At what point did Zeus and other Greek gods become "unbelievable" and lost a following?

Question

The concept of Zeus as a real, relevent diety probably seems pretty silly to most people reading this today.

If this can happen to Zeus, at what point will it happen to the current Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or any other god that is worshiped today?

Is it just a matter of state-sponsorship that makes one religion dominant and accepted, and sends another into oblivion?

Answer 1

It happened because Constantine named Catholicism the official religion of Rome in the 4th century, after which his soldiers went around to everyone under Rome's power and said, "Do you still believe in Zeus?" (or Jupiter, as he was then called). If someone said, "Of course I believe in Jupiter!" the soldier held a sword to their throat and said, "What was that?" and the person responded, "Who, Jupiter? Never heard of him!"

)O(

Answer 2

I just wanted to point out to "Wired" that he may want to consider the fact that the History books are written by the winners. If Adolf Hitler had won the history books would portray him as a great man who fought for the rights of all pure bloods everywhere. Does not mean he was correct for the atrocities that he committed. Just means that he won and therefore wrote the history for that time. Therefore perhaps you should remember that Zeus and the other Greek and roman gods are found in the Mythology section because Christianity won the battle and insist that their God is the only God. I still have never seen the Bible in any section but Religion in the book stores. Right next to the other Religious texts like the Koran and books about Buddhism, Hinduism, and so forth.


Edit: Also it is important to remember that you can fairly clearly see a large number of likenesses in certain Gods of different religions. And commonly when a Monotheistic belief was trying to destroy a Polytheistic religion they would take certain things about the "Main God" in that religion and mold them into their own God. Sometimes even changing the other gods of the Polytheistic belief into Saints. Thus making it easier for those of the Polytheistic beliefs to convert. So in a way there are still followers of Zeus they just call him a different name and don't even think of it. Was zeus not known for having the Lightning bolt as a weapon? Is it not commonly said that if you blaspheme or lie God will strike you down with a lightning bolt? perhaps there is a correlation there...

Answer 3

When the "Peaceloving" Christian began the wholesale slaughter of all Pagans in the Roman Empire. The Christian extermination of the Hellenistic religions(pagan) started in earnest after 314ad and was almost complete 200 years later.

During the early years the Christians destroyed any competing forms of Christianity as well, but after about 500 ad they were able to direct more of their efforts at eliminating other Christians. The only thing that slowed the slaughter was the rise of Islam in Arabia and the Middle East.
Eventually the Islamic followers of Mihammad and the rebel Christians who separated from Constantinople and established a church at Rome again succeeded in causing the collapse of the Eastern Roman(greek) Church.
This does not mean that things improved much because the Roman Catholics simply kept up the persecution that the Eastern Orthodox had been practicing and began the crusades in the middle east, an attempt to claim the Eastern Empire for itself.

------------
Actually I would challenge the person above me to find any actual examples of wide Roman persecution of Christians. The Nero story simply does not match with historical fact. Yet the remains of the deathcamps set up by Christians to exterminate pagans in Scythia are still there.
The story of John Chrysostom is still true and so is the burning of the Library of Alexandria and the murder of Hypatia by St. Cyril's Christian mobs..
Christians have always lied about their history and always shall.

(But I still love it when Bible believers accuse the Catholics of not being Christians, the cognitive dissonance such a statement must create should make their brains fry)
-------------
So anyhow, I question whether you can call it the State sponsorship instead of religious control of the State. The Christians decided in the early 2nd century to require all of their men to serve a term in the Roman army. This led to them having officer positions and to basically control the military. Their alliance with Constantine put him imto power, and he was under the Christian Churches control from then on.
So holding state powers certainly does your religion a favor as it battles other religions. It can be surprising how few people might be needed to take over control of an Empire. You only need the top layer to be yours. Recent USA politics demonstrates this quite well.

Answer 4

It is utterly the case. Indeed the religion of Christianity (and all its sub religions) comes from Judaism (so does Islam). Now the origins of Judaism is being traced to the worship of Ra in Egypt and Zoroastrian in Asia minor. They were created to keep the ruling powers in power and to give the ordinary person some sort of explanation as to 'Life, the universe and everything' and why should they bother to obey the rulers. We now do not need the 'Life, the universe and everything' explanations as we now know most of them to be utterly wrong. Explanations like the creation and Adam and Eve are now so ridiculous that to understand it as anything other than a myth is to degrade it to a panto comedy. As to the morality aspect. It is fine to hold religion as an individual guild line however as a law making tool, now very outdated and oppressive in the extreme.

Answer 5

Who says he lost a following?

Wired: Where do YOU get your info? The Christians were generally thrown to the lion because they vocally stood on corners and screamed at people, hung thier own to send a "message" and descerated temples before the Pagan Wars.
Then of course you have Cappadocia in Turkey that the Christians pushed the pagans into and then proceeded to have a very bloody war with.
Then you have good ole Olaf in Northern Europe who many a book has been written on that spread Christianity is a pretty damn bloody way http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/sainto07.htm http://www.nndb.com/people/974/000102668/ and he did such a good job, why they went and made him a saint! Gee they did the same with Patrick http://www.saintpatricksparade.org/stpatrick.html http://www.riverdeep.net/current/2002/03/031102_stpatrick.jhtml
Read your damn history. The Christians were no better then the rest of humanity in thier desperate attempt to take over the world.


Wow wired: it must be nice to write your own history. You want to base ALL of civilation on Nero? Let me guess, you dismiss Catholics as Christians in order to save your religions own ***.
I suppose we could go into how the Christians were at each others throats in America when they first came over and how in Salem they hung thier own in an effort to "Flush out the witches" and then how they killed off all the Native Americans to steal thier land. Then of course you have those that bombed abortion clinics to protest murder (Serious irony there by the way) and the KKK who are protecting white's God given rights. So hell you've got Christians killing other Christians too.
By the way, using an educated vocabulary, obviously does not make you educated. Your willingness to remain willfully ignorant to other history and cherry pick the things that make Christians look like the only victims in history is appauling. I bet you think the Haulocost never happened either?

You are just proof of what happens when self serving egotisical and uneducated fundamental hypocritcal Christians run the country.
Ohhhh a TD. OMG let me go kill myself! LOL

Answer 6

When oil and coal and even uranium run out, the engine of the world as we know it today will be no more.

Will Jesus survive?

Well Galileo lived, not long ago. Clearly Jesus can exist in difficult times.

When oil runs out, I wonder if we'll be able to resurrect Jesus or if we'll want to or will we revert to the worship of more blood thirsty Gods.

Answer 7

Once Christianity became the state religion of Rome, other religions eventually became officially disparaged, and then outlawed altogether.

Worship of the Greco-Roman gods declined and then vanished throughout the empire and beyond, as a result.

Answer 8

Well, you could say state sponsorship is what caused Zues to become unbelievable (the decline of the Greek civilization).

Answer 9

"If this can happen to Zeus, at what point will it happen to the current Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or any other god that is worshiped today?" - When Christians stop blindly believing the Bible and their pastors and start thinking for them selves, the process will begin.
.

Answer 10

Jesus = Hezues.

What do you mean, Zeus is still getting followers.

He just stole worshipers from Yahshua the true name of the Savior by changing his name to Jesus.

There is no J in the Hebrew alphabet so Jesus is a lie.