The question “why did this happen?” becomes dangerous when we arrive at inaccurate answers. If you lived in ancient Greece three thousand years ago and an earthquake destroyed your home and killed your child, the question “why did this happen?” could lead to strange answers when you lacked a scientific explanation for natural disasters. To understand how our brilliant reasoning ability and vivid human imagination can cause us to arrive at odd conclusions when we lack scientific evidence, consider the following logic.
An earthquake seems like a violent and destructive act. After all, earthquakes destroy things and kill people. When human beings become angry, they can also destroy things and kill people. So maybe an earthquake happens because nature is angry, similar to how an angry person might shake a table, smash a piece of furniture, or knock someone down. But why would nature be angry? People often become angry when someone does something hurtful and offensive to them. Did we do something hurtful and offensive to nature? If we change our behavior, can we stop nature from being angry, and will nature stop hurting us with earthquakes?
In ancient Greece and many other parts of the world, gods were personifications of nature. Instead of saying an earthquake was caused by “nature,” most people living thousands of years ago would have said the name of a deity who symbolized nature. Many ancient cultures believed violent gods caused earthquakes, but because our vivid human imagination can invent many different explanations for earthquakes, numerous ancient cultures believed gigantic divine animals were the underlying cause of earthquakes. Among the Tzotzil people in southern Mexico, a story emerged that a cosmic jaguar caused earthquakes by scratching itself against the pillars of the world. And in Mongolia many believed that a massive frog that carried the earth on its back caused earthquakes by twitching.8
Today science has revealed that earthquakes are caused by shifting “tectonic plates” rather than angry Greek gods or gigantic divine animals.* In addition to creating inaccurate divine explanations for the causes of earthquakes, our ancient ancestors also created inaccurate natural explanations. Journalist Andrew Robinson tells us:
In classical antiquity Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea, was usually considered to be responsible for earthquakes—perhaps not surprisingly, given the destructive power in the Aegean and Mediterranean of earthquake-induced tsunamis. Poseidon was said to cause earthquakes while striking his trident on the ground when he became annoyed. However, some Greek philosophers proposed natural, rather than divine, explanations for earthquakes. Thales, for example, writing around 580 BC, believed that the earth was floating on the oceans and that water movements were responsible for earthquakes. By contrast, Anaximenes, who also lived in the sixth century BC, proposed that rocks falling in the interior of the earth must strike other rocks and produce reverberations.9
According to Greek mythology, Poseidon caused earthquakes because he was angry, using his massive trident to violently shake the earth. The Iliad refers to Poseidon as “the god of the quakes who grips and pounds the earth.”10 In Greek mythology, Poseidon was a personification of the ocean that caused earthquakes, floods, droughts, and storms.
Why was Poseidon portrayed as angry and violent? Imagine if you did not have a scientific understanding of the ocean or the causes of weather, and you believed the ocean had a human personality. How would you describe the ocean’s personality? The ocean can be calm, gentle, and generous. It can give us fish to eat and the means for travel and commerce. Many ancient societies built their economies on professions that relied on the ocean.
But the ocean can also be a destroyer. It can sink ships, drown people, and devastate the land with storms and other natural disasters. If you lacked a scientific understanding of the ocean and imagined it behaved like a human being, and you tried to describe its personality, you would probably say it was fickle, moody, and prone to anger and violence. It could be generous today and destructive tomorrow. This is the way many ancient Greeks viewed Poseidon, a god who was known for his abundant gifts and terrible wrath. Classics scholar Walter Burkert explains why the ancient Greeks saw earthquakes and storms as violent acts of wrath: “Poseidon remains an embodiment of elemental force; sea storm and earthquake are the most violent forms of energy directly encountered by man [emphasis added].”11
Why did the ancient Greeks believe that a violent god, rather than the innocent movements of a divine animal, caused earthquakes? Perhaps environmental, architectural, and cultural reasons made the Greeks more likely to believe in violent gods. Environmentally speaking, earthquakes and tsunamis were especially destructive in ancient Greece. According to the Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece, “The maximum intensity [of earthquakes] is much higher in some parts of the Aegean because they lie close to the edge of tectonic plates.”12 Because of the catastrophic earthquakes and tsunamis that affected the Aegean, nature may have seemed more “violent” to a person living in ancient Greece than a person living in many other parts of the ancient world.
Architecturally speaking, the ancient Greeks constructed stone buildings that could collapse and crush people during an earthquake, and entire cities could be devastated when the ground shook. Consequently, earthquakes posed a greater threat to the ancient Greeks than to many other cultures. Professor Amos Nur tells us, “The nomadic people who dominated most of North America in the distant past were probably affected only slightly by any but the greatest earthquakes. Their lightweight construction materials made their homes neither particularly dangerous in earthquakes nor particularly difficult to rebuild.”13
Culturally speaking, perhaps the religious views of the ancient Greeks shaped their attitude toward natural disasters, although it could be that severe natural disasters in Greek prehistory actually shaped their religious views. Nevertheless, the bottom line is this: if the ancient Greeks saw nature as violent and dangerous because of the devastating earthquakes and tsunamis that killed their families and destroyed their cities, can we really blame them?
To appease Poseidon’s wrath, the Greeks often sacrificed animals. Why did they do this? One reason is because Poseidon could seem like a psychopath who might murder you and your family when he was upset. Helen Scales explains: “Sailors and fishermen made sure not to incur the sea god’s wrath; they built temples to worship him, drowned sacrificial horses in his name, and implored him for safe passage across the seas.”14
When we project a human personality onto the destructive forces of nature, then nature can seem psychotic. Although some ancient Greeks such as the politician Pericles, playwright Euripides, and poet Diagoras seemed to believe Poseidon was a metaphor rather than a real personality, many believed if they spilled blood on Poseidon’s behalf, perhaps he would not massacre their families. Many ancient Greeks believed that their gods expressed anger through natural disasters and plagues. Hesiod, a Greek poet who lived around the seventh century BC, wrote, “But for those who practice violence and cruel deeds far-seeing Zeus, the son of Cronos, ordains a punishment. Often even a whole city suffers for a bad man who sins … [Zeus] lays great trouble upon the people, famine and plague together, so that the men perish away.”15
Many ancient Greeks also believed that Poseidon and other Greek gods could become so enraged that they would slaughter children. Just as natural disasters and plagues do not spare the lives of children, the Greek gods were capable of killing without mercy or remorse. If a human being were diagnosed with these behaviors, we would call that person a psychopath.
Although my other books offer abundant evidence showing that human beings are not naturally violent, for many years I wondered, “If human beings are not naturally violent, why did so many of our early ancestors worship gods capable of psychotic wrath?” An obvious answer is that