Origins: Reasons to Believe

It was a tidy way to explain reality. For the early Greeks, the events of the world were caused by the Olympian gods. Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Athena and the rest looked like humans, but they were more beautiful, they never fell sick or died, and they had better food and drink. They could make things happen—floods, storms, plagues, droughts—and they could prevent things from happening.

Since Poseidon causes earthquakes, if an earthquake destroys your house, Poseidon is probably angry with you. Maybe you did something to offend him; for example, after Odysseus blinded Poseidon’s son, the cyclops Polyphemus, the god kept Odysseus’s ships at sea for years, preventing him from returning to Ithaca. Or maybe an ancestor of yours or your local prince offended him and he is taking revenge on the entire city (your house included). Or maybe he is just carrying out his side of a bargain with another god. The world is unpredictable and often out of our control; events frequently seem chaotic and random. The gods of Olympus are convenient scapegoats.