Hello. I have been talking to some people who thought that Hellenismos should be only practiced by Greeks and their offspring. This hurt me quite a lot, because I have learned to read long before I went to school, using book of greek mythology, and I see it as them giving me a call. so I am posting a poll here. Is it only for greeks or not?

Adi_little_poet wrote on 03/08/10 at 12:58:33:


Following that argument, then Islam should only be for Arabs, Christianity only for koine-speaking Hellenized Jews, and Buddhism only for northern Indians speaking Pali.  The ancients thought their religion had universal features and were happy to foster identifications of Hellenic gods with the gods of other nations.  Some figures in Greek mythology--like Cadmos, Attis, Adonis, Cybele and many others are not of strictly Hellenic origin.  That some person not specifically a Hellene worshipped "Greek" gods seemed to the ancients the most natural thing in the world.  The whole argument is inconsistent with what the Hellenes themselves did, thought, and felt.

Maybe Pythagoras' Theorem should only be taught in the original Greek?  Maybe Greeks should give up the ancient alphabet because the Phoenicians apparently invented it?  Maybe we should give up spring-based suspensions for automobiles because the Chinese were the first to come up with that notion for their carts?  

Thinking like this pays no respect whatever to the obvious that some people, often long ago and far away, thought of things that are good for everyone no matter who everyone might be.  We all might as well go back to isolated hunter gatherers taking refuge in trees and caves.  This is a formula for reducing us all to ignoramuses incapable of judgment independent of some transient "cultural identity."  

Push it a bit farther and the same arguments can be used for racisms, nationalisms, ethnocentrisms, and so on.  You can argue that modern Greeks can't practice Hellenismos either because they are descended from Celts, Latins, Semitic peoples, Turks, Slavs, Epirots, and Cretans and who knows from whom else?  Eventually the only people who can do anything will be the only ones who ever did it.  Goodbye civilization.

khalkas wrote on 03/09/10 at 21:34:17:

Was he a Hellenic Polytheist or Orthodox Christian... or was he a atheist using the Gods for a nationalist agenda? That seems like an odd question coming from a person who presumably perceives that the Gods cause the Cosmos to exist, keep and maintain it.

Yeah, what's the deal with that? I know a gay guy who looks at Hustler and the like. Why? I asked him and he said skin was skin, but I don't get it.

By the by, who was the scallywag that voted yes!?  

Adi_little_poet wrote on 03/08/10 at 12:58:33:

I voted no because all the Greeks I've met and the vast majority of people that practice Hellenismos say that anyone can worship the Gods. In fact some Greeks have said that if you worship the Gods your already more Greek than Orthodox Greeks because they are Romoioi, Romans! Or more Greek than Ataturk who was born in Greece but went on to become the founder of the Republic of Turkey as well as its first President.

As one Greek guy once said, you don't have to be Greek to be Greek!

On another point we could all have the blood of the ancient Hellenes running through our veins.

Timothy wrote on 03/11/10 at 12:22:43:


Well????  a pox on them....LOL

Still!! a POX on them!!!!!!