It has become clearly evident to me why the ancient Greeks did not have a word for religion. Religion did not exist. To the Greeks the gods were an incorporated part of life at every moment. The Greeks bonded with the gods and created special relationships with them. To the Greeks the gods were around all the time, not every Sunday and when you needed a favor. The ancient Greeks did not understand the concept of religion, they didn’t believe in the gods, they knew of their existence. They didn’t doubt it and it wasn’t taught to them, knowing and connecting to the gods was as natural as learning to walk and talk. They did not expect the gods to perform miracles when they asked for them, they expected the gods to give them what they needed and would thank them after.
- Author: Scampian
- Published: May 30th, 2008
- Category: Hellenismos
- Comments: 2
A Short Blog: Why the Ancient Greeks did not have religion.
- Author: Scampian
- Published: Mar 20th, 2008
- Category: Hellenismos, thought
- Comments: 12
Beginners, Hellenismos, Gnosis, and as Tim puts it, Intellectual Masturbation.
We are mislead, misinformed, when we first trot on the path of Hellenismos.
If we went looking for Hellenismos, we already have a passion, a love for the Gods, if we happen to come across it, it grabs our attention, a pagan path based on reason. Once we begin to look into the path we become mislead and misinformed, between the intellectual masturbation, we the new comers see Hellenismos as a path for intellectuals, a path not for the love of the gods, but a path for accuracy amongst facts, a history lesson, at least this is what I myself experienced. I know many can and will agree with me. We fear the path, those who are suppose to be our mentors are bickering over who is presenting the facts and who is not, we feel no spiritual connection in this path, but then again we don’t even know the path. We know we love the gods, but Hellenismos seems to us new comers more focused on facts than spiritual connection to the Gods. The older followers know this is not so, yet they fail to show this to us, instead of guiding us slowly and carefully on the path, like the first time we ride a 2-wheeler, they scare us, they present us with numerous amount of facts, what we cant do, and present us their obbsessions of orthopraxy, they forget that we have no knowledge of this path yet. We fear that we will mess up, we will not do it right, so we don’t try at all.
