#I don’t even want to get into the polyamory/cheating/incest jokes

[noctilionoidea]

I don’t really pay attention to Greek myth media much anymore because of this so if this isn’t super big of a thing uh. Complaining about stupid shit is like tumblrs whole thing so I can still complain

anyways does anyone find it weird how much Greek myth media almost obsesses over showing how in the wrong the gods can be? Because like. I don’t know if you cracked open some homer or Hesiod recently. That’s kinda a huge part of the Greek gods. The myths already talk about it. They aren’t supposed to be righteous. Good and holy are two different things. The gods uphold the natural order which they embody and have control over. Yeah they’re in the wrong a lot. They’re also in the right a lot. And they do things that are neither. They operate in their own interests and the interests of those they care about.

what does it accomplish by making this your main point? The myths already establish that they’re cruel. Why do we need to have this hammered in? Hellenism isn’t a major faith anymore. It still holds a huge impact and still has followers, but it doesn’t have any direct canon to it or any major institution. You can’t operate under the assumption that everyone who followed that faith believe the exact same thing. The myths are rationalizations. Very few of them were fundies. The details of practice and spirituality heavily varied on location, culture, and which cult they’re in. It’s even more split and varied than Christianity.

and if you’re using it to make a critique of a major religion like Christianity, then why be a coward about it? Call out the habits of Christian leaders. Call out hypocrisy. Call out the cruelty in the Bible. Call out all the stories and the impact it’s had and all the bloodshed that occurred at the behest of the faith. Because Christianity, and every other major religion out there, has stories that by modern lenses are cruel, gods that act violently against the humans who follow them, practitioners who will do everything to ensure that everyone else fits into their specific view. There will be justifications of violence under a gods name. There will be people who leave the faith and can never again see it as anything worthwhile. There will be followers who love their faith but feel so isolated from it because of these things. Using the greek gods, or any religion’s deities as a stand for what you’re calling attention to is just cheap. Criticizing god makes a lot of people angry. No shit! But there’s attention called to that. You can’t ignore what it’s trying to say without being little more than a brick wall.

when the current practitioners of a religion are small in number and operate with modern perspectives shaping how they see it, people who often put in the effort to think deeper about what a text is trying to say and what its purpose in the past was, mocking their gods for being flawed does nothing than repeat an established aspect of legend. It does nothing to call out a major, currently powerful religion for what harmful things it promotes.

I don’t know. I think if you wanna mock of Christian stories and ideas then you should use Christian stories -and ideas. When it comes to Greek and Roman legends people like Ovid already did that.