Greek God Hades

In western Christian society the word "Hades" definitely has negative connotations or at the very least is the word that refers to a place that a person doesn't want to be. In modern western society Hell or Hades can mean literally the place that the bible describes as being where Satan dwells and unfortunate souls of the dead are endlessly tortured or the word can be used to describe an unfortunate situation such a s job or relationship "that was hell".

Where did the word come from? While almost every society and culture on the planet has or has had some basic concept of an underworld that is or was at the very least a place best to be avoided, the word Hades originally was the name given to the Greek god that had dominion over the underworld that the ancient Greeks envisioned.

The place where this ancient Greek god dwelled in the underworld was referred to as "Haidou" which when translated means "house of Hades" but over the course of time it was shortened to "Hades" and this is how the common reference to the Christian vision of an underworld was derived.

As ancient Greek legend has it, Hades was the son of the defeated Titans Cronos and Rhea and he was one of the siblings of Hades, Zeus that forced Cronos to regurgitate after he had eaten them. After the war with the Titans was over and the Titans were defeated as Greek legend also tells that all of the gods took up residence on Mount Olympus and Hades chose the underworld below the mountain as his domain.

The ancient Greeks took a different view of the underworld and the god called Hades that dwelled there then most other other religious people do today. However; there were some distinct similarities in the way that the Greeks saw things such as them envisioning Hades underworld as being the place where the souls of some of their dead dwelled in for the most part, unfortunate circumstances.

The Greek god Hades had a consort as did most of the other Greek gods and she was named Persephone and it was through trickery and deceit that he managed to convince her to stay with him. This fit right in with the Greeks view of Hades as a wise yet cunning and deceitful god. In Greek mythology Hades not only ruled over the underworld which was viewed as an undesirable place for a soul to be confined but he also ruled over what the ancient Greeks referred to as Elysian Fields which was their version of heaven.