Today in the United States of America, the vast majority of the world appears to be Christian. The Pew Forum shows that 22% of the country's population has no religious affiliation and that about 70% of people living here are Christians. With this religious belief infecting the country like a virus, the American people should learn where many of the origins of their religious cultural beliefs really come from. They don't come from the famous superhero named Jesus, but much of these ideas and models come from the ancient Greeks. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Thanks to the development of the human brain, we have managed to thrive in a violent world where we are now the dominant species. Evolution made us think of a predator instead of always having to defeat it. In the ancient world, we used our imaginations to make weapons, armor, hunting tactics, shelter, and other essential things to help us survive. Over time, our thinking brain has improved these ideas to make our daily lives easier. However, the downside of having a thinking brain with an imagination crucial to our survival is that it sometimes gets the better of us. As human beings, we have a tendency to become spiritual creatures. Astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson referenced this in an interview with Richard Dawkins at the planetarium. He said he has observed that when most people are asked to identify the subject they struggle with in school, a very common answer is mathematics. This leads him to believe that perhaps the human species did not evolve to be rational, logical creatures, but rather to be spiritual, creative, and very fond of imagination. This is a very provable assumption with the knowledge that there are many people who believe in visitation by aliens, Loch Ness Monsters, Big Foot, ghosts, zombies, vampires, mediums, and other irrational nonsense. Hollywood has managed to capitalize on these beliefs by making many unrealistic films that stimulate the human imagination and therefore help earn money. But when it comes to capturing the human imagination, perhaps no one did it like the ancient Greeks. The ancient Greeks were a sophisticated civilization with a talent for storytelling. In The God Gene, there is a quote from Frank Lloyd Wright that says "I believe in God, only I spell it nature." This seems to describe the foundation of Greek mythology. It seems that most of their stories were a way of describing nature. “But even these legends of the gods contain a germ of empirical reality, since they are connected to cosmic phenomena, such as the sky, the stars, the earth and the sea…”. They personified aspects of nature by giving them a human figure and magical powers that explained certain events and called them "God". After passing down stories for generations, it's natural for people to begin to feel some sort of connection with them. Especially when it comes to stories of heroes and idols in a civilization constantly at war. That connection can give people a sublime feeling and become a component of self-transcendence. Therefore, making them believe that these gods really existed. Zeus was the god of the heavens, Poseidon the god of the seas, Hades the god of the dead, Hephaestus the god of fire, and Demeter the god of agriculture and fertility. These were some of the gods in Greek mythology attributed to the natural causes of the world. It was the best attempt they made to make sense of their world since they did not have the sophisticated technology that currently exists in modern times. However, they didn't just have godsto explain cosmetic phenomena. They also had gods to explain basic human psychology or emotions. Examples are Eros who was the god of love and Ares who was the god of violence. These were a very important part of Greek culture and their education. In ancient Greek mythologies, the poets who wrote them seem to be concerned with the origin of the evil found throughout the world. Prometheus was a good example. He was known as man's helper because of all the deeds he performed for the human race. One such action was when he gave fire to humans by stealing it from Zeus, because Zeus was hiding it from humanity. As a result, Zeus' anger increased and he had Prometheus and man punished. The man was punished by introducing the first woman, Pandora. When she was introduced she came with the gift of death, disease and despair. Prometheus on the other hand was punished by hanging from a cliff for about 30,000 years until Heracles arrived and saved him. According to this myth, man and Prometheus share the same guilt and this is the origin of evil. Heracles was an important figure of the Greeks, he represented courage and strength. In the myth, Heracles is punished by Hera because he is the son of Zeus and a mortal woman. Heracles kills his family and faces twelve gruesome tasks to assuage his guilt. After completing his tasks, he returns home where he is burned alive. The ways in which he was burned vary depending on the version of the myth that is told. But essentially the ending is always the same. When he is burned, his mortal self descends to Hades while his divine self ascends to Mount Olympus where he joins his father Zeus. This ending, with a hero descending and ascending, is common in myths even today. Myths, being as powerful as they were in ancient Greece, have also had an influence in philosophy. Perhaps one of the greatest philosophers of all time was Socrates, and as great as he was, it is possible that he was still influenced by these myths. René Descartes, also known as the father of Western philosophy, had said that no matter how great Socrates and Plato were "...they were still bound by the consciousness of their time periods." But even so, Socrates had managed to introduce a new perspective into people's minds. When it came to the soul, he explained it by dividing reality into two realms. The first kingdom was eternal and the second was physical. The physical realm is the material world where the body lives and dies, the eternal realm is where the soul is located. He stated that the soul seeks truth and wisdom and that this is the only way the soul can achieve eternal happiness. Now, while this may not seem like a typical myth, it actually is by definition. A myth is a narrative used to explain a phenomenon, and Socrates' vision of the soul actually tells a narrative about life and the afterlife. All of these ancient Greek myths are deeply rooted in today's modern world. And better yet, seventy percent of Americans live by these myths and don't even know it. As previously mentioned, the Greek gods had powers for every aspect of the natural world, emotions, and pretty much all of reality. We can see this similarity in the God of Christians today. It seems that what happened was that the Christian religion took all these Greek gods and merged them into one super god. This can obviously lead to some contradictions, but for some reason seventy percent of Americans have not yet been able to understand this. We also see many Greek heroes influencing our culture. Hercules was one of the first stories ever told about a powerful man with superhuman strength. A few hundred years later we get thousands of them in the form of folk tales, superheroes and cartoons. And, above all, let's see one.