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Greek Religion: Homer
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[T]he student of Greek death continues to face formidable obstacles in the handling of data. To begin with, the literary allusions to death and the afterlife are, with the exception of Homer, piecemeal at best. This means that the interpretation of the relevant material, in the almost total absence of any eschatological framework, presents a huge challenge to the conscientious scholar. There are other attendant difficulties. The archaeological evidence is often unsystematically gathered and provides an unreliable indicator of change. Dating based on pottery, particularly less prestigious pottery, which tends to be highly uniform over large stretches of time, is untrustworthy.
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It was in the area of philosophical thought that a clear-cut monism developed to augment and ... shift Greek religious thought to a new type of speculation. The Greek philosophers sought a more rational and scientific approach in humanity's relation to nature, espousing a logical and important connection between humanity and nature, not a mysterious and secret one between humans and god. It was Plato who made an absolute abstraction of the highest virtue, giving to that abstraction the quality of Absolute Good to which even the gods must be true. Philosophical inquiry led to the rationalization of myths and completed the destruction of the Homeric pantheon. The vacuum was eventually filled by Christianity.
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This section deals with the Greek gods and notes discrepancies between the writings of Homer and Hesiod as to the Greek pantheon. Complicating matters further, prior to these writings there was no fixed number to the Greek deities44 and foreign divinities could easily be integrated and worshipped among the greater Greek gods. Local deities, too, were soon assimilated, hence the many epithets under which some Greek deities were worshipped.
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Homer