Greek Mythology: The Origin Of Our Universe

The Ancient Greeks believed in many gods and heroes during their time. Each one had a sole purpose in a mortal’s lifetime. Greek mythology had a huge impact on religion in Ancient Greece. The Greeks performed rituals in order to honor their gods. Mythology affected the Ancient Greeks in many ways. The origins of mythology, the influences of mythology through a human’s lifetime and lessons taught in the ancient myths will be examined.

“Mythos”- a Greek word meaning “tale” and the origin of the word mythology; according to the dictionary mythology means, a traditional story aiming to explain the meaning of things concerning deities and demigods.

People from early civilizations created myths which they followed in their everyday lives. These myths carried three details to explain how the world was created. Those three details were

The creation of the gods starts with chaos and from the chaos came the endless gods: Eros, Tartarus, and Gaea (Love, hell, and the earth). Gaea created Uranus, the first ruler of the sky and Eros

When people wonder about Ancient Greece the first thing that comes to their minds is Greek mythology; gods and goddesses that have helped shape many historical events. “In ancient Greece, stories about gods and goddesses and heroes and monsters were an important part of everyday life.” (“Greek Mythology.”) The civilization showed that numerous characters and stories helped shape Greeks. The beliefs the Greeks had with mythologies was they understood the meaning behind all the characters that are known today. However, to the Greeks, they were not just characters, these were their gods and goddesses who gave them meaning and understanding of the world around them. Worshiping the gods and goddesses helped them with their religious rituals and the temperament of the weather. A famous wine-jar that was made during this time period was “Achilles killing the Amazon Queen Penthesilea, 540-530 BCE, black-figured amphora”. (Khan Academy) The civilization that they lived in grew around their worship and achievements.

The Vikings had a closely tied relationship between their culture and other cultures. You can see this because some of the stories from different parts of the world were put into their own stories. The story of the creation myth of Ymir is paralleled to the story of the Brahma. The stories of zombies from the African culture can be closely tied to stories of revenants that are in the Viking culture. A reason for some of these resonances may be because of the trade route they had; which was through the Mesopotamian, Byzantium, and the African worlds.

It is said that in the beginning, there was Chaos, the silent and dark abyss. Out of Chaos, all things came into existence. According to the Theogony of Hesiod, Chaos created the

The currently accepted model of the Big Bang is "that the the universe is not static but is expanding and that the expansion began in an incredibly hot, dense Big Bang approximately 13.72 billion years ago" (Krause, 2012, p. 25). This hot, dense bit of matter was only a few millimeters across and contained all of the matter and energy that makes up our universe and as it expanded, it cooled and over the billions of years of existence the universe settled into its current state.

Greek Mythology is well known throughout the world. Greek Mythology is composed of many gods, goddesses, and myths; one myth in particular is about courageous Mortal named Atlanta and how she met her husband.

1. According to Hesiod, in the beginning there were four primordial beings. Chaos was the first entity to exist, then came Earth (Gaea), Tartarus and Eros . Chaos produced two offspring, Erebus and Night who made love and bore Aether and Day . Earth then gave birth to her son Heaven who would later become her partner. Gaea then through parthenogenesis bore the Mountains and the Sea. Gaea then along with Heaven created the Oceans, Cyclopes and the deities known as the Titans . Heaven fearing for himself after hearing of a prophecy in which his own son would usurp his position among the Gods kept his offspring trapped in the womb of Gaea . This act made Gaea extremely angry and so in order to free her children she crafted a silver sickle, which

According to various accounts of the creation of the world. Hesoids version describes that in the beginning, there was only Erebus, or darkness, Nyx, or night, and Chaos, who has been interpreted as the opening form which the other ancient characters arose. Then appeared Gaea, or mother earth, personified as the solid foundation of the world. Next, was Tartarus who is usually confused with the residence Hades, but was depicted as the father of some of Gaea’s children. Also appearing after Chaos was Eros, the source of sexual love/attraction that brought beings together to produce more children.

There have been many theories concerning what the universe looks like, how it became this way, and where it is going. The most popular theory that people hold today is that the universe began when all the matter ever present in the universe was contained in a tiny speck and that spec exploded. This is known as the Big Bang. This theory has developed a great deal since it was first conceptualized and continues to evolve today. Many different scientists have had a hand in this.

When space and the universe began, the existence of time also began. This theory is well-known as the Big Bang Theory. About fifteen billion years ago, the universe was comprised of very hot compressed gas, as a fireball. This is contrary to the idea of the universe beginning as a lump of matter somewhere in the void of space. Matter was created as a result of the Big Bang.

The beginning of time and the universe began with the Big Bang. This was an explosion that started the expansion of the universe. In the most basic sense, the standard model is simply the idea that every bit of the matter and energy in the universe was once compressed to an unimaginable density. In the big bang, the material exploded outward into the formation of matter that we see today. Shortly after this event everything in the universe was very dense and very hot. It was only until 500,000

Astronomers believed the Universe was created about 14 billion years ago. During that time, the entire Universe was inside a bubble that was thousands of times smaller than a pinhead, and it was insanely hot and dense. Out of nowhere this little bubble started expanding. This expansion created what we know as the Universe. In such little time the Universe went from the size of an atom to the ginormous galaxy we have that is continuously growing.