Ancient Greece tore away the heavy shroud of mysticism woven for centuries in
murky temples, and achieved, in three centuries, what Egypt had not dreamed of
in thirty: a civilization that was essentially pro-man and pro-life. The
achievements of the Greeks rested on their confidence in the power of man’s
mind—the power of reason. For the first time, men sought to understand the
causes of natural phenomena, and gradually replaced superstition with the
beginnings of science. For the first time, men sought to guide their lives by
the judgment of reason, instead of resorting exclusively to divine will and
revelation.
The Greeks built temples for their gods, but they conceived of their gods as
perfect human beings, rejecting the cats, crocodiles and cow-headed
monstrosities enshrined and worshiped by the Egyptians. Greek gods personified
abstractions such as Beauty, Wisdom, Justice, Victory, which are proper human
values. In the Greek religion, there was no omnipotent mystical authority and
no organized priesthood. The Greek had only a vague idea of, and little
interest in, an afterlife.