23 Greek Religion and Its Discontents w/ Barbara Graziosi
Ancient Greece Declassified
Dr. Lantern Jack
4.8 • 587 Ratings
🗓️ 1 May 2019
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How did the ancient Greek religion evolve? What was the meaning of sacrifice and other rituals? Did atheism exist back then? How about alternative religions?
We explore all these topics and more in conversation with Barbara Graziosi, professor of classics at Princeton University and author of the book The Gods of Olympus. Stay tuned at the end of the episode to learn how you can win an autographed hard copy of The Gods of Olympus.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A brief message from a friend of the podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Hello podcast listeners and history fans. |
| 0:05.1 | I'm Elizabeth, producer of the podcast, Footnoting History, |
| 0:08.1 | where historians pluck stories from the past and serve them to you one episode at a time. |
| 0:12.7 | No story is too obscure, and with over 200 episodes to choose from, we like to say, yeah, we've got an app for that. |
| 0:19.6 | To listen to us, you can start at www.f. footnotinghistory.com or subscribe through iTunes and Spotify. |
| 0:26.2 | You can also follow us through multiple social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. |
| 0:31.5 | Happy listening, history lovers. Hi, thanks for tuning in to ancient Greece declassified. |
| 0:47.0 | Episode 23. |
| 0:49.8 | Greek religion and its discontents. |
| 0:55.4 | What's the point of religion? |
| 0:58.7 | Is it an opiate of the masses designed and used to keep the people fearful and obedient? |
| 1:04.0 | Or is it an indispensable source of shared morality, without which any community would begin |
| 1:09.4 | to degenerate? |
| 1:15.6 | Is it a relationship with the divine, a way of aligning our purpose to that of our creator, perhaps guided by the knowledge given to us through divine revelation? |
| 1:19.6 | Or is religion a relic of a more primitive age, consisting of stories that were made up |
| 1:24.6 | in order to explain what there was no science to explain. |
| 1:28.3 | Or, is religion something that is part of our biology? |
| 1:32.3 | In other words, what if we evolved as a religious species |
| 1:36.3 | because that gave us a competitive advantage over other hominids who were not willing to sacrifice, |
| 1:41.3 | die, or even undergo torture in the name of an invisible being. |
| 1:45.0 | There are a lot of attempted explanations out there for why religion seems to be a part of the human experience. |
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