 Now, we're looking at Greek mythology. For this look at Greek mythology, I wanna focus pretty much on just two things. The creation account, and the kind of turmoil that happened thereafter, and the four races of humanity. And I think these two things are pretty telling as to what the ancient, as to what in what the ancient Greeks had failed. So for these ancient Greeks, in the beginning, there was emptiness. Chaos is another word for it. I'm not sure exactly what we should read into this as far as the nature of this chaos, but these two words are pretty telling right from the beginning. In fact, they sound a lot like something we've heard before. It sounds a lot like ancient Egypt. Okay, so in the beginning, there was this emptiness, this chaos. But what came forth from the emptiness were three gods, Gaia, the Earth, Tartarus, the Under-Earth, or the Underworld, and Eros. And Eros, Slup. Now, we shouldn't think necessarily erotic. So yeah, okay, so it's the same root of the word, but this Eros is beauty, is the love that inspires creation. This absolute joy that goes forth and from this, you're impelled to make. Maybe inspiration is maybe not even a terrible word either, but inspiration for beauty, inspiration to create. It's probably the same feeling, if you can imagine this, the same feeling that's either shared or combined with both the parent and the artist. The one that's inspired to create life. Now, Eros is really cool. Unfortunately, we don't hear too much about Eros through the rest of this reading. I wonder if any original text Eros is either mentioned or in the background or something, but that to me is a curiosity. Okay, so in the beginning we have Gaia, we have Earth, Underworld, and Love, Gaia, Tartarus, and Eros. Now, from herself, Gaia gives birth to Skye, and she gives birth to Skye. She also gives birth to Mountain and Sea. Aria is Mountain, Pontus is Sea, and Uranus is Skye. Now, she only marries Skye. Only Uranus becomes her equal, and Uranus, Skye can be found wherever Earth can be found. She elevates Skye to her equal. Wherever you find Earth, you'll find Skye. So that's kind of cool. Now, Earth and Skye, Gaia and Uranus, have children. The first set of children they have are giants, and these are hundred-handed giants, and they're incredibly strong. What that hundred-handed means is they're very, very strong. And then they also give birth to Cyclops. They have the single eye, and they're excellent craftsmen. And the single eye, if I had to guess, probably means something like Singularity of Vision. So these guys are focused on creating, you know, on this craftsmanship, they're excellent craftsmen. That's just a guess. I don't really know. So we have the hundred-handed giants, three of them, and we have the Cyclops. Another three. Now, Uranus hates and despises these six kids. He fears their strength, is the phrase in the book. He fears their strength, probably fears what they can do. Maybe even fears that they can court Gaia's love. I don't know. I'm just taking a guess here. So he fears these six children, and out of this fear and loathing and hatred, he throws them to the depths of the underworld. They fall for nine days, and they land on the tenth. I don't know how far that could be, but that's a really deep depth. They'll fall for nine days. I don't know exactly how long it takes to fall from, say, the top of the Empire State Building, but I gather it's only a matter of a few minutes or something like that. So you can imagine how far these giants had fallen. So Gaia, understandably, is miserable about this. So her children, she loves her children, regardless of their appearance. So she, in the text that she buries these feelings in her heart, and she has more children. She loves having kids, and she has more children. And this time they give birth to Uranus and Gaia. They give birth to the titans. There's 13 titans altogether. Now at some point Gaia gets her children together, these titans together and says, look, your uncle, your brothers are trapped in the bottom of Tartarus. They've been imprisoned by Uranus. Now I can't stand this. They have to be rescued. You have to bring them home. Who's going to do it? Who's going to be strong enough to do it? And all the titans are basically kind of hesitant at the very least if not outright afraid of their father Uranus. Only Kronos, in the text says, is most like his father. Only Kronos is willing to do this, is willing to defeat Uranus. And there's difficulty here because Uranus is immortal. He can't be killed. So instead of killing Uranus, Kronos takes the, according to the text, the source of his power, which he emasculates. He emasculates Uranus. Freud would be happy and proud of this phrase, right? So Kronos emasculates Uranus, takes away his power and throws the phallus into the sea. So at first, you know, Guy is really thrilled about this because, all right, her children are going to be her brother. Her first six sons are going to be freed. But Kronos, being like his dad, he's afraid of the giants as well. And he takes his dad's place as the god of the sky, marries his sister, Rhea, who's a lot like Gaia, and continues along his merry way. Now, Gaia is not pleased with this, but again, she varies