Is there hope, or is hope a lie?

hope is a delusion that keeps people going is it real no is it good yes without hope people have no reason to live but with hope people can do extraordinary thing even tho there hope was a delusion

Man I could copy and paste this comment section to get an A on my mythology essay lol.

According to ancient Greek Mythology, the supreme god Zeus wanted to punish humanity for learning how to control fire, which was said to be something only meant for the Gods and not for mortals.

Now one of the punishment was a box they were never allowed to open. However, Pandora could resist her curiosity and opened the box. As a result she unleashed all misery that humans have suffered ever since. From big things like war and murder, to even small things like bumping your head.

Now the story is quite often compared to the story about Eve and the apple from Genesis in the Bible. In both cases a young woman could not resist their curiosity, and in both cases the man (symbolizing humanity as a whole) paid the ultimate price. Yes, to modern standards we can assume this so be a kind of "warning" to watch the behavior of women, or at least historians believe so. (Keep in mind in which time these stories were written or began to be passed on from generation to generation).

In Pandora's case there is a little rub that leaves you something to think about though. Pandora was so shocked by seeing what she unleashed, that she immediately slammed the box shut. Now it was too late, as nearly everything in the box already came out, except for one thing. Hope. Hope still remained in the box. And this left many people to discuss what the people who came up with this story wanted to say with that.

One theory says that due to Pandora slamming the box shut leaving hope in the box, that all hope is lost, and that we have to accept our fate, horrible as it is.

Another theory says that one day the box will be opened again so hope can come out saving us from certain doom.

A third theory says that it was only fitting hope was in the box as well, as hope is a poisoned gift on its own, since hope is often used to delude ourselves thinking things will get better, when they actually never well.

What do you think? Is there really no hope, or will the box indeed be opened so there will be hope again, or is hope really nothing more but an illusion? Or do you have a complete different theory?

Whatever it was, the ancient Greeks wanted to tell us with that little twist is something that always puzzled me and fascinated me.

The concern about women is real and some might blame them as the problem. Yet there is no human's simplistic responsibility, male or female. Rules or laws or even belief that are used to control us, offer few perfect resources. Some say rely on love. Others fate. Others intuition. It's all the same indirect attempt to be good, as I probably cannot explain below. Still I will try by not trying - another indirect process.

Zeus's would have been well aware [if there is a supreme God, which is the presumption of your question] that Pandora would be unable to resist. The Greeks new this and so took the myths with a grain of salt. Zeus punishment was not to be thought of as a thing to emulate. What happens to women is different from how to behave towards them.

Besides life was so tough back then no man needed a religion to offer guide to his actions. And no women would put up with men who did. Hence Pandoras wilfulness in the first place

Zeus's back then was mainly a force of nature and we have progressed very very little since then in gaining knowledge of nature. I have thought on this question since childhood if that is any recommendation to my claim. Despite what Stephen Hawking et.al. teach us - satirical aside

Christianity in claiming that humankind is saved addresses this concern about the nature of women. Men can in essence help them through there temptation. Though that temptation is existential; it's not just earhtly desire or lack of logical restraint. What women do is who thery are & meddling with that is what cursed mankind. This is not to say women should be worshipped etc.

So religions are disingenuous out of need. In really going on with our own natures we would curse ourselves worse. That is how religion becomes more confident and also more obscure. Greeks sound like they have all the answers where Christ at the moment of his death cried out confused. He asked God why this had been his fate. His plea mirrors Pandora's indecisiveness in slamming the box at the last moment.

Most by now have known this so doing the right thing continues to be mysterious. Feminism itself is the (metaphorical) hope in the box; masculinity then is a heroes quest to understand an unfathomable predicament. Women, being better with the understanding and less better with creating solutions, both need help and decry it

I don't know if that helps?

Note: my sources are esoteric at best and I am a lot more feminist and a lot less Christian than my theory above

"Zeus's would have been well aware that Pandora would be unable to resist."
As a matter of fact, as far as I understand the myth in full, Pandora herself was a gift by Zeus, one that humans did not want to accept as given the situation they felt trouble coming, yet no mortal being should reject a gift from God, right? Zeus actually planned for it that Pandora would open the box. And yes, even though the humans knew that accepting Pandora (and therefore the gift of female human beings in general) was going to give them trouble, the trap set by Zeus sprung, anyway.

Now my question was not really about feminism and the old views on that, I merely mentioned the sexism from modern point of view, as a side note. I do however think it's safe to assume that the one of the messages in the story is indeed that nothing but trouble can come if you leave a woman unchecked. Not a message I agree with, though. Let that one be clear. I may be a guy myself, but I've never really understood why my gender would make me superior or anything. I merely mentioned the general consensus about women back in the days of ancient Greece.

The actual question I set this about is your theory about "hope" as that was the only thing which couldn't get out of the box, due to Pandora slamming the box shut so quickly. Is there no hope, and are we really lost? Or will the box open again when the situation is really dire, so hope will spread over us again? Or is hope a poisoned gift as hope makes us cast the illusion everything will be alright even against better judgment?

Modern fiction such as Van Helsing suggest there is hope. A women - with power to resist vampires - is put here as a kind of safeguard for things going completely wrongly. This has to be taken with a huge lump of salt, of course.

Her world is fully apocalyptic. And it is difficult to see realitically what kind of hope is being portrayed there. I don't pretend to be a prophet myself. So I cannot do more to answer your question.

I thought it was in there so we didn't give up hope

Going from your story about how Greek religion and philosophy, I would have to say there is hope(I'm Christian and personally, I've never really studied Greek mythology so I apologize in advance for anything). I would think hope is already here but, at the same time, it's not. Sometimes, I like to think of hope as a point of perspective. We've all been in situations with other people where you or someone else felt hopeless but you or somebody felt there was still hope; now, whether or not you still prevailed from whatever situation, two people had two different perspectives of the situation. One was pessimistic - hopeless, while the other was optimistic - hopeful. Now, this is debatable but pessimism and optimism are rather points of perspectives of someone's personality and overall view of the world, and if hope is just another way of saying you're optimistic or pessimistic of the situation. So all in all, it's a point of perspective because no matter how you look at things, there's always gonna be light and darkness to see, it's only a matter of how much light and dark you choose to see.

So if I interpret your words well, slamming the box shut so hope remains in there, merely means the situation may look like we're doomed now, but remember, that hope is still in the box and it will come out eventually? That comes pretty close to theory #2, I think.

I won't blame you for not knowing this story. Greek mythology is very large and complex and knowing it all is nearly impossible. I learned this stuff in my history lessons. Remember back then there was no Christianity as Jesus Christ came later. There were many many religions back then of which the Greek and Egyptian ones are the most famous, among with the Nordic.

Indeed optimism and pessimism are points of perspective. I think I can interpret your view is... yes a lot of trouble came out of the box, but remember, there's always hope, even though we don't feel is it's still in the box, but that doesn't mean it isn't there. And perhaps that is quite an optimistic, yet not too bad thought out theory.

If you feel hope, it is actually there. Does that feeling behoove us? I think that depends on the individual and on how they choose to use the feeling.