[Mirithorn]

Yeah, but Greeks had followers of a god who spent their time getting drunk.

[banned]

Yes, Dionysus, the god who was born from a woman who Zeus obliterated and then sewed Dionysus back into her burnt corpse, sigh... The greeks were great philosophers but had no means to look at things with common sense.

[Mirithorn]

A lack of common sense is an endearing trait.

[banned]

Might be why they did that battle of Sparta and Athens. Which I think I have mentioned twice.

[Mirithorn]

Yeah, you have. Speaking of common sense, Greeks didn't waste enormous amounts of time and energy building pyramids....

[Spoon Poetic]

Wrongo.  They all were considered to be gods.  It was one of the main reasons why they built the pyramids and had so many people and wealth entombed with them in the first place.  To continue to serve them in the afterlife/heaven/their realms that they recieved when they died.

The sun god was nearly always their primary god.  Under the direction of one pharoh (whose name I have forgotten) they worshipped just the head while he was in power.  After his death, they went back to worshipping many gods.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The Egyptians believed in "Divine Right;" the gods gave the pharaohs their power/authority, and so were almost gods in the eyes of the people, but not quite. Especially since all humans were considered immortal after death--not just pharaohs. All people's kas lived on in the afterlife after death; just only the wealthy ones (who just almost always happened to be pharaohs) actually had the slaves and riches to be buried with.

The pharaoh that made Egypt monotheistic was Akhenaton, and Tutkankamen
restored Egypt to its polytheism because everyone hated Akhenaton's random switch off...

And ancient Greeks did too have "gods on earth." The main statues of the gods--take the statue of Zeus that everyone knows about (the one in the Disney movie Hercules, you know the one)--weren't just statues, they were the gods. Kind of like the essence of the god was free to move back and forth from the statue and back. And they roamed the earth raping women and creating bastard children and tearing human lives apart for fun...

Come on, Egyptian culture and architecture is just so cool! Booby-traps and secret passageways and mummies and sphinxes... When was the last time you looked at a Greek building and thought, "Wow, that would be fun to explore." It's a box. With pillars around it. And some naked guy statues with no artistic license taken at all...

Egypt surely wins.

[banned]

Exactly my point, and finally someone knows enough about history to actually post intelligently on this thread.

[Zatoichi]

You, my friend, are wrong. The sun god was real, but as soon as it was introduced the person spreading the religion was beheaded.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ummm no. Especially since it happened to be the pharoh spreading this, and having all who opposed him killed. I don't for a momment believe that this sun god was real either, but maybe that was just catholic propaganda. Especially since throughout the OT God dislikes the fact that his followers sometimes tend to worship other gods (usually Baal or was it Bhal?) I'll accept the second bit as being correct though.

edit:

Hey, I happen to get really great grades in History!

Yes, I didn't say it correctly (because it wasn't what I was going for) it originated with the pharohs (The entombing in a pyramid bit). And, as I recall, the gods in both pantheons were pieces of shit to their followers.

This post has been edited by Zatoichi: 13 October 2005 - 04:39 PM

[Mirithorn]

First: The Greeks were the first to think about mathematical formulas for making things aesthetically pleasing. Their buildings tended to be built according to these formulas. Pythagoras's most important contribution (besides the Pythagorean theorem) was the a scale, where what notes sounded nice together was determined mathematically... so you could theoretically right music according to mathematics. Or something like that.

Second: What you're probably thinking of as Greek statues were pretty much all cheap Roman copies. Greek statues didn't hold up to time well, but they tended to be made of bronze and very colorful.

[banned]

The Ancient Egyptians were one of the oldest culture, and as thus made math before the Greeks even came into being... I'm not really sure about the facts in this one, but I'm pretty sure.

Also, almost all of the Egyptian Art stood the sands of time. Although, most of it was destroyed by grave robbers.

This post has been edited by banned: 13 October 2005 - 04:40 PM

[Zatoichi]

Damn you guys are posting fast. I didn't even get a quick edit in before it happened.

Actually, yes music can be written with mathemetics. My music instructer showed how it could be done, but don't expect me to remember how.

[banned]

ok, so they wrote music... Egyptians stole chariots from the pheonician so ha!

[Otal Nimrodi]

Exactly my point, and finally someone knows enough about history to actually post intelligently on this thread.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hey, I know a hell of a lot about Ancient Egypt.

[Mirithorn]

And I know a fair bit about Ancient Greece. One of the few good things about going to a school with emphasis on classical Western... erm.... stuff....

Their writing class sucks, though.

[Spoon Poetic]

First: The Greeks were the first to think about mathematical formulas for making things aesthetically pleasing. Their buildings tended to be built according to these formulas. Pythagoras's most important contribution (besides the Pythagorean theorem) was the a scale, where what notes sounded nice together was determined mathematically... so you could theoretically right music according to mathematics.  Or something like that.

Second: What you're probably thinking of as Greek statues were pretty much all cheap Roman copies.  Greek statues didn't hold up to time well, but they tended to be made of bronze and very colorful.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes, yes; 1.618, the Golden Proportion, no straight lines (everything curved just barely) and all right angles (Hippodamian Plan) and all of that... It may have been "perfect" but it was pretty damn boring.

And the bronze/colorful statues were more from the Mycenaean era. Most Greek statues started out as stiff renditions of the human form (kouros and kore) and progressed to more realistic and relaxed positions, but it was still all about the human form and the perfection contained within. I prefer some abstraction and fun shapes, such as the Egyptian frescoes, pyramids, and tombs.