Was Ancient Greek Religion originally Mono-theist?

you can count me in for celebrating a Dionysian festival, honoring the god of wine and lust in physical ways, and I'm not even Greek! 

Originally posted by Bulldog Actually you'll find most religions began as Monothiest, later it turned to polythiesm to explain the immense power of the creater God in way's more easier for us to comprehend. For example Hinduism was initially Monothiest and to some still is.

In general I would agree. Going back at least as far as the middle bronze age, the religions of tribes and city states in the near east revolved around single individual patron gods. These tutelary deities usually functioned as the creator of the universe, founder of the town, and the sustainers of fertility. In fact in pre-dynastic Egypt the word to settlement translated literally as "abode of the god".  Syncretistic polytheism only arose systematically out of the need to accommodate the conquered peoples(and their gods) of large multi-cultural empires.

I think though, the closest the ancient Greeks ever came to monotheism was Hesiod's Theogony. The earliest "greeks" the Mycenaeans, principally worshiped their tutelary mother goddess Potnia (Our lady of Mycenae, of  Athens, of Knossos, etc.) but also dozens of lesser gods and goddesses, including some of the classical ones...  

Monotheistic,Good comes as male&female,it depends of characteristic&feature you need!It looks like omnipotent Good which it is still!

Edited by medenaywe - 23-Dec-2014 at 05:16