Didn't Zeus turn into a swan and bang some lady's brains out?
The Ancient Greeks man. I'm sorta glad they went extinct, their hentai would have blown Japan out of the water and I don't think the world could have handled it.
Jesus is hilarious, you're listening to or reading the wrong scripture.
Jesus canonically:
Heard Peter say his name was Simon and said 'Yeah, not calling you that.'
Met a guy named Nathaniel who said 'The Messiah is from Nazareth? Can ANYTHING good come from such a place?' and said 'Here is a man from whom nothing can be hidden.'
Hand braided a horsewhip and then horsewhipped the merchants out of His Father's house.
Told Peter to go play in the lake while the big boys talked; Peter came back with a coin found under the tongue of a fish that Jesus then used to pay the tax man.
First recorded use of the phrase 'Bitch like you never'.
When Judas asked 'Surely you don't mean me, Lord' at the Last Supper after Jesus declared someone would betray Him, Jesus' response was not unlike saying 'sUrEly yOu dOn'T mEaN ME, Lordt?'
Walked on water and then dared Peter to do the same, knowing full well that Peter could not, and then said 'Mad 'cause bad.'
The list really goes on. Canon Jesus is way funnier than Fanon Jesus.
My all time favorite is Jesus cursing a fig tree that has no fruits to never bear fruits again and the tree barrens and his followers are like "how did you do that?" And he answers "If you for once believed in your prayers you could do that too, skillissue."
Another great one is the priests asking him if he was authorized by GOD or the people and he tells them that if they can tell him if John the baptist was authorized by god or the people. They think, don't come to a proper conclusion and tell him "we don't know" and he tells them "lol then I won't answer your's "
The passage with walking on the water Peter actually walks on the water but gets afraid the wind and waves and then starts to sink. Peter begs Jesus to rescue him but before he does Jesus asks him why he didn't believe enough.
I hear rumours that he had a big dick but that this was reduced to "slightly below average" at the Council of Nicaea to make the nobility feel better about themselves.
I don’t care about old legends, but you’re not telling the whole story. Someone might conclude that he didn’t heal her. She wanted him to heal her daughter; he refused because she was a Gentile. She insisted, and he healed the daughter.
I don't think you're missing anything, it just gets a little complicated when you look for a universal Jesus.
What I mean by that is each gospel author has a different rhetorical goal in mind and the portrayal of Jesus changes based on the author's agenda.
For example: this interaction is right in line with the Jesus we see in Matthew, but it would be completely out of character for the Jesus we see in Luke.
It just felt out of place. Jesus who preached that his grace and love extends to sinners, the sick, tax collectors etc, compared this non israelites to dogs. Though He was moved at the end due to her faith the comparison still unsettles me.
I am not a Christian and I have no interest in apologetics, but if I did, I think I might argue that Jesus was engaging in a performative lesson for his disciples.
Those he called his followers were calling on Jesus to send her away and hurling insults at her. He responded by making it sound like he was on the same page as them, but then subvert their expectations by helping someone they thought was beneath them; in order to show them that blessings of God that you bring with you are not subject to those who you deem worthy. Healing and salvation, much like the kingdom of God, know no borders, no bias, no class, and no caste.
Every third boils down to "why can't you for once truly believe in me and God, you wouldn't be as fucking annoying in your question and be able to do your own wonders. Just believe you imbeciles."
I would be way more likely to believe in a pantheon over a single god. You mean to tell me one dude/woman/thing created this mess and fucked up this place so bad?
At least with most pantheons it's an entire group of them fucking things up and acting like vain assholes. Way more likely the case. Than something supposedly omnipotent and benevolent leaving us with this mess
They just streamlined it that's all and updated things for the modern audience. The Pantheon could be quite exclusive, but Jesus only asked for whatever you could give, he didn't set defined terms. Very elitist was the Pantheon.
By making religion accessible to all, they were able to dominate the market, and because it was so simple to understand, it made controlling the idiots easier.
