A religion is created by a society to explain the world around them. This means that a religion and its God/Gods is actually a window into the mind of an ancient culture. By looking at a certain God, their powers, their position in their pantheon, the things that are associated to them, and their personality it is easier to see how a culture saw each of those things. Most if not all ancient cultures accepted the unpredictability of the world around them, so each had a god to represent chaos: the Greeks had Chaos(the nothingness at the beginning of the world in their mythology), the Norse Loki, etc. Chaos was a necessary part of life, and they accepted the idea. Each of the ancient Gods harbored a duality, with many of the main gods representing both life and death, or creation and destruction, e.g. the Hindu’s Shiva, a perfect balance. The gods would continually argue about what was right or what was wrong, showing that there is never a clear line between the two. These gods had a constant influence on the society they were a part of.
Influences from the gods can be found anywhere, especially during the polytheistic time of the Greeks, Egyptians and Norse. As an example, look at the Iliad written by Homer. The Iliad is about the final and tenth year of the Trojan War. The characters of the fighters, their battle cries and all the intricate details of the war are mentioned. The epic has strong religious and supernatural influence. Both warring parties are extremely religious, and the Greek and Trojan heroes both draw strength from favored gods, giving them divine power. Regularly making sacrifices to Gods, while the Gods constantly intervene in the war on behalf of their believers, almost treating the humans as puppets for their own causes.
The Gods are constant involve themselves with politics, antics and struggles of the mortals. With regular sacrifices to them, the Gods may help them out by granting their prayers. In the Iliad, Chryses prays to the God Apollo... [continues]
Influences from the gods can be found anywhere, especially during the polytheistic time of the Greeks, Egyptians and Norse. As an example, look at the Iliad written by Homer. The Iliad is about the final and tenth year of the Trojan War. The characters of the fighters, their battle cries and all the intricate details of the war are mentioned. The epic has strong religious and supernatural influence. Both warring parties are extremely religious, and the Greek and Trojan heroes both draw strength from favored gods, giving them divine power. Regularly making sacrifices to Gods, while the Gods constantly intervene in the war on behalf of their believers, almost treating the humans as puppets for their own causes.
The Gods are constant involve themselves with politics, antics and struggles of the mortals. With regular sacrifices to them, the Gods may help them out by granting their prayers. In the Iliad, Chryses prays to the God Apollo... [continues]
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