@meratrix There's an argument to be made that humans didn't full reach conciousness until the 3rd century BC, around the time of the philosophers, and when polytheistic systems started to develop metaphysical substructure to describe them

There were plenty of philosophers well before that.

So it went from "The other guys worship a different God" to "the God is a manifestation of X"

And how are you defining consciousness?

Well the gods were all still manifestations, but each city had their own.

The ability to congnisate

Think about thinking

It's evident in the stories as well

Prior to this, the Greek myths delegate pretty much all actions onto the relevant God associated with it.

Afterwards, the gods become less involved, and their favor it asked for, but actioms and free thought are associated with individuals

? as far as im concerned all you need for consciousness is language, because without that you cant ask yourself questions about yourself, you just are, and in that state you are like an animal, and if you cant ask yourself if you exist then you dont know anything 'I think therefore I am'

That may also have to do with how the history was sourced. Much of the earlier history and the myths were oral before they were written down, where as the later stuff, especially in Rome, was very heavily documented.

And as with much oral history, "it sounds cool add that to the story".

But both are sourced from Roman writings.

The difference being that the origin of the tale is much older

both?

you mean the earlier stuff with more gods and the later stuff with less?

unless they had a super simple language, i dont see how they wouldnt have ever analysed their existence/thought about thought

Read them

Its really interesting

Pretty much every scenario in which you would assume a self-congnising situation, the person blames a god for their own behavior or actions, good or bad.

It's like they think of themselves as mere puppets

Theres a whole psychological theory surrounding this as well

but that just sound like how people think the voice in their head is god

Yes. Imagine your inner monologue bei g someone else's voice. Multiple voices.

I don't think they necessarily viewed it that way, I've always seen it more as a way of explaining things they can't explain otherwise. And they definitely had an understanding of good and bad actions, code of Hammurabi.

Why would they have had such laws if they thought their god was responsible.

Oh I'm not saying they didn't understand good or bad

oh

I'm saying for both good and bad actions, they hardly attribute those things to themselves

Well I think the fact that those laws exist shows that they did indeed attribute them to themselves, otherwise why have them.

If their not responsible then why would the punish them.

spitting truths

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology)

the old '*god told me to ride the horse into the twin huts*'

@meratrix Morality is merely a byproduct of natural law. It seems obvious that the gods would want punishment to befall someone who violates it

Not if that god is the one doing the violation.

by what your saying, they wouldnt view it as them violating it, they would view it as the god puppeting them

Yes

The gods are acting through them for violating the natural law

how could they truely believe that if people had different opinions on things???

Because, believe it or not, morality is actually objective

One of the criticisms I see there is something I thought of a few minutes ago, the Epic of Gilgamesh is very introspective, contrary to the theory.

no I mean, if they thought their thoughts were actually the thoughts of the gods, how could the believe that knowing that different people thought different things?