her feelings in her heart. Holds a grudge is another way of saying it. So Gaia, oh, that's right. Yeah, she curses. She curses Kronos with a prophecy saying, okay, well, since you didn't help me, just like you defeated your father, your son's going to defeat you. That's what she said. So Kronos, you know, kind of ignores this for a bit, and he marries, or begins having children with his sister, Rhea, who's a lot like Gaia, but you know, kind of a problem arises. Now, you know, Rhea and Kronos start giving birth to the gods at the Greek god. At this point we had Gaia, Uranus, well, Gaia first, sorry, Gaia, Tartarus, and Eros first, then Gaia from herself gives birth to Uranus, Aurea, and Pontus, Skye, Mountain, and Sea. And through the marriage of Earth and Skye, they give birth to the Titans, but now the Titans are having their own children, and these are the gods, and these are the Greek gods. So these Greek gods, you know, Rhea begins to give birth to the Greek gods, and kind of, you know, at first, Kronos is thrilled that he has children, so each time Rhea gives birth to a child, she brings the child to Kronos, he's like, oh, my lovely little child, we have a beautiful baby, but then he remembers the prophecy, he remembers the prophecy, and he's supposed to sing, oh, this kid's gonna kill me, and then he goes, oh, each the kid. You know, and then, you know, since Kronos is now the god of the sky, he's got a big mouth, right, he can swallow up everything, he's huge. And you know, this upsets Rhea, but you know, she's, you know, and this upsets Kronos too, he apparently has something of a conscience, but he still loves his wife, so they still have more kids, more kids, right? But each time, Rhea brings the child to Kronos, he goes insane, and he eats the kid. This is kind of scary. Now, by this time, Rhea's really upset with her husband, Kronos, and she goes to both mother and mother-in-law, and says, Gaia, you gotta help me here. He keeps eating my children, you know, you've dealt with a bad husband before, how would you deal with this? So Gaia says, look, you gotta trick Kronos, right? Now, fortunately, this is gonna be easy, because he goes crazy, but you gotta trick Kronos, and you'll trick Kronos by giving him a stone instead of his son, and he won't know the difference, he'll just swallow the stone. Okay, so this is what happens, right? Rhea gives birth to Zeus, her last son, and kind of hides him away off on an island, and Kronos says, where's my new child? I'm hungry, where's my new child? So Rhea brings the stone to Kronos, and he goes insane, and he's like, this kid's gonna kill me, he swallows the stone, and he doesn't know the difference, because he's insane. Okay. Now, Zeus is raised to maturity, and at one point, Zeus colluding with both Gaia and Rhea gives Kronos a poisonous drink, right? Kronos is like, hey, thanks for the drink. Wait, who are you? He looks suspicious, but it's too late. Kronos drinks the drink, and this causes him to vomit, and Kronos vomits up all the stone, and all of Zeus' siblings. And then Zeus declares that, look, you gotta give up power, because you're crazy, you're mad, you're insane, and Gaia's kind of in the background prodding my lawns, like, you know, rescue the uncles, and Rhea's like, you know, rescue the young, right? They're all kind of prodding Zeus along at this point. All the gods, all his siblings, all those Zeus' siblings are backing his play here. He's like, yeah, you gotta go, you're nuts. Well, Kronos rallies the titans together, and there's a huge battle starts. There's a huge battle after this. Now, there's a difficulty in having a battle amongst the immortal, right? Nobody dies. Nobody can be killed. So, you know, the most you could do was in prison or outwit, or, you know, get the other person, the other immortal person to give up, right? Well, none of this really seems to be working. Until Zeus, you know, again, prodded, prodded along, gets the idea to release his uncles, release the hundred-handed giants and the Cyclops. Okay. So, he goes to make a deal with them. He said, look, I'll release you. And, you know, you know, this Krono, you know, Uranus, and then Kronos falling, and they both have imprisoned you, and I will release you if you fight for me. And the giants and the Cyclops like, pfft, yeah, this is an easy choice, and sure. And so they fight on the side of Zeus, and the hundred-handed giants, you know, open up this great rift, and they throw Kronos down there, and he's imprisoned, and that's how Zeus, and that's how Zeus acquires, defeats his father Kronos. And he and his two brothers, Poseidon and Hades, they draw lots for, you know, who has dominion over what, and Zeus has dominion over the sky, Poseidon has dominion over the sea, and Hades has dominion over the underworld. And that's the rise to power, the creation of the universe and the rise to power of Zeus. Zeus teaches humans, humankind, about justice and society. Poseidon teaches them about horsemanship, which is probably, you know, maybe it's a euphemism for all the trades. Maybe it's kind of the idea. So horses were used a lot in craftsmanship and agriculture. And then Hades teaches mankind, humankind, about respect for the dead. Respect for