The ancient greek religion is still practiced, and evolved, it is a living tradition, a way of life. Hellenismos, hellenism or hellenic polytheism. The gods are immortals, eternal cosmic beings separate from the myths. The myths are allegories, to learn from, not to be taken literal like most modern religions. No commandments, but the we do have a moral system, the delphic maxims given to us by the God Apollo, outline moral virtues on what a good person should follow. The gods don't care if you worship them or not, however, you will build your relationships with them by reciprocity. The gods rebuke evil, and low passions, a bad person will never be favored by the gods, regardless of how they worship. Yes we believe we all go to the underworld, however we are judged based on our actions in our life, evil people go to tartarus (like hell) majority of people go to the asphodel fields (peaceful afterlife) the greatest of people go to Elysium (like heaven) all 3 realms are within the underworld ruled by Hades. People often mix our myths as literal description of the gods, which is very incorrect. The true gods are just, divine, and keep balance of the Cosmos. People still practice hellenismos today. It's a difficult concept to grasp through monotheistic lens.
This is neo-paganism. Nineteenth century scholars combed all over Europe looking for old pagan religions. Nobody found anything like this. They found people killing snakes or little birds here and there. Ah, paganism!
And naturally, Dionysus and the worship of him was just… out of sorts with the “proper” ordering of the world. Fitting for a god of madness, liberation, and intoxication.
Criminally underviewed, criminally underliked, criminally undersubscribed. Were the other videos of this prospective series ever made? If they were, where can I find them?
I am very excited for this series, and I really appreciate the detail you go into about the concrete practices. It's really hard to find content like this, so thank you! About the uploading order-I like it when series content is fairly regular, but it doesn't have to be one right after another. Also, I love the length of the video! It's probably not optimized for youtube consumability or whatever, but I'll take a long deep-dive video any day.
The mechanism on the worshipper level is reciprocation & hospitality--not blackmail. That would be hubris, and such a similar trick was played by Prometheus on Zeus thinking He wouldnt know. Xenia is an important religio-cultural concept for the Greeks, ancient and modern, regarding offerings to deities (and human beings).
i just came across your channel and have subscribed and i was looking for continue series on Greek religion and did not came across burial ceremony and life after death what are their concept .
Thank you Dan! I would very much want more of this. The mythology of Greece is often what I get when asking for what the ancient religion was like. This is so much more interesting. This video just got your channel a new subscriber.
When reading the treatises of the Neoplatonists, I realized that they did not recognize myths, or did not consider them to be literal stories, the Greeks believed in the gods as protectors, patrons. Zeus was considered an ideal god (like all gods), who is the mind of the universe, governing and establishing the law in the universe. The Greeks also believed in omnipresent demon spirits. In the modern sense, a demon is an unpleasant and evil being, but for the Greeks and Neoplatonists, demons were predominantly good beings, in Neoplatonism, demons are ideal spirits who offer prayers to Zeus in heaven. Socrates and Plato considered demons to be the voices of a person's conscience, indicating what is right and what is wrong.
Not as bad as how the religions of ancient Greece and Rome are sometimes described as more secular, more philosophic, more atheistic and more logical religion (which is considered a positive and a good thing), which is the direct opposite and stark contrast to more religious, more superstitious, more spiritual and more yy irrational Christianity (which is considered a negative and a bad thing). Personally I think that such a separation and a confrontation should have stayed in the 19th century and we would be able to understand different religions better now. But it is silly that this kind of way to present history still haunts into the school books of 21st century and this is at least one reason why it is difficult for us to understand the Greek and Roman religions. Such ghosts of the past sometimes guide our perception of the world as illustrating what ancient religions were like. For example, some ordinary people think that the animal sacrifices aren't appropriate for such an ideal and perfect religion because this practice doesn't fit our noble and idealized image of ancient religions. And threfore people are in shock and deny when they hear that the ancient people actually did so and sacrificed animals. Or how jerks the ancient deities might have been in the ancient mythology and that thing isn't Christian propaganda attempt to tar and defame these older religions. And yet, I get to hear this Christianity vs ancient religions debate at least once a month.
