Comparative Religions, Monday, Period 3, Class #3--Hellenic Polytheism

[spacepiratevala.livejournal.com]

"Welcome to another fun-filled class," Vala grinned at her students once they were seated, hopefully with some popcorn and sodas from a table to the side of the room, "today we'll be learning about ancient Hellenic polytheism, which is the boring and textbook term for the religion of the Ancient Greeks. Like with the Egyptians, it was understood that there was a group of gods--twelve, in this case--who lived on Mount Olympus and generally spent their time either having sex, getting revenge on each other, or interfering in the lives of both observant and unobservant mortals. This will also be important later, since the Romans pretty much stole the pantheon and renamed them, using their belief in many gods as a basis for persecuting the early Christians."

"But I'm jumping ahead, and that will just make things more confusing."

"Luckily for us, we have some excellent resources here at the school--you might want to have a chat with Ares or Vice Principal Hades sometime, just to satisfy your curiosity, and I also found a movie that seems to depict the pettiness of the gods fairly accurately, so we'll be watching that. Later, if you're still awake, I'd like to know whether you would sleep with a guy who disguised himself as either a swan or a shower of gold, and if you would, what you expect your child to look like. Or, if you're more of a god frame of mind--why wouldn't you just pretend to be human?"

She slipped the DVD into the player and sat back with some popcorn to watch the movie.

[ooc: Up! in a second! A clip is here, but it's NWS due to nudity.]