The Creation Of Humanity

The Creation of Humanity

(the creation of humans, the Day of Fire, Prometheus' punishment)

The Gods were bored and needed something to do, something to provide them with entertainment. So Zeus set the Gods to work - having them each mold the creatures to populate the Earth with. They quickly busied themselves with their jobs, and soon all of the Earth's creatures were formed.

Next the creatures needed abilities - something to set them apart from others and give them a fighting chance of survival, after all, it wouldn't be very entertaining if they all died of within a couple hundred years. For this job, Prometheus was chosen. Prometheus is the Titan God of forethought, making him very suited for the job of ensuring species' survival. However, Prometheus' brother, Epimetheus (Titan God of afterthought), wanted a chance to prove himself and asked to do Prometheus' job, promising that he would let him inspect his work before they presented it to the rest of the Gods.

Prometheus begrudgingly agreed and Epimetheus began his work, taking great care with the abilities he gives to the creatures. Once he had finished his job he proudly showed his handiwork to his brother. Prometheus was pleasantly surprised, until he noticed a neglected figure that hadn't been given any abilities. He turned to his brother, asking him about the creature. Distraught at his mistake, Epimetheus admitted that he didn't have any abilities left to give to the creature - the 'human being'. There was no time to make amends and the creatures were presented to the rest of the Gods, who - delighted with their creations - populated the Earth with the various species.

It was immediately clear that humanity would not survive very long, their lack of abilities put their species at a huge disadvantage. Despite them being doomed to extinction, Prometheus felt a strong affinity towards human beings and realised that they needed a unique ability to survive as a species. And so he gave them one.

It came down like a lightning bolt, and suddenly the previously helpless humans were gifted Promethean intelligence.

Their newfound intelligence allowed humans to develop speech and spread survival techniques amongst themselves. The rest of the Gods naturally assumed that intelligence was humanity's ability. The Gods realised that due to their intelligence, human beings could fear the future.

And of course, the Gods were doing this for entertainment, so they made it so humans had to offer sacrifices to the Gods and ask them for the future to turn out the way they wanted. In order to give sacrifices they needed to have fire. Prometheus realised this quickly and convinced Zeus to allow humans to have fire in exchange for a portion of the human's sacrifices. Zeus declared that 'this is the Day of Fire,' adding that 'What is done today is final.'

Prometheus is given the task of separating the portions of the sacrifice for the Gods to decide which sections would be offered to the Gods. Prometheus wraps all of the best bits of meat in the cow's stomach, giving it the appearance of haggis. Next he covered the skeleton with fat and put the hide back on it. Zeus picks the skeleton.

When he realised he had been tricked Zeus was enraged. As punishment for Prometheus' deception, he took the fire away from the humans, wanting Prometheus to have to watch the humans he loves so dearly die out. Prometheus still wanted to help humanity to survive, so he broke into Hephaestus' workshop in a last ditch effort. He stole fire from the workshop, hiding it in the stalk of a fennel plant. Once he gave human beings fire, they celebrated and danced all night, overjoyed at the gift of fire. No matter what the Gods wanted to do, what was done that day was final.

Safe to say, Zeus is pissed. Prometheus is bound with chains forged by Hephaestus. He's dragged down from Mount Olympus and the chains binding him are driven into a rock. Everyday an eagle ate his liver. Overnight his liver regenerated and his body healed only for the eagle to come back again the next day.

And so he was stuck in his cruel punishment until 30,000 years later when Heracles is tasked with killing the eagle that has been tormenting Prometheus. He succeeds and Prometheus is left bound and naked, but at least the worst part of his punishment was over.

Years later, Prometheus negotiated with Zeus, offering him information on his and Thetis' future son in exchange for his freedom. At Mount Olympus Prometheus is made to wear a garland around his head, as a constant reminder of his chains.

His job was done - humanity was well and truly alive.

THEY

God I love my religion. this community has so much love and acceptance and the theoi have so much love and acceptance and uuughh I love you all <33

I swear some times the gods are treated like cartoon characters by people and it absolutely drives me up the wall.

Sorry who are you to pick favorites out of

Gods

Literal gods, like i get it that people have different connections but i would not be caught dead "playing favorites" or picking "whos the coolest god omgs" or "who has the most controversy" i swear people act like their celebrities that you can just pick from the roster and have an eternal celebrity walking around with you that you get to play favorites with

When the reality of practice is a bond formed over time and a two way street that requires dedication and trust. You have to work for a bond you have to show up and be there and theyll meet you half way. Dont disrespect that by shoving another deity or other deitys down because you have a "favorite" dont you think they value their bonds with eachother? Dont you see they have a community outside of /you/ cant you stop being the mc for like two seconds and realize it isnt entirely about just you and that the gods have other people they care about too??? Maybe other gods???

Im just tired of tiktok and polls being like "whos your favorite greek god" when i thought it was common knowladge that they infact dont appreciate being compared to one another and its just happening all the time like a game

Just bothers me some times, like you can say you have a bond or you love one particularly, but saying you play favorites with gods is too much.

no matter how important your deity is, remember it's okay to say no. you don't automatically have to do what they say, you're allowed to question and refuse. it's genuinely very healthy to exercise this.