I think the main modern root of the approach you are talking about (the relative secular and philosophical character of ancient pagan religions vs the relative devout and irrational character of modern monotheistic religions drawn as contrasting points) is found in, as pointed out here, the deeds and reciprocity based nature of most pagan religions I’m familiar with, as well as the capricious and morally ambiguous manner of the gods involved when contrasted with the purely faith and devotion based nature of most of modern monotheistic religions as commonly practiced. This, of course, requires ignoring the way many pagan societies clove close to their world views with rigid determination, executing such novel thinkers as Socrates. Personally, I am myself a practicing pagan for the last decade and a half, and regard monotheism as an inherently problematic, self contradictory, and damaging approach to religion, but I also acknowledge that polytheism is not more useful for scientific inquiry, no religion is, nor am I so naive as to think that pagans are fundamentally more rational, I’ve met enough people at this point who were raised pagan rather than coming to it through theological inquiry to know indoctrination can sink as deep from any corner.
My plan is to start an independent spotify podcast at some point in the future, with a narrative retelling of Greek & Roman history from the start. So yes, but with different content.
Νομίζω ότι όλοι σας είστε μικρά κακομαθημένα πλούσια παιδάκια που παίζετε εις βάρος απλών βιοπαλαιστών που είναι τα θεμέλια και η ραχοκοκαλιά τούτης της κοινωνίας και αυτό είναι σοβαρότατο παράπτωμα και μην νομίζετε ότι δεν υπάρχει τιμωρία. Τουλάχιστον τώρα ξέρετε………..
Elysium, Elysseia in Greek is the idolized place, the 'paradise , where the souls of many semi gods and mortals would end up after they crossed Haron, / Charon in English. Wish you would consult our many fantastic historians in Greece before you put out this video. Overall it is not bad some things you mentioned are not quite accurate. And there were 147 or so rules that people had to follow. I think it was Apollo who send them to people. Also the temple where Cassandra was attacked it was Helios/ Apollo hid of the sun. Trojan elite were if Greek desent. We / the ancient Greeks dud nit expect non Greeks /Varvaroi/Barbarians to worship their God's.
I would like to point out that the gods could be obliged to aid individuals and organisations with the correct rituals to call on ancient promises, to shame them if they failed to look after the one who has performed the ritual, or even simply by feeding their ego so that any attack on or inconvenience to the individual can be framed as an attack or inconvenience of the reputation of that god.
High quality video. Thanks! I have one question: if sacrifices of livestock were performed at festivals *where the mortal ate the meat* and the gods got the bones, how could the Greeks honestly tell themselves they were making a sacrifice for the gods? The trick at Mecone myth doesn't help. If anything, it makes such sacrifice a commemoration of attempted deceit of Zeus - hardly a demonstration of sacrificial piety...
@@benjalucian1515 Not if their purpose is to be eaten. Caveat: unless the sacrifice involved eating so much that it would impair the sustainability of the flock. Otherwise, if you just kill and eat a bunch of rams, for example, reproduction capacity isn't impaired and excess calories are stored as fat for the leaner times.
@@rorytorrens3394 *Not if their purpose is to be eaten* A family couldn't eat that much meat before it spoiled, so yes, they could kill livestock to eat it, but they'd have to eat ALL of it quickly before it went bad and sometimes they couldn't do it and it would be a loss.
This looks like how we have Hinduism in India. Same kind of beliefs and people believing under same assumptions of world view. Transactions between gods and humans, rituals needed to be spoken in certain way in ancient language Sanskrit. People invite Brahmins( upper caste who perform rituals) only to chant specific mantras. Interesting thing is believing in many gods makes it easier to accept other religions as just another way to reach god. First Hinduism reinterpretation under the scrutiny of science during nineteenth century happened so effectively that we it became so easier to accept other religions.
23:20 - Your theory of religion is interesting, but the it’s circular. It doesn’t make sense for people to randomly appeal to the concept of a god if that concept doesn’t already exist. These theories make more sense logically (weakest to strongest): 1. Greek gods actually exist but have been neglected/forgotten. 2. Certain people with skills/gifts were deified (think saints in Catholicism or Santa Clause). But again - where would the concept of deity come from? 3. God actually exists and ancient Greek religion is a rejection/misinterpretation of the original religion/belief system.
In continuation when the Victor of plate a pausanias fel out of favour and was condemned to death by spartan efforts he found refuge in a temple. Because they could not kill him in a temple the Spartans simply besieged the temple and just left him to die of starvation.
