Greek Myth and the Gods

Greek myth was folk wisdom, the narrative glue that bonded communities together, not the hectoring of a priest seeking to dictate how, what, and why you should believe in gods. It was often moralistic, certainly, but it could also be playful, funny, and experimental. Myths, after all, were first and foremost stories, not homilies. Yet there was too, or so I have argued, a philosophical dimension to such stories. Although they end up reaffirming the power of the gods by showing them beating down the upstart humans who challenge them, theomachies [battles against or among gods] also explore (albeit temporarily and provisionally) the possibility that the divine order might be overthrown and that humans could live self-sufficiently, without the gods. That tells us that such atheistic ideas were current enough in contemporary culture to be worth exploring, and countering, in myth. How these ideas were expressed in wider culture we can only guess.

--Tim Whitmarsh, Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World 

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