Dionysus was born twice

Apparently, Anatolia now has a wide range of deities. Greek religion begins to dominate local Anatolian beliefs. Especially the hegemony of Olympian gods is fairly felt.

In the beginning, humankind creates his own god and god­dess as he can’t explain natural events. In an effort to understand the happenings around, mankind charges the deity with the con­trol of all natural events.

The deities are both immortal and live in their own dimen­sions which are not understandable by humans. That is; the deity created by humans was so far away from them in the beginning and didn’t have humanistic features; however, when the deities had been enriched by various peoples throughout centuries, par­ticularly in Greek religion characters of the deities began to re­semble that of humans. As can be noticed in Greek religion, the deities were now jealous, flirtatious, treacherous, telling lies and falling in love. The reason of this change is that Man wanted to justify his actions by imposing all of the characteristics he didn’t like in himself on the gods and goddesses he created.

Greek religion was popular with its patriarchy. The man can cheat on woman yet woman can never. Of course, even great Zeus cuckolds his wife Hera hundreds of times, but Hera has always connived at these and waited patiently. If immortal Hera is wait­ing, why shouldn’t mortal women wait?

Homosexual relationships were so common in Greek society. The reason of this was that these kinds of relationships were also attributed to the deities. Finally, the previous gods and goddesses whom primitive man created lost their pure, protective and fertile natures in time. Since Man lost his innocence when he departed from nuclear family model and began to urbanize. Now, Man is a liar, rascal and cruel. All of these are perhaps the natural result of developing social life. When people adopted these behaviors and life style, they directed all of their characteristics to the dei­ties. Everything has shown parallelism. Humankind makes fun of his god for whom he respects previously. And as a result of this degeneration, a period of monotheistic religions is going to commerce.

Humankind, a perfect being, has always struggled to know and understand himself consciously or unconsciously from the beginning. He begins with identifying nature and natural events, and in this context, develops his own belief system.

In the course of time, man gradually solves the natural events around him and makes clear the features of his deities. From the moment when man improves himself and begins to have a con­trol over the nature, he turns away from the deities whom he has created and worshipped.

As a matter of fact, loss of belief comes out this time. Loss of belief rises in time and this leads to a social and moral breakdown among people. In this decadence, God begins to present his true face through his prophets in different ways.

Before moving to monotheistic religions, there are a few more topics to talk about. They are recounted below.

Dionysus’ Religion and Its Practice

Joining Greek deities later on, the god Dionysus is of Anatolian origin. He is the son of the God Zeus and mortal Semele. In the mythology of birth whose details we will skip, Semele dies during her pregnancy. As a result of Semeles death, Zeus cuts her womb and takes fetal Dionysus out and matures him in his own thigh. Developing as a fetus in Semeles womb; however completing the process of birth in his fathers calf, Dionysus was born twice in a different situation and delivered by Zeus.

Dionysus is the god of wine and joy. It is clear why he is a late arrival among the Greek gods. Ih time, the society spending all their days with love, joy and wine needs a god who will arrange all these feasts.