Great video! Looking forward to the others, as I'm very interested in ancient religion. One criticism, however. The stuff you said about Christianity was... not super accurate. I feel like you're making the same error as the people who mistake Greek mythology for the whole of Greek religion. You're talking about Christianity as if it was all 20th century charismatic fundamentalism or maybe 16th century Lutheranism, and you got that a little wrong, too. I get that this is a video about Greek religion and not Christian theology, and I get that it's important to draw the contrast between the kind of religion people are familiar with today and what ancient people had, but I think it behooves you not to commit the same sins (pun intended) that you complain about in others.
For my part, it was very clear that Dan is generalising, and that his comments about Christianity are meant to be taken as extremely broad generalities only to clarify the contrast with Greek pagan religion. As far as my knowledge of Christianity can take me, everything about Christianity that Dan mentionned in the video is almost universally applicable to all of Christianity, like sin, the importance of theology, God loving you, etc; none of them are unique to specific historical branches as far as I know?
There is more nuance than he went into, and the light much of it was presented in is distinctly uncharitable, but a lack of perfect precision does not equate to inaccuracy, just generality. Besides, I could point out that the claims made regarding the cult of Dionysus (among others) indicate several of the hard rules and vague patterns he referred to did not apply to all Greek cults, so there’s that.
@@faryafaraji It’s possible that I’m just punchy from too many conversations with Reddit atheists who refuse to have any conception of religion beyond Southern Baptists or mean nuns. In general, a lot of what I’m criticizing is phrasing things in absolutes. Setting aside where he calls the Christian God “a bit evil,” as a poorly considered off-the-cuff remark, let’s zero in on this bit: “…whereas in Christianity, whether or not you go to Hell is solely arbitrated by whether or not you believe in God. Right? You can actually be a terrible-this is in the Bible-you can actually be a terrible person and break all of God’s rules and commit all of these sins, and blah, blah, blah, blah. But as long as you accept the existence of God and accept salvation and do all of these things, you will still go to heaven. Even if you live a very pure life, where you don’t break any of God’s rules, if you don’t accept that God exists and those are God’s rules, you will still go to Hell.” There’s an important contrast to draw here between monotheist _belief_ and polytheist _ritual,_ but the debate of how you obtain salvation-through good works or belief-is one of the central arguments in Christian theology. What salvation _means_ and what happens to the soul after death are far from settled, as well. The above is basically accurate if you’re a fire and brimstone Evangelical. Dan really glosses over the fact that belief is supposed lead to _repentance_ and cause you to stop sinning. And salvation’s not a magic spell that gets you into heaven no matter what you do after-especially if you’re not repentant about your misdeeds. Many denominations (e.g., Catholics) put a great deal more emphasis on doing good in the world. It’s best to be a Christian, because they’ve got the handbook with everything spelled out, but anyone can go to heaven if they lead a good life. Socrates and the Dalai Lama are not spending eternity in Catholic hell. Catholic hell might not even be a place, but a state of being separated from God. Calvinists used to believe (and still do?) that some people are more or less preordained by God to be good Christian and go to heaven, and that the rest of us are preordained to fail and go to Hell. All the winners believe, but not all believers win. It’s never made any logical sense to me. Many believe in universalism, that God’s love is so great that everyone will ultimately be redeemed and “go to heaven,” with different ideas of what that entails. And all this is to say nothing of the Cathars, the Gnostics, the Mormons, and all the other fringe groups over the years with radically different ideas about the whole nature of the universe.
I was going to see this very same thing. He's taken a relatively new version of Christianity to be the norm and made his comparisons to that. Any ancient Christian tradition, be it Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, etc., is an entirely different world.
I think Philip's comments are pretty fair here. Because I grew up in a relatively Christian home and society, I consider it a lot less carefully than I would religions from other cultures, and the kind of Christians that I grew up around definitely aren't the same as Latin American Catholics or Russian Orthodox Christians.. Thanks for the feedback guys, I'll be more careful in the next video. I will, however, stand by my remark that the Christian god is evil. Wiping out the entire population of the earth, including all the innocent animals, is a pretty evil thing to do. I also don't think that crucifying his own son was really necessary.
Are you giving a very protestant version of Christianity? And why do you mention the SPANISH inquisition? Was the French one more suitable for antiquity?
You had me until about 15:00 minutes in where you began making moral value judgements based on your secular understanding of the world rather than discuss purely what is relevant to the subject. Any Gods in any religion are not "evil" for setting rules and having people follow them - its literally the God/Gods universe.