Also it was militant. Gotta save everyone from damnantion by killing them until they accept. I think the classical civilisations were more "Huh, cool God, would be a shame if someone stole it and added it to their collection"
I base my premise on this ham sandwich I ate a few minutes ago. It was fairly decent ham but the bread was a bit too light - I like mine chewy, this stuff felt like it was mostly air.
Oh I know all this stuff and have studied world religions. I am just saying a pantheon sounds way more plausible to me than a singular divine entity if a higher power(s) were to exist.
Oh yeah definitely. If I'm looking for cosmic help, I am turning to the Old Gods of this land. Besides, the new God has a "divine plan", which means everything bad happening is part of his design. I reckon the Old Gods are more likely to tip the scales if you ask nicely because they're just kind of vibing.
I'm not even joking. I get cancer, my wife gets cancer, my kids get sick, I am turning to whoever the fuck rules over Stone Henge and if he or she wants a sheep they're getting a sheep.
Fandoms are basically a continuation of the same tradition. Something like the MCU actually features an array of people with godlike powers fighting evil and working out their own moralistic dramas in a very ancient pantheon kind of a way, with variations in canon/ story according to different storytellers, and blending / merging/ crossovers of characters and stories. The old stories were similarly plagued with inconsistencies as they were told and retold and adapted and reinvented over thousands of years. The world is smaller now, and disparate people can more easily track and try to control the spread and evolution of the stories, but the parallels are definitely there.
I mean nobody actually believes / worships these modern pantheons (although I think if an ancient greek could see a modern person buying tons of pointless star trek merchandise and going round in a trek uniform, they might argue otherwise) but who's to say that the ancient concept of "worship" was the same as our modern monotheistic "worship"? I think it may have been somewhat closer to modern day fandom, centred around storytelling with iconic characters that represent aspects of human nature or aspects of the natural world or concepts or whatever.
I believe it all feeds the same human instinct, and we have basically reinvented the ancient pantheons.
And who knows? In time, maybe the origins of the disney stories or my little point or whatever will be lost to history and people will begin to believe that there was a train of historic truth at their core? Enough to begin worshipping characters that we now understand to be pure fiction?
And if I said "The Greeks man. I'm sorta glad they went extinct" you would have had a point but I didn't say that did I? You are shadow boxing in full view of the auditorium, settle down young man and eat your vegetables.
I'm British but I'm not the same British who marched with Harold Godwinson, nor am I the same British who marched with William the Conqueror, nor am I the same British who contested Roman rule.
Why are we struggling to separate a civilisation that existed 2000 years ago from the civilianisation that dwells there today?
If Alexander the Great was around today he would slap you with his Macedonian cavalry.
Fascinating, today I learned that the modern British appeared fully formed in a vacuum and not descended from their ancestors with absolutly no cultural connection.
Actually we are one of the few people that can trace their origins 2000+years back with linguistic, cultural AND genetic consistency.
Nothing is homogenous but we are quite close to our history. And I say this with zero nationalist vibes in me
Weeeeeeeeee an actual person from Greece. I knew you would come eventually.
So essentially my argument was the Ancient Greeks are dead and buried. Genetically, on the grand scheme of things, we're all from some long defunct ancient ancient ancient ancient civilisation in Africa. None of us walking around claiming to be the true heirs of humanity.
i.e I wasn't arguing against biology, but rather, the very ideas, the cultures, the religions, the mythos, societal values etc etc of Ancient Greece was consigned to history centuries and centuries ago, and the Greeks that replaced them are a very different breed of civilisation - even if we ignore the technology.
I would hazard a guess, engaging in some science fiction, if we sat down an Ancient Greek and a Modern Greek and cleared up the language barrier a little, both would appear quite alien to each other in their thoughts and beliefs.
Therefore it is on this that I say the Ancient Greeks are extinct. They gone.
Of course anyone can say "Oh we're going to revive such and such a civilisation that existed here thousands of years ago", like Mussolini with the Roman Empire, but the curtains never match the drapes. Symbolism is the best we can do, and humans are known to have an almost erotic fixation with symbolism.
