Faith of Olympic Proportions

[Victor Charlie]

How many ancient Greeks/Romans actually believed in the gods of their mythology? I know massive monuments were erected in their honor, but was there widespread belief that the residents of Olympus actually existed or did Greeks and Romans recognize them primarily as symbols of natural phenomena? Are we exaggerating this pantheon's influence over ancient western civilization?

[Vaevictis]

Yes they did really worship those gods. Local cult generally varies quite a bit from the literary mythology though. Epicureans would be the one group that was skeptical about the gods.

Putting your question in terms of belief might mislead. In our Christian world we assume that is at the heart of religion. For a lot of elite Greeks and Romans belief would have ranked lower in religious concerns than interest in tradition and desire to emulate their ancestors.

[Chronos]

You're trying to lump together a wide range of times and places, there. "Greeks/Romans" could be anywhere in the Mediterranean, and "ancient" covers an even broader span. Even the mythology itself wasn't constant over all of that. For instance, pre-Greek influence, it doesn't even make sense to ask whether the Romans believed the stories about their gods, because they really didn't have stories about them: The Roman gods of the time weren't the sort of beings that stories could be told about.

By the time of, say, Ovid, most folks didn't really believe in the pantheon or mythos as a whole (Ovid was quite firm that his accounts of the myths were fiction), but some of the mystery cults (which folks did believe in) were still attached to the names of various gods and goddesses. The worshipers of Artemis, say, didn't necessarily pay any heed to Zeus.

[Lemur866]

How many people in India "really" believe in Shiva and Vishnu and so on? Some do, some kinda do, some think they're symbolically true, some think they're fun stories, some think they're made up nonsense, and lots of people have some combination of the above at different times or at the same time.

As was said above "belief" wasn't the important part. The important part was doing the customary rituals. So it doesn't matter if you believe in Santa Claus or if you believe in Jesus or both or neither, you still put up a Christmas tree and drink eggnog and sing. When someone dies, there are certain rituals you do and it doesn't matter what you or the dead person thought of the gods.

[Victor Charlie]

Actually, I mean belief in the literal sense. Christians believe that Jesus is the actual son of God and that he rose from the dead. One wouldn't be Christian otherwise. I'm asking if there was widespread belief among ancient Greeks that Zeus, Hera, Poseidon and the rest of the pantheon actually existed, not just that they observed the customs. I know not all did, but did most?

[Scupper]

I always wondered how they could believe the gods lived on Olympus, considering it isn't terribly inaccessible (10,000 people a year climb it nowadays). Wouldn't curiosity have driven a lot of deo-tourism?

[TriPolar]

Originally Posted by Victor Charlie

Actually, I mean belief in the literal sense. Christians believe that Jesus is the actual son of God and that he rose from the dead. One wouldn't be Christian otherwise.

Not all Christians have believed that at all times. I doubt you could determine how many people who call themselves Christians now actually believe that.

[Victor Charlie]

Originally Posted by TriPolar

Not all Christians have believed that at all times. I doubt you could determine how many people who call themselves Christians now actually believe that.

Semantics aside, there are billions of Christians and believing that Jesus is the son of God is pretty much the price of admission today. Even if not all who call themselves Christian actually believe that, it's more than reasonable to assume that most do. That's hundreds of millions of people. Do we know if the same degree of genuine belief, relative to the population, persisted at any point among the Greeks for their pantheon?

It's sounding more and more like we can't really know.

[hogarth]

Originally Posted by Victor Charlie

Semantics aside, there are billions of Christians and believing that Jesus is the son of God is pretty much the price of admission today. Even if not all who call themselves Christian actually believe that, it's more than reasonable to assume that most do. That's hundreds of millions of people. Do we know if the same degree of genuine belief, relative to the population, persisted at any point among the Greeks for their pantheon?

As far as I know, the Greek and Roman religions didn't place a huge emphasis on believing and faith as a path to salvation or enlightenment like the Abrahamic religions do. Some of the pre-Christian mystery religions were more into secret knowledge and mystical revelation, though.

[Keeve]

Originally Posted by TriPolar

Not all Christians have believed that at all times. I doubt you could determine how many people who call themselves Christians now actually believe that.

But no true Christian would fail to believe it. For more info, see No true Scotsman

[Blkshp]

I read "The Last of the Wine" by Mary Renault for a history course many years ago. It was, according to my professor one of the more accurate portrayals of life in ancient Greece (c. 400 bc). I was struck by the portrayal of most Greeks (Athenians anyway) as essentially of monotheistic bent. They way I remember it was that for the most part their belief in an overarching God was supplemented by appeals to minor gods for specific areas of need, want or concern - almost like the Big Guy might be too busy for such stuff. I'm not sure how accurate that is or how well I am remembering, but I know the book completely changed the way I looked at polytheism and the Greeks. I guess up until then I had assumed a polytheism represented childlike superstition when there was greater sophistication to it at least as she represented it.

[Hari Seldon]

It is well to recall that the first commandment is that "Thou shalt have no gods before me". It does not actually deny the existence of other gods, more properly that this one is the chairman of the board. Of course "theology" has gone well beyond that in the meantime and most Abrahamic believers do believe there are no other gods. (Incidentally, I put "theology" in scare quotes because it is the one -ology, or study, carried out wholly as an exercise in imagination unencumbered by evidence.

[Nava]

Originally Posted by hogarth

As far as I know, the Greek and Roman religions didn't place a huge emphasis on believing and faith as a path to salvation or enlightenment like the Abrahamic religions do.

Well, the Romans/Greeks didn't have any kind of salvation to seek. At best you could hope that your life in Hades would involve peeling grapes in reasonable amounts, rather than an eternal repeat of whichever torture Hades had decided to drop on you. As for enlightment, that's what you got through either philosophy, sybyls or mystery cults: it didn't come from burning offerings to the Gods unless a sybyl of some sort was also involved.

[Quercus]

Originally Posted by Blkshp

I read "The Last of the Wine" by Mary Renault for a history course many years ago. It was, according to my professor one of the more accurate portrayals of life in ancient Greece (c. 400 bc). I was struck by the portrayal of most Greeks (Athenians anyway) as essentially of monotheistic bent. They way I remember it was that for the most part their belief in an overarching God was supplemented by appeals to minor gods for specific areas of need, want or concern - almost like the Big Guy might be too busy for such stuff. I'm not sure how accurate that is or how well I am remembering, but I know the book completely changed the way I looked at polytheism and the Greeks. I guess up until then I had assumed a polytheism represented childlike superstition when there was greater sophistication to it at least as she represented it.

Oh, those appeals to minor gods for specific areas of need. How childlike and backwards.
Now excuse me, I need to go to church so I can replace my Saint Christopher medal and light a candle to Saint Francis because my kitty is sick.