The gods are evil when they kill people for either no reason or kill kind and loving people who don't believe in them. On what planet is that not evil?
No offense on your christian takes but they sound like you got from a friend who summarized it to you haha but i love everything else your speaking about is well informed!
4:46 -: ahm, that is FALSE, Jesus puts it so like.. If you believe in him, but don't do the will of god, then... ig u go to hell... Matthew 7:21 - the house build on rocky surface.. Matt. 7. [21] Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.. There im sure is this idea that true faith changes... so if for example Hitler really really believed in Jesus he wouldn't have done what he did...
Ancient Greeks were Pelasgians and descendants of Albanians. I am Kosovo Albanian and te dominant E-V13 (E1b1b) 47.40 and it linkes us to Ancient Greeks.
get in touch with YSEE (greek ethnic religion foundation)... most of what you say is incorrect because you refer to your christian sources...it's like asking a SS officer about Judaism, ore a cowboy about the Indians...
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
You said you would make at least two more videos on this subject, are the videos still going to be released?
I already love the intro-the mythology has completely overrided the reality of their religion in our pop-culture. I’m gonna enjoy this one alot
Thanks man!
The ancient greek religion is still practiced, and evolved, it is a living tradition, a way of life. Hellenismos, hellenism or hellenic polytheism. The gods are immortals, eternal cosmic beings separate from the myths. The myths are allegories, to learn from, not to be taken literal like most modern religions. No commandments, but the we do have a moral system, the delphic maxims given to us by the God Apollo, outline moral virtues on what a good person should follow. The gods don't care if you worship them or not, however, you will build your relationships with them by reciprocity. The gods rebuke evil, and low passions, a bad person will never be favored by the gods, regardless of how they worship. Yes we believe we all go to the underworld, however we are judged based on our actions in our life, evil people go to tartarus (like hell) majority of people go to the asphodel fields (peaceful afterlife) the greatest of people go to Elysium (like heaven) all 3 realms are within the underworld ruled by Hades. People often mix our myths as literal description of the gods, which is very incorrect. The true gods are just, divine, and keep balance of the Cosmos. People still practice hellenismos today. It's a difficult concept to grasp through monotheistic lens.
this is so cool!! i’d love to learn more about this :)
Hell of a lot better than christainity
Religion took the religious Gods from the berbers funny enough
This is neo-paganism. Nineteenth century scholars combed all over Europe looking for old pagan religions. Nobody found anything like this. They found people killing snakes or little birds here and there. Ah, paganism!
Really hope you will do more videos about this. It's fascinating
And naturally, Dionysus and the worship of him was just… out of sorts with the “proper” ordering of the world. Fitting for a god of madness, liberation, and intoxication.
Criminally underviewed, criminally underliked, criminally undersubscribed.
Were the other videos of this prospective series ever made? If they were, where can I find them?
I really enjoyed this video! I hope you can come back to finish this series at some point! 🔥
I am very excited for this series, and I really appreciate the detail you go into about the concrete practices. It's really hard to find content like this, so thank you! About the uploading order-I like it when series content is fairly regular, but it doesn't have to be one right after another. Also, I love the length of the video! It's probably not optimized for youtube consumability or whatever, but I'll take a long deep-dive video any day.
Do you have your sources linked anywhere? I love researching ancient Greek religion and would like to read more :)
The mechanism on the worshipper level is reciprocation & hospitality--not blackmail. That would be hubris, and such a similar trick was played by Prometheus on Zeus thinking He wouldnt know. Xenia is an important religio-cultural concept for the Greeks, ancient and modern, regarding offerings to deities (and human beings).
Agree. It's give/get, which was very typical of the culture, reciprocation and barter system. Not blackmail.
Great video.. subscribed✔️☝️
Please make more videos like this (long videos) where you talk about ancient Greek religion!
i just came across your channel and have subscribed and i was looking for continue series on Greek religion and did not came across burial ceremony and life after death what are their concept .
Hello! How can I contact you?
Thank you Dan! I would very much want more of this. The mythology of Greece is often what I get when asking for what the ancient religion was like. This is so much more interesting. This video just got your channel a new subscriber.
