I have decided to do my Extended Essay on Paganism - and I'm having trouble deciding on the best question to do.

Here are the questions -
1) Why were the Ancient Greeks polytheistic?
2) To what extent were the Pagan Gods and Goddesses deifications of human attributes in Ancient ______ [Rome or Greece]?
3) [Easy way out] Analyze the factors that led to the downfall of Paganism in Ancient Greece.

Which would you suggest, and does anyone know any useful sources?

It would be far more reasonable to ask why weren't the ancient jews and the religions that descended from them polytheistic. Monotheism,especially the Abrahamic version, is the aberration. There have been far nore polytheistic religions.

So we're talking just Greek religion? Not paganism in general?

Greek + roman gods came from natural forces in the world - wind, sea, fire, fertilty, death. LAter - or as soon as we had civilisaton - peole came up with war, love, wine, messages, money etc. making up gods for allsorts of things like these came naturaly bcause they wanted to think they cuold get help intheir lives from greater beings, like all ancient races wit their various gods.

We usualy call druids or witches pagan - they wordhipd nature too, just more directly than by inventing complicated carachters to represent it.

http://northernway.org/gods.html
http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/wasdin/wasdin30.html

Why don’t you write about how Paganism, in ancient times, was once a beautiful developing religion and was distorted by more powerful religions into that of devil worship.

Number two looks easy. If you know about the specifics of pagan gods, then you can simply draw comparisons between human traits and the traits that the gods show. Then, if, unlike the Greek gods, the pagan gods have non-human traits (i.e., free of sin, etc.), then you can point that out, as well. All that you need is basic information about some of the major pagan gods (which I do not have).

Better to beleive in gods who ar free of sin than the awful greek + Roman gods, who acted worse than humans a lotof the time! Its funny that the Greeks came up with the goldena ge of philosphy when they had terible role models for their behaviour, gods who were petty and childsh.

I have the impression that during the "golden age of philosophy" the philosophers (Socrates, etc.) did not take the gods too seriously, although most of the people did.

I would have thought that the simple answer to why the greeks were polytheistic was because their gods grew out of local nature based gods, and got squashed together and changed when tribes grew and moved about. The gods began to take on ceratin definite character traits, and it all went on from there.
So why is asking about the demise of paganism in Greece an easy question?

that proces went further with some people Ithink, as the Greeks visitd other countrys.. didnt ptolemy try to match the gods of Egypt with the Greek ones? I think in babylon, Zeus was sometimes said tobe the same god as Marduke or whatecver his name is..

It wouldve been fun to try matching greek gods withe Viking gods! like Thor with Hercules maybe or Baldur with Apolo. As for the Hindu gods - Ive no idea.

As several have said, polytheism is a natural expression of the human spirit(s), whereas monotheism is the aberration. Jung's research (as popularized by Joseph Campbell for the masses) indicates that the human spirit has 23 (if I've got that number right) dimensions. Each of us has, to a greater or lesser extent, a hunter, a leader, a healer, a warrior, a lover, etc. inside of us. Even though one or two may be dominant and define our individual personality, in any given situation we may have to call on the others to handle an injury, a famine, an attack, etc. These same "archetypes" show up in all societies at all times. Greek Aphrodite = Roman Venus = Egyptian Hathor. They also show up very plainly in Shakespeare's plays.

Monotheism replaces this rich model of the human spirit with a destitute, nearly useless, and downright dangerous one-dimensional model in which everything falls on a scale between Good and Evil. There's one god, and what a coincidence, it happens to be male.

Patriarchal monotheism was spread by a male warrior-ruler-priest class who wanted to curtail or even destroy the power of women. It largely succeeded and we are still recovering from its ill effects as two vast, well-armed civilizations, run by snotty little boys whose fathers never made them grow up and whose mothers had little power, square off to bring on the Armageddon that their single, male god promised them.

but monotheisdm is what won out - people n rome + Greece preferrd it to their old gods. So did the arabian tribes when Mohammed came along. At tleast those big religions today have clear rules on morals + ethics, which give people a model to live by - thats what they want, + esp. what they wanted in ancinet times.

Not really: most people in the world still aren't monotheistic, and the monotheistic religions had to reinvent themselves as polythisms effectively- the Virgin mary and some of muhammed's wives and the saints and martyrs. Monotheism won in part of the world or many reasons, but the most important was luck.All ethics- religious or not- have very similar basic rules to live by. Religion adds a few extra twists to them. Monotheism adds the opportunity to kill and plunder your polytheistic neighbours and heretics.

The worst crime of religion is it can be used as an excuse by people to kill other people and claim they are doing good (God's work).

Mohammed effectively had to terrorise the Meccans into agreeing with him, and he trashed the pagan idols inside the Qa'ba. In the roman empire, Constantine saw Christianity as a useful tool for the concentration of power in himself, ie gods anointed kind of idea. It took over from Mithraism, which was I suppose heading towards being monotheistic, but was not as bad as Christianity in that respect. Though I wouldnt say that monotheism adds the extra twist of being able to plunder your polytheistic neighbours- that sort of thing was done by the Romans, greeks, Aztecs, and everyone else. The importance of monotheism in the growth of the modern state is I think very high, but insitence upon it has also brought much trouble. (see religious schisms)

The triumph of Christianity was that it removed God from the world. The Kingdom is not of this earth, there are not grinning ogres lurking behind rocks and trees controlling man's fate. That process led to the scientific revolution. Also led to some deadly gnostic psuedo-religions--Marxism, Ojectivism and Fascism to name a few.

So you think that those ways of thinknig - which say above all that theres no god - wouldnt hav ever started if we al lstill worshipd Jupiter or Odin?

people hav always found reasons to do each other harm, watever god or gods they prayd to...

>>Thersires: i take it youd rather be a worshiper of the old Greek gods than a christian or Muslim? theres still some who believ in the Viking gods - dont know about the greek or roman though.

Isn't that the purpose of religion?

Not entirely. Its more of an added extra. As far as I can see, religion is a really good way to bond people together, increase tribal cohesion etc. why else does some need for religion seem to be present in just about every human society in the world? The fact that it is also a good enabling mechanism for greater warfare is either an added bonus or an unexpected consequence, depending on how you look at it.

No. That is the job of secularists. Over 100 million people murdered by their own marxist governments since 1917. Not killed in war, not killed for any other reason than the "enlightened" atheists and agnostics who ran the hell holes thought it was a good idea.

They've slipped in recent years (except in North Korea and a few other places) but they will be back.