Summarize the major differences between Olympian and Dionysiac-Orphic religion.
During the century of fifth and sixth B.C., the Greeks explained different concepts that were predominantly considered as religious in nature. Hence, they postulated two major theologies known as the Olympian religion and the Dionysiac-Orphic religion.
Olympian religion consists of a true concept in the Olympian gods as suggested in the Homeric poems. These gods tend to be more amoral and irascible and generally shows little concern about the anxieties of ordinary humans. In this type of religion, it was believed that the breath and soul exists after death without any lasting of the memories or individual’s personality traits. Such a belief predicts that life after death enhances fullest and most enjoyable way of living in one’s matter of life.
The Olympian gods displays personified rationality, linear orderliness and valued intelligence power. The Olympian gods tend to show the more beliefs and characteristics as compared to the members of the Greek upper class. The Greek nobles favored the Olympian religion.
Dionysiac-Orphic religion is a major alternative to Olympian religion. This religion was usually based on the concept of Dionysus that was considered as the god of wine and sexual frenzy and his disciple Orpheus. It was central to the belief of transmigration of the soul that predicts that during its divine existence, it exists among the gods, a sin was committed by the soul and the soul was interlocked into a physical body that acts like prison.
In this type of religion, the soul was continued as a “circle of births” that finds inhabiting an animal, then a plant, then a human, then a plant again and so on. The soul exists from the transmigration and then return to its pure, transcendent, divine life among the gods.