Fantastic video - cant wait to watch the rest 👌
When reading the treatises of the Neoplatonists, I realized that they did not recognize myths, or did not consider them to be literal stories, the Greeks believed in the gods as protectors, patrons. Zeus was considered an ideal god (like all gods), who is the mind of the universe, governing and establishing the law in the universe. The Greeks also believed in omnipresent demon spirits. In the modern sense, a demon is an unpleasant and evil being, but for the Greeks and Neoplatonists, demons were predominantly good beings, in Neoplatonism, demons are ideal spirits who offer prayers to Zeus in heaven. Socrates and Plato considered demons to be the voices of a person's conscience, indicating what is right and what is wrong.
Not as bad as how the religions of ancient Greece and Rome are sometimes described as more secular, more philosophic, more atheistic and more logical religion (which is considered a positive and a good thing), which is the direct opposite and stark contrast to more religious, more superstitious, more spiritual and more yy irrational Christianity (which is considered a negative and a bad thing).
Personally I think that such a separation and a confrontation should have stayed in the 19th century and we would be able to understand different religions better now. But it is silly that this kind of way to present history still haunts into the school books of 21st century and this is at least one reason why it is difficult for us to understand the Greek and Roman religions. Such ghosts of the past sometimes guide our perception of the world as illustrating what ancient religions were like.
For example, some ordinary people think that the animal sacrifices aren't appropriate for such an ideal and perfect religion because this practice doesn't fit our noble and idealized image of ancient religions. And threfore people are in shock and deny when they hear that the ancient people actually did so and sacrificed animals. Or how jerks the ancient deities might have been in the ancient mythology and that thing isn't Christian propaganda attempt to tar and defame these older religions.
And yet, I get to hear this Christianity vs ancient religions debate at least once a month.
I think the main modern root of the approach you are talking about (the relative secular and philosophical character of ancient pagan religions vs the relative devout and irrational character of modern monotheistic religions drawn as contrasting points) is found in, as pointed out here, the deeds and reciprocity based nature of most pagan religions I’m familiar with, as well as the capricious and morally ambiguous manner of the gods involved when contrasted with the purely faith and devotion based nature of most of modern monotheistic religions as commonly practiced. This, of course, requires ignoring the way many pagan societies clove close to their world views with rigid determination, executing such novel thinkers as Socrates. Personally, I am myself a practicing pagan for the last decade and a half, and regard monotheism as an inherently problematic, self contradictory, and damaging approach to religion, but I also acknowledge that polytheism is not more useful for scientific inquiry, no religion is, nor am I so naive as to think that pagans are fundamentally more rational, I’ve met enough people at this point who were raised pagan rather than coming to it through theological inquiry to know indoctrination can sink as deep from any corner.
Hi love the format but adding images would be even better !
Could you put your podcast series on spotify ?
My plan is to start an independent spotify podcast at some point in the future, with a narrative retelling of Greek & Roman history from the start. So yes, but with different content.
@@adbchistory do you have any link for more content? I love ur stuff!
Looking forward to part 2. Whenever that might be..
To answer your question, back to back please.
Right?
Would love to hear more, you should make a Patreon!
Did you read my mind lol I love this idea for a series!
Awesome! Well buckle up because it's already ballooned into a seven video series in my mind haha
Νομίζω ότι όλοι σας είστε μικρά κακομαθημένα πλούσια παιδάκια που παίζετε εις βάρος απλών βιοπαλαιστών που είναι τα θεμέλια και η ραχοκοκαλιά τούτης της κοινωνίας και αυτό είναι σοβαρότατο παράπτωμα και μην νομίζετε ότι δεν υπάρχει τιμωρία. Τουλάχιστον τώρα ξέρετε………..
Elysium, Elysseia in Greek is the idolized place, the 'paradise , where the souls of many semi gods and mortals would end up after they crossed Haron, / Charon in English.
Wish you would consult our many fantastic historians in Greece before you put out this video. Overall it is not bad some things you mentioned are not quite accurate. And there were 147 or so rules that people had to follow. I think it was Apollo who send them to people.
Also the temple where Cassandra was attacked it was Helios/ Apollo hid of the sun. Trojan elite were if Greek desent.
We / the ancient Greeks dud nit expect non Greeks /Varvaroi/Barbarians to worship their God's.
I would like to point out that the gods could be obliged to aid individuals and organisations with the correct rituals to call on ancient promises, to shame them if they failed to look after the one who has performed the ritual, or even simply by feeding their ego so that any attack on or inconvenience to the individual can be framed as an attack or inconvenience of the reputation of that god.
