Monday, November 11, 2019

About my class discussion

Can we continue that here? I think I've raised a good question; what is Dante saying about the creatures in hell? What came first; human mythology or God creating these creatures?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I would argue that God, in His infinite wisdom, created all of the entities in Greek mythology. The Greeks just worshiped false idols and created pagan mythology instead of worshiping the one true God. The "Gods" in Greek mythology are actually demons, and the other creatures are just all part of God's creation.

Unknown said...

I completely agree with Andrew I also wanted to add a little example. There is a saint, I think it is Saint Cyprian, who was believed to be a pagan magician. He was thought of being able to do magic and stuff, but after he converted to Christianity he stopped doing the magic because he realized that it wasn't as powerful as the Christian God. At one point after his conversion he refers to the "demons of Olympus." This is just a little thing that I think shows that from basically the beginning of Christianity they still somewhat believed that they existed, but they were false gods that were actually demons. So in the end, the ancient gods and creatures existed, but were just wrongfully seen as something good rather than demons.

Elliot P. said...

I think Dante would have us believe that God created the creatures in hell and human mythology became based on them later, but realistically speaking I think humans created the creatures in Greek mythology for many different reasons. Some provide explanations for natural disasters, some provide explanations for the nature of humans, and some are meant to give answers to the question of the afterlife.