Religion does not only affect politics but is also susceptible to be affected by politics. During the time of Homer, many did not criticize his views of the Greek Gods and the way they are described. They each had human characteristics and human weakness as well. The Greek Gods were able to be deceived, tempted, and also have lust. That was until Xenophanes, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of Colophon came about. He opposed the anthropomorphic representation of the Gods common to the Greeks since Homer and Hesiod. Instead he asserted there is only one god, eternal and immutable but intimately connected with the world. His school, the Eleatic school, a Greek colony in Lucania, Italy, was founded in the early 5th century B.C. There it taught its pupils to deny the reality of change on the ground that things either exist or do not exist. Hence, there are no in-between stages (Dillery 58) . The ultimate reality for the Eleatics was an indifferentiated “being,” in contrast to the illusory testimony of the senses. Or in short, it was the beginnings of trying to understand the physical reality and how things work, science. Earlier in history, man did not understand many things around him as well as he was not able to control many of the things around him, so he had it that the gods controlled it and be it. With the advancement of civilization, there was no need anymore for a god of wind or such because now, we understood why things happen and began being able to control such things as flooding or certain sicknesses. Furthermore during the same period, a great philosopher named Socrates was teaching that we should question more the things that we do to better understand them. Although a patriot and a man of deep religious conviction, Socrates was nonetheless regarded with suspicion by many of his contemporaries, who disliked his attitude toward the Athenian state and the established religion. He was charged in 399 B.C. with “neglecting the gods of the state and introducing new divinities, a reference to the daemonion, or mystical inner voice”, to which Socrates often referred (Vlastos 108). He was also charged with corrupting the morals of the young, leading them away from the principles of the democracy.

The Bible describes the Babylonian conquest not as an imperial power overwhelming a smaller state, but as a sign from God that the “kingdom of Judea had not behaved with the proper piety” (129) . It interprets the exile as punishment for sin, not as imperial policy to control a conquered enemy. According to this interpretation, the kingdom could be restored and the covenant could live on if the people of Judea repented. This is an example of how powerful some religious prophets could be in the government. The prophets chiefly give credit to the Gods for their visions whether it was received via a dream or through any other viable means. At times, nations would rest their entire military or social nature on what a prophet claimed he has seen from God. This was due to the fact that nations fear that if they did not head the warnings or instructions given by the prophet, they would be “punished” just as Israel had during the Babylonian Captivity.

The citizens of ancient Egypt were no different. They worshipped the major divinities such as the Sun-God and the Water God but also local Gods and home Gods as well. To each different god they mad

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