I would like them back to back
High quality video. Thanks! I have one question: if sacrifices of livestock were performed at festivals *where the mortal ate the meat* and the gods got the bones, how could the Greeks honestly tell themselves they were making a sacrifice for the gods? The trick at Mecone myth doesn't help. If anything, it makes such sacrifice a commemoration of attempted deceit of Zeus - hardly a demonstration of sacrificial piety...
Because losing livestock for ANY reason was a loss.
@@benjalucian1515 Not if their purpose is to be eaten. Caveat: unless the sacrifice involved eating so much that it would impair the sustainability of the flock. Otherwise, if you just kill and eat a bunch of rams, for example, reproduction capacity isn't impaired and excess calories are stored as fat for the leaner times.
@@rorytorrens3394 *Not if their purpose is to be eaten* A family couldn't eat that much meat before it spoiled, so yes, they could kill livestock to eat it, but they'd have to eat ALL of it quickly before it went bad and sometimes they couldn't do it and it would be a loss.
This looks like how we have Hinduism in India. Same kind of beliefs and people believing under same assumptions of world view. Transactions between gods and humans, rituals needed to be spoken in certain way in ancient language Sanskrit. People invite Brahmins( upper caste who perform rituals) only to chant specific mantras. Interesting thing is believing in many gods makes it easier to accept other religions as just another way to reach god. First Hinduism reinterpretation under the scrutiny of science during nineteenth century happened so effectively that we it became so easier to accept other religions.
23:20 - Your theory of religion is interesting, but the it’s circular. It doesn’t make sense for people to randomly appeal to the concept of a god if that concept doesn’t already exist. These theories make more sense logically (weakest to strongest):
1. Greek gods actually exist but have been neglected/forgotten.
2. Certain people with skills/gifts were deified (think saints in Catholicism or Santa Clause). But again - where would the concept of deity come from?
3. God actually exists and ancient Greek religion is a rejection/misinterpretation of the original religion/belief system.
In Greek temples you are not supposed to kill, not die.
In continuation when the Victor of plate a pausanias fel out of favour and was condemned to death by spartan efforts he found refuge in a temple. Because they could not kill him in a temple the Spartans simply besieged the temple and just left him to die of starvation.
All forms of birth and death were forbidden within the sanctuary boundary.
Great video! Looking forward to the others, as I'm very interested in ancient religion.
One criticism, however. The stuff you said about Christianity was... not super accurate. I feel like you're making the same error as the people who mistake Greek mythology for the whole of Greek religion. You're talking about Christianity as if it was all 20th century charismatic fundamentalism or maybe 16th century Lutheranism, and you got that a little wrong, too. I get that this is a video about Greek religion and not Christian theology, and I get that it's important to draw the contrast between the kind of religion people are familiar with today and what ancient people had, but I think it behooves you not to commit the same sins (pun intended) that you complain about in others.
For my part, it was very clear that Dan is generalising, and that his comments about Christianity are meant to be taken as extremely broad generalities only to clarify the contrast with Greek pagan religion. As far as my knowledge of Christianity can take me, everything about Christianity that Dan mentionned in the video is almost universally applicable to all of Christianity, like sin, the importance of theology, God loving you, etc; none of them are unique to specific historical branches as far as I know?
There is more nuance than he went into, and the light much of it was presented in is distinctly uncharitable, but a lack of perfect precision does not equate to inaccuracy, just generality. Besides, I could point out that the claims made regarding the cult of Dionysus (among others) indicate several of the hard rules and vague patterns he referred to did not apply to all Greek cults, so there’s that.
@@faryafaraji It’s possible that I’m just punchy from too many conversations with Reddit atheists who refuse to have any conception of religion beyond Southern Baptists or mean nuns. In general, a lot of what I’m criticizing is phrasing things in absolutes.
Setting aside where he calls the Christian God “a bit evil,” as a poorly considered off-the-cuff remark, let’s zero in on this bit:
“…whereas in Christianity, whether or not you go to Hell is solely arbitrated by whether or not you believe in God. Right? You can actually be a terrible-this is in the Bible-you can actually be a terrible person and break all of God’s rules and commit all of these sins, and blah, blah, blah, blah. But as long as you accept the existence of God and accept salvation and do all of these things, you will still go to heaven. Even if you live a very pure life, where you don’t break any of God’s rules, if you don’t accept that God exists and those are God’s rules, you will still go to Hell.”
