(May 31, 2015 at 8:58 am)Nope Wrote: Did the Greeks believe that statues were their actual deities or did they use them the same way that Christians use paintings and carvings of Jesus and other religious figures? ...
The ancient Greeks did not believe that their statues were actual deities. The statues were merely representations of the gods. The statues might have been blessed by priests or something that made them sacred, much in the way that various bits of junk are regarded as sacred by Catholics. They would have been outraged if someone went in and pissed on one of the statues, just the same as a Christian would be outraged if someone went into a church and pissed on a cross.
That they would bow down in front of statues is the same as Christians bowing down in church in front of a cross.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
