How exactly did the Greek's actually deal with all their gods and godesses? Did they practice human sacrifice, or was just building temples and shit considered to be enough? How did they decide which Gods to worship; there were too many to do all of them at once.
>>368755
>Did they practice human sacrifice
Classical Athens still did.
>there were too many to do all of them at once.
yh
>How exactly did the Greek's actually deal with all their gods and godesses?
It was less like honoring benevolent protectors and more like appeasing violent bullies
>Did they practice human sacrifice
Sometimes
>How did they decide which Gods to worship
Some cities worshiped all 12 Olympians, others had a patron
>>368755
>How did they decide which Gods to worship
Depends what type of life you led. If you lived off the land than Artemis is a good choice because she is a nature goddess. If you were a fisher or sailor Posidein was a good God. A warrior would worship Ares. If you were sick there were healing Gods.
It was really a personal matter. You could have one or many Gods.
>Did they practice human sacrifice
Sometimes, but it was very rare. Cattle, pigs, and chickens were more usual.
>How did they decide which Gods to worship; there were too many to do all of them at once.
Usually your city and tribe would have their favoured gods, so you would worship them. Also, your current situation might influence it, so anyone planning on a voyage might sacrifice to Neptune, if you were sick you'd sacrifice to Aesculapius, and so on.
Many people also joined mystery cults which would focus on some specific deity (such as Dionysus of the Dionysian Mysteries, Demeter and Persephone in the Eleusinian Mysteries, and so on) which usually gave some promise of a better afterlife for initiates.
>>369182
Ares was seen as a malevolent bitch in Greek culture
>>368755
>Did they practice human sacrifice
The Elysinian mysteries did. Also the cult of Pallas Athena.
But I don't think the city-state of Athens in Classical times did human sacrifices. I think they sacrificed animals.
>>369205
Ares was see as a malevolent bitch in Athenian culture, who left behind most of our written records. Their patron deity was Athena, who was a rival goddess of war with Ares, who happened to be the patron god of Sparta, Athens' rival. The demonization of Ares was probably at least in part, due to this. If you asked citizens of other city-states what they thought of Athena, they would probably say the Greek equivalent of "Mary Sue."
I have to admit I've kind of built up a tolerance for the fact that people loathed me; I never even got one fuckin' statue erected in my image.
I was the guy that fucked with people the least, and still Disney decided to make me into evil with a friendly face.
If you think you got it bad, feel free to call me up sometime so I can tell you to shut the fuck up.
>>369246
Hades really got a raw deal.
>>369246
>Disney decided to make me into evil
Not just Disney, most of the time when any setting use greek gods they will take Hades as the evil one.
>>369270
Those cocksuckers that made God of War really made my press conference in the underworld a fucking nightmare, and trust me I've caused quite a few in my time. If celebs think TMZ is bad, they need to come to my house on friday night when the niggers in limbo throw bricks at my windows.
>>368755
Paganism in civilized areas was pretty rational actually. Each god was meant to represent a force of nature. For Greeks they had titans and gods. Chronos was time and Gaia was earth, they were birthed from Chaos in such a way that they just came to be. They basically knew what the big bang was and personified the forces as a means of paying homage to them. I'll use gods from other mythologies as I'm not familiar with Greeks all that much (iirc there were more titans birthed from Chaos).
Thor is gravity, protector of earth. It makes more sense in Roman myth, as Jupiter is the protector god. If you know about space and stuff, Jupiter's sheer mass protects us from like 1,200 asteroid strikes a day. We wouldn't be able to live on this planet were it not for Jupiter, and that's why they paid homage to a personification of it. They turned it into a "thoughtform" to give it more power. Same with the gods that represented the sun, the source of all life and energy on our mother the earth.
Those are the only gods I can remember that actually make a lot of sense.
>>369340
Also some city states would pick a "token" god (there's a word for it I can't remember, its late and my paragraph structure is all over the place sorry) and charge it with energy (you have to know about /x/ tier stuff and thoughtforms) to give their token god more power to protect over them. For example Athens with Athena, the citizens would pay more attention to this goddess and offer more sacrifices to keep her blessing.
As for sacrifices, nor even the brutal heathen vikings just slaughtered people all willy nilly. They would make human sacrifices with criminals and captured enemies, but it was mostly sacrificing animals they were going to eat anyway. In some cultures excess food was left as offerings on altars to the gods. This was meant to keep the forces appeased and pay respects.
Currently most people choose to worship a thinly veiled war demon from Jewish mythology. They too had a pantheon of gods and chose one to be their patron god... That was the word, patron god!
>>369340
I'm reading up on it more and it keeps getting cooler. Most European pagan beliefs are on the same page, just different gods/goddess names. I think Greeks are the best up to a point, their titan stories are an awesome way to describe the birth of the universe. Then Germanic/Norse paganism describe it as "yggdrasil" (heaven, hel (which is more of a limbo), and earth) coming out of a "gap" or "void" then the gods coming to be over time.
They all sound awfully familiar to beliefs as old as Vedic and Egyptian beliefs... As if all cultures base their beliefs off the same story. This is some ancient alien shit. There's gotta be something to it.
>>369389
There's nothing spooky about it. Proto-Indoeuropean culture radiated to various parts of the world and integrated with existing mythologies. Sometimes there was active syncretism, like with Greek and Egyptian deities. We tend to think of cultures as isolated, but there was plenty of contact between them due to trade or wars or migration patterns or what have you.
>>368755
BUMP
