The Nature Of The Gods

Homer incorporated themes reflective of polytheism, heroes, and society into his poems. Ancient Greek culture is incorporated into his themes by the Greek gods being key characters in his epics. Gods have no moral code or rules of conduct to justify their actions so they are always seen as just and right. This reflects the ancient Greeks view of higher power and that power upon man (Versényi 21). The gods are seen as all powerful except when fate is in play. The gods are seen as weak to the defining power of fate to the protagonist to demonstrate how death is inescapable (Versényi 28). A common theme seen through Homer’s use of polytheism is the lack of peace between each god and they all come together under a common cause, to help

Through the sampling of readings from The Norton Anthology of World Literature book, one could come to the realization that in a majority of those stories, the deities seem to influence or even control the outcomes of the heroes, often in a negative manner. In the first epic, Gilgamesh encounters the gods at various times, and in The Iliad, the gods manipulate the Greeks and the Trojans for their own desires and wants.

The common ground of religions in the world is that they claim the existence of god/gods who holds the power beyond human ability. Each religion explains its existence in their own unique ways and implement it to people’s lifestyle. The film, 330 Million Gods, seeks to understand the Hinduism way of explanation. This documentary mainly focuses on the Hindu concept of divine, religious practices, and the stages of life. Also, the documentary illustrates how Indian lifestyle blends into its religion in the big cities – city of Benares and rural areas – village of Bhith Bhagwanpur. The most interesting points of this film presents to me are the idea of many gods with different sets of ability, how the Hindus practice the religion, and the concept

In ancient Greek culture the gods were seen as taking a very active role in the development and course of human history.  The entire Olympian pantheon, as well as many other less important divinities, meddles in human affairs to no end.  The people of the many city-states that composed Greece firmly believed that every aberration from normalcy was due to an act of the gods.  Homer, the author of The Iliad, coined the prevalent religious beliefs of the time in his epic poems, showing the gods as temperamental and willful, meddlesome and dynamic.  Homer’s entire poem is replete with instances of divine intervention in mortal lives, and no single major occurrence comes to pass unless it is the will of one of the many Olympian gods.  Few major decisions are made without consulting the gods first, and the handful of instances in which one leader or another takes initiative almost always fails miserably.  Life, according to the Greeks, is almost entirely rooted in their religion, as there is a god or goddess governing every aspect of the universe, and also because the gods so actively involve themselves in the everyday lives of mortals.

Godly colossal Greek epic, “The Iliad” constituted by the poet named, Homer, articulate the chronicle of the Brobdingnagian Trojan War. It is swarming with the interventions of the gods enchanting their coveted mortals (humans) and altering the heterogeneous scenes of the Trojan War. In this poem, gods have an assortment of relationships with humans which include love, fornication, and mother or father relationships. Gods interact with mortals in human shapes and stimulate them. Also, gods cognize that every human is eventually destined to die and they anticipate humans to pray to them for every obstacle humans encounter. However, for humans gods are omnipotent, authoritative, dominant, and immortals, who they supplicate to if they have

The Greeks in the Iliad believe in many gods. Each god has a specific “power” or “gift” that is

Throughout The Iliad, Homer offers us a glimpse into the lifestyles of the ancient Greeks and their beliefs. They are a very spiritual and in many ways superstitious people. The main thing to note throughout The Iliad is the interaction between the gods and the humans. Any way one looks at the situation, they can immediately see that humans are mere pawns to the gods in their game of chess. The success and failures of the humans depends on what god would be helping which group and at what particular time. This essay will explain the three main reasons the gods in The Iliad intervened with humans: Firstly, gods who act on their own personal motives, secondly, gods who act as favors to other gods, and finally gods who act as favors to

The relationship between gods and mortals in mythology has long been a complicated topic. The gods can be generous and supportive, and also devastating and destructive to any group of humans. Mortals must respect the powers above them that cannot be controlled. The gods rule over destiny, nature, and justice, and need to be recognized and worshipped for the powerful beings as they are. Regardless of one's actions, intentions, and thoughts, the gods in Greek myth have ultimate power and the final decision of justice over nature, mortals, and even each other.

