Come up with a way that we could still see people worshipping the Olympian gods (Zeus, Poseidon, etc...) and not be judged as insane for doing so. One possible POD I see is Alexander the Great's empire lasts longer and remains more unified after his death, which would make the greek religion more engrained into their cultures.
AHC: make the Ancient greek religion last up to 2012
- Thread starter Dustin
- Start date
I say the biggest task to overcome is monotheism. When monotheism became dominant in the west polytheism became a strange and foreign idea. If you butterfly away Christianity you can possibly prevent monotheism from spreading out.
Christianity isn't the only monotheistic faith of consequence in the Roman Empire, though.
For all the virbant mythology we hear about, the actual religion seems kind of unclear. Even without monotheism, many Greeks (well the intellectuals at least) seem to have taken the mythology with something of a grain of salt.
If you want to make the ancient Greek religion survive until 2012, you will have to butterfly away both Christianity and Islam. Also you must not allow other religions like Zoroastrianism etc. to spread into Greece. In that case, it is not only the ancient Greek religion, but others like the ancient Roman religion, the Mithraism, the ancient Norse and Germanic religions etc. also may survive, perhaps fighting each other for influence in Europe. Europe could become a battleground of religious wars of pagan faiths.
A POD in Alexandrian times would butterfly away Christianity and Islam. Zoroastrianism, as far as I can tell, never spread into Greece. Mithraism might be butterflied away as well, the Roman cult didn't form until the first century. If the Romans conquer the Hellenistic world like in OTL, they would probably merge the religions, otherwise they would remain separate.
Now, assuming Germanic peoples conquer the Romans like OTL, would they then merge their religions as well? Pagan religions were more flexible, the Romans for example absorbed much of the Greek and Egyptian religions.
The very same religion than Ancient Greeks? I find that unlikely. Religion, as every cultural production, is determined by how people lives.
With the rise of monarchic features, whatever lasting Alexandrian states, Roman Empires, etc. You'll have a rise of worshipping of gods depending of your place on society (Mithra-like / Sol Invictus for armies by exemple) and "favoured" divinities worshipped in priority with others being secondaries and/or associated.
Now, ancient hellenistic religion could perfectly be adapted to these realities, with their roles, attribution and importance modified.
With the rise of monarchic features, whatever lasting Alexandrian states, Roman Empires, etc. You'll have a rise of worshipping of gods depending of your place on society (Mithra-like / Sol Invictus for armies by exemple) and "favoured" divinities worshipped in priority with others being secondaries and/or associated.
Now, ancient hellenistic religion could perfectly be adapted to these realities, with their roles, attribution and importance modified.
If you want continued practice, it's just not going to happen. If Christianity didn't take over, some other 'higher religion' (to use Toynbee's term) would. Even if it was a nominal direct descendent (like Julian's re-imposed paganism) it wouldn't be worshiping that quarreling warband of a Greek pantheon.
If you want modern worship, well, there is huge variety in modern neo-paganism. Most chose a Celtic flavour but others do Norse, and there are indeed some that do Greek. Some simply applying names like Apollo and Athena to the God/Goddess pair that are often worshiped, but I suspect some attempt worship of the actual old gods.
Not really, it was henotheistic like the cults of all of the Roman gods.
