite reckless in his sides and choices in battle
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| * '''Aphrodite''': The goddess of love, who rose from the botton of the sea
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| * '''Hermes''': The god of theives and trickery, who also served as a messenger of the Gods
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| * '''Persephone''': The goddess-daughter of Demeter, who also served as the queen of the underworld
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| There is also various demi-gods and heros, which include [[Prometheus]] and Hercules.
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| ==H. P. Blavatsky and Myths==
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| ==Anthropomorphism==
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| In polytheistic tradition, Greek mythology gives human qualities to the gods and and demi-gods. Unlike monotheistic beliefs, the gods are seen as vengeful, cruel, and even sadistical.
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| <blockquote>"The dark night of the soul," no less than the Götterdämmerung, was, in the
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| ancient mind, just the condition of the soul's embodiment in physical forms.
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| Taylor reasons that Minerva (the rational faculty, as Goddess of Wisdom) was by
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| her attachment to body given wholly "to the dangerous employment and abandons
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| the proper characteristics of her nature for the destructive revels of desire."
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| All this is the dialectic statement of the main theme of ancient theology - the
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| incarnation of the godlike intellect and divine soul in the darksome conditions
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| of animal bodies.<ref>Kuhn, Alvin Boyd. ''The Lost Light: An Interpretation of Ancient Scriptures'' (Rahway, NJ: Quinn & Boden Company, 1940), 146.</ref></blockquote>
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| ==Modern Analysis==
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| <blockquote>Similarly it is that during those periods of spiritual dryness we can, if we
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| have so trained ourselves, commune with God through various forms of Art, for
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| Art fundamentally is a revelation of the Divine Nature, it reveals what Plato
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| called the Idea or the Archetype. The ancient Greeks were particularly sensitive
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| to this aspect of Art. If they looked at a statue of Apollo, the sun-god, it was
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| not merely to them a statue of some handsome youth, but there radiated from the
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| statue a mysterious influence, so that they came to feel the influence of God.
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| Similarly with the goddess Minerva; they felt, when there was an adequately
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| beautiful image in a temple, that somehow as they offered their adoration to it,
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| the image was like a wonderful window through which they looked into the Divine
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| Nature.<ref>Jinarājadāsa, Curuppumullage. Discourses on the Bhagavad Gita (Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1953), 99.</ref></blockquote>
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| ==Notes==
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| <references/>
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