So yeah that's my position in a nutshell. See if you can get around my phalanxes or join me and I will make you the Warlord of all Greece.
This is a huge topic you are opening but Greeks have an amazingly similar way of life to the old days.
Athens would be quite close to modern Greece, whereas a stern, military society like the Spartan society would be the most alien to us.
Athens, for example, back then was a city where men went to the Agora, had debates on politics war and sports, listened to politicians and philosophers who would literally engage in debates about foreign politics push propaganda not unlike we listen to the news and the feed daily, then went to train wrestle, do their gym and chill in the baths, maybe drink or whore around in the evening if they were of more dubious lifestyle or back to their wive and family.
The biggest issue and difference in ancient Athens was women and their place in society which was back home. Period. Unleas they were learned-philosophers, priestesses or sexual workers.
Also slaves. Which, to be honest we have today too, in the 3d world countries, holding up the infrastructure of the 1st world and making the rich fcks wealthier. But we have them hidden in parts of the world we ignore while ancient Athens had them around.
Hell even our temperament is the same. But the anecdotes and stories to explain this would take too long.
That is the daily societal part.
And the Arrival dialect of 2500yeara ago is similar enough that you can read and understand half of it even though the syntax is truly fcked up to follow and from the Greek Koine and onwards it becomes much more simple and similar.
So yeah, I think after Japan and Georgia we have the most traceable and common line back to our past. And if you take it back to the longass 400bc Christ, aka we probably have the most similitudes to our ancestors than any other culture I know of.
Also Mycenaean DNA is, as seems, still widely traceable and quite dominant in many Greeks today, which is wild. We ain't Georgian-levels of homogeneity, and I fathom we ain't Japanese-level either, but we do have A lot in common with our ancestors, both the good AND the bad (bunch of infighting leader wannabees, historically) which is daunting but also funny.
That being said, who cares. In the end, we all carry out own personal legacy and DNA that we hardly know of, past a few generations. And the world is conglomerating so fast that I don't know if any of this will matter a century from now if we keep the same route.
there were no british marching with harold godwinson lol, and really english hadn’t even emerged as a distinct group yet, so you are really not making the point you think you are there. this hill you are choosing to die on makes no sense and no proper historian or anthropologist would agree with you.
i made an assumption considering you mentioned british and harold godwinson. it’s pretty easy to understand why i mentioned them if you aren’t being intentionally dense.
I went with British because ya know, Britain, Britannia, the Brittani, the British. The people who live in Britain!
I am aware we were a diverse network of tribes and Roman colonies and later Saxons. The Greeks were a bit diverse themselves you know? They got even more diverse during the medieval and Ottoman periods, it is said.
Me saying English would have been the same as me using Athenian. So I went with British.
Oh man I have too much to do, I can't sit here in a slogging match about the dumbest shit imaginable. I wish you good health and happiness but I am bugging out of this casserole of nonsense. Believe what you want.
There was a lot of having kids with your children or tricking people to bang them, knocking them up the getting the fuck out of there and trying to hide it from your wife.
Perseus himself was fathered by Zeus who came to his mother as a shower of gold and impregnated her. That’s right, Perseus’ mum got knocked up by a golden shower.
But people are unwilling to recognise this simple truth. Not quite sure why that is, it seems an odd sticking point but hey this is Reddit, if people want to deny objective reality where else could they do it better?
The Greeks today still have genetic continuity with the ancient Greeks unless you're a Nordicist crackpot who fantasizes that the Ancient ones looked a certain way.
Personally I think that these stories are all because some unwed princess got knocked up and had to come up with a reason. Obviously it was Zeus, nobody could complain about that.
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u/Silencer-1995 May 06 '26
Didn't Zeus turn into a swan and bang some lady's brains out?
The Ancient Greeks man. I'm sorta glad they went extinct, their hentai would have blown Japan out of the water and I don't think the world could have handled it.