There’s an important contrast to draw here between monotheist _belief_ and polytheist _ritual,_ but the debate of how you obtain salvation-through good works or belief-is one of the central arguments in Christian theology. What salvation _means_ and what happens to the soul after death are far from settled, as well.
The above is basically accurate if you’re a fire and brimstone Evangelical. Dan really glosses over the fact that belief is supposed lead to _repentance_ and cause you to stop sinning. And salvation’s not a magic spell that gets you into heaven no matter what you do after-especially if you’re not repentant about your misdeeds.
Many denominations (e.g., Catholics) put a great deal more emphasis on doing good in the world. It’s best to be a Christian, because they’ve got the handbook with everything spelled out, but anyone can go to heaven if they lead a good life. Socrates and the Dalai Lama are not spending eternity in Catholic hell. Catholic hell might not even be a place, but a state of being separated from God.
Calvinists used to believe (and still do?) that some people are more or less preordained by God to be good Christian and go to heaven, and that the rest of us are preordained to fail and go to Hell. All the winners believe, but not all believers win. It’s never made any logical sense to me.
Many believe in universalism, that God’s love is so great that everyone will ultimately be redeemed and “go to heaven,” with different ideas of what that entails. And all this is to say nothing of the Cathars, the Gnostics, the Mormons, and all the other fringe groups over the years with radically different ideas about the whole nature of the universe.
I was going to see this very same thing. He's taken a relatively new version of Christianity to be the norm and made his comparisons to that. Any ancient Christian tradition, be it Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, etc., is an entirely different world.
I think Philip's comments are pretty fair here. Because I grew up in a relatively Christian home and society, I consider it a lot less carefully than I would religions from other cultures, and the kind of Christians that I grew up around definitely aren't the same as Latin American Catholics or Russian Orthodox Christians.. Thanks for the feedback guys, I'll be more careful in the next video.
I will, however, stand by my remark that the Christian god is evil. Wiping out the entire population of the earth, including all the innocent animals, is a pretty evil thing to do. I also don't think that crucifying his own son was really necessary.
Are you giving a very protestant version of Christianity? And why do you mention the SPANISH inquisition? Was the French one more suitable for antiquity?
Sounds a lot like Hinduism
Its hard to watch this when he describes Christianity incorrectly and says its very similar to Islam which is very inaccurate.
You had me until about 15:00 minutes in where you began making moral value judgements based on your secular understanding of the world rather than discuss purely what is relevant to the subject. Any Gods in any religion are not "evil" for setting rules and having people follow them - its literally the God/Gods universe.
The gods are evil when they kill people for either no reason or kill kind and loving people who don't believe in them. On what planet is that not evil?
@@benjalucian1515 "no reason" there always is a reason - in any mythology any religion. Flood stories always have an infraction on mankinds part.
They set the rules.
@@islandplace7235Who are they to set rules for others that they don't follow?
@@islandplace7235 Well, the humans who made natural disasters into morality tales had to come up with reasons.
No offense on your christian takes but they sound like you got from a friend who summarized it to you haha but i love everything else your speaking about is well informed!
Great take on religion in Ancient Greece. Horrible take on Christianity. I enjoyed the video nonetheless; thank you for sharing!
Greek religion was taken from the berbers/Amazigh
4:46 -: ahm, that is FALSE, Jesus puts it so like.. If you believe in him, but don't do the will of god, then... ig u go to hell... Matthew 7:21 - the house build on rocky surface..
Matt. 7. [21] Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven..
There im sure is this idea that true faith changes... so if for example Hitler really really believed in Jesus he wouldn't have done what he did...
Paul's letters say faith is all you need.
Apollo , God of the sun.
You went a little fast there - the Christian God expected you to be GOOD, or you would be punished...
Ancient Greeks were Pelasgians and descendants of Albanians. I am Kosovo Albanian and te dominant E-V13 (E1b1b) 47.40 and it linkes us to Ancient Greeks.
Do not believe the new propaganda. This story is just not true. Tell your friends about it too.
get in touch with YSEE (greek ethnic religion foundation)... most of what you say is incorrect because you refer to your christian sources...it's like asking a SS officer about Judaism, ore a cowboy about the Indians...
Really comparing an atheist who was raised in Christianity with an ss officer?
Right?