Greek influence on western culture.

Hello Everyone,

I haven't written anything in quite some time. I was sitting down and thinking as I usually do :) and I started thinking about Greece. I often think of the many places I would love to travel to and Greece is one of them. Well I am always fascinated by it's people and by it's culture and history. A history that has had major influences on our culture today than any other country...as a matter of fact..they have had more influence on the world today than any other. Lets start with one of the now most famous battles in history made popular by the movie 300. There is some fact to that movie and some extremes also. One fact is yes there were 300 Spartans..what they don't tell you is there were about 1,000 Thespians from Thespia there who died right along with them. Well...the battle was called the battle of Thermopily I may be incorrect in the spelling but at this point it's not important.
Greece and it's influence
Lets start with history its self. Herodotus was the first historian and was actually responsible for the detailed battle of the 300 Spartan war. Herodotus wrote in something he called his "histories". Now during the Persian war with Greece. Herodotus wrote something about Persian messengers that we actually use today in our culture..see if you can guess what it's used in today. "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." Figure it out? If you guessed the U.S. Post Office your right. If you guessed Fed Ex I'm going to slap you! What Herodotus was referring to were the Persian messengers to king Xerxes. Herodotus is considered the father of history. History in Greek means "Investigations"

Greece is probably more responsible for the way we entertain ourselves more than you know. They were the originators of dramatic and comedic plays. The Greeks also invented tragedy, the basis of modern plays, skits, and movies. Comedy made its appearance with Aristophanes. Aristophanes was a Greek playwright and only wrote comedies. The Greeks had many plays. The Greeks had two main types of plays Tragedy and a comedy. A tragedy was a drama with themes about love, hate, war, and/or betrayal. A comedy was a way to get political messages to the public, or just to "poke fun" at a certain group, or class of people. They were the first practitioners of mathematics. The creation of democracy and republics came from the Greeks philosophy on political science. It was the Greeks who actually thought and came up with the first siege engines, the first alarm clock and many other things.


Greek influence on medicine
One of the first physicians Hippocrates was known as the "Father of Medicine." He was the first to do a treatise on human anatomy and bodily ailments. He also wrote an oath, known as the Hippocratic Oath, which lays out ethics for physicians and which is still in use today. Greek culture spread throughout the Mediterranean region, laid the foundation for the Roman Empire, and later, growing, Romans carried on much of the Greek culture upon Europe, adding to it the Roman system of law.

Greek Politics and American Politics.
The Greeks affected many of our constitutional rights. In both the US democracy and the Athenian democracy political power can be exercised by citizens. An example of the political power to be exercised by the citizen in Athens was that laws were voted on and proposed directly by assembly of all citizens. Both the US and the Athenian government had the Legislative branch, the Executive branch, and the Judicial branch. The Legislative branch passes the laws, the Executive branch carries out the laws, and the Judicial branches had trials with paid jurors. In the US most of the democratic theories that the government uses are either identical or very similar to the Ancient Athenians theories.

Greek sports
Greeks affected sports in western civilization. Myron's famous sculpture, the Discus Thrower is an example of a kind of sport in ancient Greek times that resembled modern day javelin mixed with Frisbee. Greece was the first civilization to incorporate sports and make it a tradition. Greece was the hosts of the first Olympics, the sports that this involved were Running, Chariot racing, wrestling, boxing, javelin, and many more sports. The only difference now..is that back then they competed for honor and glory now they just bite your ear off for a belt made out of gold..or an elbow to the face to win a gold basket ball trophy.

The Art of Greece.
The fine arts of Greece affect western civilization. The discus thrower and most other Greek sculptures are emotionless, and usually capture the serenity of motion, and were always proportional, this form of art was known as classical art. Many sculptures and paintings of presidents, and high ranking military leaders are emotionless. The Greeks believed that the emotionless art showed a sense of power. So see...naked people aren't all that bad.


There are many instances...The battle of Marathon..against the Persians. After the Persians were defeated a runner was sent to Athens from Marathon which was about 24 to 26 miles and when he got to Athens he yelled "Nike!" meaning victory. And that is why Marathons today are the distance they are and those shoes on your feet actually mean "Victory" :)

Well I'm sure theres more to talk about and maybe I'll post some more..but I hope you enjoyed our journey into history. :) Take care.