In ancient times, gods were a holy image in people’s mind. Each god had its own role in the universe. Such as the role of creation, the controller of the nature, and the role of the destiny control. The gods had extreme powers, and controlled everything in the world. Worshiped gods became a daily routine for ancient people. In the minds of people in ancient times, worshiped their gods were to prevent these gods became furious, and punished them with their extreme power. Even though the gods were extremely powerful, in many epic texts we could see they also had emotions and characteristics that were just like humans. However, there were still some major differences between the gods and humans.

If there’s one thing one can count on when it comes to Greek gods, it’s that they’re critically flawed. Anyone reading Homer’s The Iliad can see the Greek gods act just like humans, constantly bickering, deceiving and throwing fits. The only people who can’t see through this facade of glorious immortality are the Greeks themselves. Throughout Homer’s entire epic, the gods continuously help the mortals based upon their own motives, and yet, the humans still worship them, ask them for help and forgiveness and blessings. Any reader would throw up their hands, disgusted that the humans glorify these beings that possess all the character flaws that mortals do. Homer is very successful in portraying humanity throughout his text, both through the perspective of the gods, and the perspective of the humans. While readers are allowed insight to both worlds, the characters themselves only see one dimension, resulting in the unequal nature of the humans constantly working to please the gods, sometimes to no avail. The Iliad exposes the fatal character flaws of the gods to readers, while also maintaining the mortal Greek perspective that gods are perfect beings, looking out for the greater good of mankind.

Many authors have employed the religious beliefs of their cultures in literature. The deities contained in Homer’s Odyssey and in the Biblical book of Exodus reflect the nature of the gods in their respective societies. Upon examination of these two works, there are three major areas where the gods of the Greek epic seem to directly contrast the nature of the God of the Israelites: the way problems are solved, the prestige and status that separates the divine from the masses, and the extent of power among the immortal beings.

“Gods can be evil sometimes.” In the play “Oedipus the King”, Sophocles defamed the gods’ reputation, and lowered their status by making them look harmful and evil. It is known that all gods should be perfect and infallible, and should represent justice and equity, but with Oedipus, the gods decided to destroy him and his family for no reason. It might be hard to believe that gods can have humanistic traits, but in fact they do. The gods, especially Apollo, are considered evil by the reader because they destroyed an innocent man’s life and his family. They destroyed Oedipus by controlling his fate, granting people the power of prophecy, telling Oedipus about his fate through the oracle of Apollo, and finally afflicting the people of

Rarely do you find a film both intelligent and entertaining like “The Gods Must Be Crazy”. The film is a collision of the individual journeys of three separate groups: the journey of Xi, the bushman, traveling to the end of the earth to get rid of a Coca-Cola bottle; the growing relationship between Kate Thompson, a school teacher, and Andrew Steyn, a clumsy scientist; and the actions of a band of terrorist led by Sam Boga. One day, a Coca-Cola bottle drops from the sky and lands unbroken near the temporary home of the bushman. The bushman family, completely isolated from humanity, has never seen such a thing and perceive it as a gift from the gods. Although the object proves to have many

    Through the personification of the forces or in other words gods, Homer’s characters helped themselves feel more connected with both mortal and immortal worlds. Humans straddled two worlds, that of the animals and that of the gods. Homer’s humans came from the world of the animals a world of a non-questioning existence, and these humans were striving to reach the world of the gods in which lay the understanding of their inconceivable existence. By personifying the governing forces of both animals and humans, Homer’s characters were creating a link to both animals and gods, for the "...[gods’] power is over all"(140) . The gods helped the characters in The Odyssey feel comfortable with their position in between two worlds.

Both Homeric hymns to Apollo and Aphrodite feature classic mythology that explains various situations between the god and goddess and the mortals. In particular how each god and goddess elude mortals into behavior that both favors each party and has negative consequences. Apollo and Aphrodite have similarities and differences in which they manipulate the humans in the stories that lead to very different outcomes. A similarity between the manipulation on Apollo’s and Aphrodite’s part is that they each have a clear motive before their actions begin and some differences are that they have very different intentions and methods of the manipulation.