the dead. And that, you know, again, that kind of, those are some major components to society, right? Justice, how to interact with each other, craftsmanship, how to make a living, and honoring the dead, how to remember not only who came before you, but what they did. History. So this is how the Greeks envisioned the beginning of the universe out of chaos to our society. So like the, you know, Babylonian mythology, right, the universe is one of turmoil, right? And for the, you know, for the Greeks, the universe is one of turmoil. There's a lot of fighting happening, and it all ends well. Because it's time for society now, but there's a lot of fighting conflict up before that. You know, okay, yeah, there's conflict, but the Greeks don't like the Babylonians in this regard. There's a reason for the conflict. There's a reason for the strife, right? And there's a reason why one person or group is the victor over the others. So if you take a careful look, you know, what's going on here? The whole turmoil has started because Uranus hates his kids. He doesn't love them for who and what they are. That's what starts all this turmoil to begin with. And, you know, Gaia is opposed to Uranus because she loves her kids. Because she loves her children. And she never, you know, really in some important ways, she doesn't turn against anybody until they go against the family. She doesn't turn against anybody until they go against the family. She turns against Uranus, holds a grudge in his heart, only when he imprisons her kids and never lets them go. She turns against Kronos, her own son. She turns against Kronos, only when she supports Kronos because he's going to help, you know, he's going to help the giants in the Cyclops, but she turns against them, against him. When he turns against them, Gaia loves everyone until you go against the family. And people, you know, these gods, these immortal beings, are not the enemy until they go against the family. Judging from the mythology, these hundred-handed giants, they're probably ugly. Same thing with the Cyclops, they're probably ugly. They're wonderful, wonderful creatures to love in and of themselves. No way! But Gaia loves them and she'll fight for them. Zeus comes to power because he supports his mother, because he wants to free his uncles, because he wants to fight against the tyranny of his insane dad. You know, most of the motivations happening here have to deal with family. What is good is fighting for the family. And what's bad and what's deserving punishment and invitations of various kinds is turning against the family. Heck, even when Chronos emasculates Uranus, why this? Again, Freud would be proud of this and this description in saying the phrase in the text says, I have removed your power. Yeah, but power for what? Chronos still has arms. Leaving aside the psychology and talking about various masculine motivations. Power for what? Well, that power that was removed was the power to create family. This is the source of power is creating family. Gaia is really the most powerful of them all. And why? Because she creates family. She even started creating family on her own without anybody else. You know, even Zeus the kind of triumphant of the three gods that rule over everything after all the fighting Zeus Poseidon and Hades. Well, it's family that's in control of everything. Sky, sea, world. So this seems to be a major motivation for these gods is family of love. It's the source of power family of love. It's also the source when you it's the source of condemnation when you fight against the family or betray the family. So let's take a look at the races according to Greek mythology. So the first race is the race of gold now the race of gold kind of like perfect people that they get along well with each other. They care about each other. They don't fight, they look after each other. They treat each other with goodness and wisdom and really kind of like family. They don't fight, they don't bicker. They don't have violence against each other. They look out for each other. Now there's race according to the Greek mythology. They had no enemies. The weather was warm and pleasant. They could simply live off the land. Literally they didn't even have to farm. They just kind of walked out and get their sweet wonderful foods. They didn't have to worry about snow or rain attend to eat anything like this. So they didn't even bother making shelter or clothes. They just lived in blissful care because they cared about one another. They never had any enemies and they died in peace. They died in peace. And in dying in peace their spirits lived on in the mists. And they cared so much that they gave advice and protection to other people even from beyond the grave. Well next we have the race of silver. The race of silver were not as noble and as wonderful as the race of gold. They weren't particularly violent or anything like this. But they happened to be selfish or immature. They were basically like children I think might be fair to say. In fact, one portion of the text says that the children didn't really move out of their parents' houses or their parents' homes anyway. They tended to just want to have things taken care of for them. They didn't want to take