Eli

The Time Travelers Mind

I have been doing a lot of reading and trying to understand the human mind, not just for its abilities but for its inabilities. It is said that humans use 10% of their brains and we still do not fully understand the power of the mind. Why? Why did God creator make us with the ability to only use 10% of our mind? Well the only one that can answer that would be Him, so let's move on to our own understanding of the mind.
Now we know that there are brilliant people in this world and all of us are brilliant in our own way but what if some of us have found a way to tap into the untouchable portions of the mind, specifically our memories and understanding time. I believe that our minds are a sort of time machine, they can take us back in memory without the body to a specific point in time but can never take us forward. We can hope and dream about a future, but we are never sure of it, but the thing that brings hope is that we plan on our future, and we put the wheels in motion that take us to that point in our futures. So let's take a look at the mind here, if the mind can remember a point in time (the past) would it be possible to take the body along with it? Well maybe not by just thinking about it, the body would need some kind of vehicle to take it there, some type of way to get to that one spot, consider the three dimensions, the first is moving forward and back wards, the second is moving side to side and the third is up and down, well what about a fourth dimension? That dimension would be called space and time...time travel. As you can see the body needs some sort of way to go through the first three dimensions, well...your legs...they transport you through those dimensions. So now we know that the body needs a way to go through space and time. Now we see the inability of the mind to physically transport us through space and time, but learning from our minds inabilities should help us understand more of what needs to be achieved through thought process and tapping into the mind.
Is time travel possible? Well lets look at some information that would suggest so.
The bible...yes the bible. In the bible Angels travel back and fourth to God and earth, it is said that angels are sent to and fro, even when the devil himself appeared before God in the book of job chpt 1 vrs 6-7 and God asked Satan, "Where have you come from?" Satan answered the LORD, "From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it." so there it shows that Satan did travel from place to place, and angels did the same thing for Satan was once an angel, now..God himself is what is called omnipresent which means to be present everywhere at the same time. Albert Einstein was one of the first to come up with the idea of a wormhole. He described time as a straight line...so if you took a sheet of paper and laid it flat and draw a point at one end and another point in the opposite end you would have a beginning point and and ending point, the beginning point being the past and the ending point being the present and the whole space in between would be time and space, what the theory of a wormhole does is if you take that piece of paper and fold it in half then it connects those two points, brining them closer.
The Good and Bad of Time travel. Some scientist believe that if one were to go back in time that they could disrupt their own futures. The "granny paradox" comes into play here or so it's called, where the time traveler goes back in time and inadvertently kills their grandmother when she was a little girl, therefore the travelers mother was never born and the time traveler himself was never born and in which case they did not go back in time to kill granny. It seems like a constant circle, you can sit and try and figure this one out all day and night, he kills his granny inadvertently ..then the traveler never born and never goes back in time to kill her, so then she would not be killed in which case the travelers mother would be born and so would the traveler. Don't bother trying...it's not worth it, lol.
Here's a less gruesome example and this based on a book by David Gerrold called "The Man Who Folded Himself" (published in 1973) in this book he speaks of a man who
stumbles on a time travel device brought back to the present by a visitor from the far future. He steals it and sets up home in a deserted stretch of time, constantly worrying about being found by the old man he stole the time machine from -- until one day, many years later, he realizes that he is now the old man, and carefully arranges for his younger self to "find" and "steal" the time machine. So are there dangers in the time travel process, well it seems very likely. I believe that time does exist for it is time we live in, some theories are that there are other planets in different solar systems just like ours and that people just like you and I exist on these planets. Some even believe and alternet world where instead of Bush being president that Al Gore became president. Or instead of me having dark hair, I probably have blond hair, which would be a bad personal decision and my alternet self was probably drunk or out of their mind.
I hope I have brought to light some ideas of the theory of time travel, and the human mind, just think what if Adam and Eve never would have eaten from the apple, would we still have used 10% of our brains? After all Adam did name all the animals of the earth, so it says in scripture, don't worry when we die and go to heaven (well at least some of us) I'll be sure to get in the "Kick Adam in the behind" line and you ladies can get in the "Slap Eve upside the head" line.
Thank you for stopping and reading.

The Ghost and Skeptic

There are many people in this world who would say something like.."I believe in ghost but I've never seen one." and that's fine but, what about people who have never seen them and don't believe? I's it fair to think that way? After all half of the people who say thing's like that are self proclaimed Christians. They get the idea that ghost don't exist because the bible they say, says there are no ghost, or that all ghosts' are demons. Well lets take a look at what the bible says about ghost shall we? Now, I'm not a bible scholar and thats ok, 80% of the people who believe in the bible aren't eather.
But if we look in the bible in the book of Luke 24:38-40 "Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have." now that's where Jesus appeared to the apostles 3 days after his death, and spoke to them. Now in that bible verse is where you see Jesus speaking of ghost, he didn't say demonic spirit or angelic spirit..see there's a difference and he knows that, he specifically said "ghost". Now I do believe that there are people who confuse demonic spirits and even angelic spirits as ghosts, but all that aside, yes there are ghosts.
Lets examine other areas in the bible where ghosts are mentioned. (Remember I am not speaking on the subject to convert your ideas just make a point, and no I am not a religious person.) Heres some more biblical mentioning of ghosts Luke 24:36-38 "They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost."
Matthew 14:25-27 "When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear." This passage in the bible speaks of when the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water towards them.
So since they spoke of ghosts there must have been reported accounts of ghosts.
People need to understand something, just because you don't see it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. It brings to mind of the Christian philosophy of faith, probably just about as many people have had experiences with ghosts as people with God, and sometimes not always in a good way as far as both go. In the end, people who believed in God were ridiculed and now the same goes for people who believe in ghosts and often times it's the Christians doing the ridiculing of those people. Maybe people need to step back and not criticize the people....and maybe just maybe people could only understand and investigate what the fuss is about to find an answer together, cause bickering on who believes in what wont settle anything...but finding an answer to the mysteries in life, is more worth the effort we put in.


(Photo courtesy of Tina. http://hellfirediva.deviantart.com/)