care of them for themselves. They didn't want to take care of people. They only wanted to be taken care of. They were selfish thinking only of their own needs at once. So as punishment the gods gave them harsh weather. So they had to start farming. They had to build homes. They kind of grew old and died. They grew old and died. And their bitter souls traveled down to Tartarus in the underworld. You can kind of imagine they're just kind of sulking and crouching and being upset that they didn't get what they wanted. Well now we have the race of bronze. Now bronze was used in war. It was used to make weapons. And this race of bronze, their hearts were as hard and as bitter as the bronze that they wielded. And they fought. They loved Aries. They didn't love love. They loved conquering. They loved beating down others. And this race died off very quickly because what happens when you have 20 people in a room who want to anybody and everybody else, chances are no 20 are going to live. So this race of bronze, they died off pretty quickly. And they also their afterlife is also rather miserable and hate-filled trying to kill from beyond the grave. Now we have the race of heroes. The race of heroes were more noble than either silver or bronze. They fought but they fought in defense of others. They fought for the sake of others. They were warriors. They were clever. They were wise. And, you know, they fought and not all survived but those that did were allowed to basically go off and live on a wonderful, blessed little island and they live in the glory of their conquests. They fought on the side of good. They won and they basically get to live on their lives toasting themselves, reliving their battles and story and so on. And, you know, even in this case Zeus took Cronus and made him in charge of this island. I imagine Cronus is the charge of nothing else. They made Cronus in charge of the sun and kind of in charge of the happiness of the heroes. Now the last race mentioned is the race of iron. Race of iron. Race of iron, these are people who care about wealth. They care about land. They care about property. They care about things, not people. Now, according to the story, the gods haven't eliminated them yet. Yet, when you have a group of people you don't really care about anybody else, you only care about things. How much is actually done for the sake of others? We're really not much of anything. We care about things, not people. And, you know, just like you put a room, say you're putting a room, 20 people in a room, all they want to do is fight, they're going to quickly die off. Well, the race of iron, they probably, you know, put 20 people in a room and they only care about wealth. They're probably not going to die off very fast, but they're not going to thrive either, right? They're trying to divvy up the wealth as much wealth as they can amongst the fewest number of people. Well, chances are that's not going to be most of them, or maybe even just one. That's not a thriving society. That's not a society that is happy or a society that can last. Now, according to mythology, it sure looks like the gods are going to eliminate that. Has it happened yet? We're still all around. But, the gods probably won't put up with it forever. So, we've taken a look at the gods, the creation account and kind of the turmoil there. And we've even taken a look at these various races according to the Greek mythology. So, now, when you get to the point, it's like, well, and what exactly do the ancient Greeks have faith? Well, it's easy to miss. It's easy to miss. It's easy to miss because in what they have faith was mentioned once. In what they have faith was mentioned once. In this passage of this explicitly and then kind of ignored. They have faith in arrows. They have faith in arrows. Arrows, this beauty inspires creation, inspires life. Arrows is responsible for family. And that's the driving motivation for all the turmoil when we look at the gods, right? This hatred of family ends badly for Uranus and Kronos. And the love of family does very well at first for Kronos, but then especially for Zeus and Gaia and Rea. Gaia is in the background, the start, the beginning of all this family to begin with. Yeah, this creativity. Arrows is also lurking in the background with this mythology about the races. The race that does the best is the one that loves. It's the one that cooperates with each other. Bronze, silver doesn't do well because they don't care about others. There's petulant little children. Bronze doesn't do well because they try to kill each other. Iron will not do well. It's not really doing well right now. But will not do well because there is no love. At least not a love of people. There's only a love of things. What drives success and glory and wonder and life and goodness all of these wonderful things. What drives all of that. What is the motivation for and the purpose of happiness in Greek mythology is Arrows. It's one of the three that first started. And it's the inspiration. So you had Gaia, Tartarus and Arrows. It's one of the three that from the first three beings to exist it was the motivation behind all other existence. Gaia did the work, sure. But Arrows, love is what inspired her to begin.