Pagan gods walk the Earth.

[The Grim Squeaker]

He did hold up the sky, a feat that would require (From a thread I made on thsi here in SL&M):

Just a nitpick..but Hercules did NOT hold up the Earth. He was, in fact, standing *on* the Earth and holding up the sky, taking the job over from Atlas temporarily.

Although the mental image of Atlas standing on his hands for years at a stretch is thoroughly amusing.

True.
Man I feel Humiliated, I who had read the Odyssey (Translated heavily albeit and in a illustrated formal) At age 8 misinterpreting this.
The shame I would request a boon to Kill myself but Seppuku is Japanese so scratch that .
Still The weight os the sky according to Here is 5.3 x 10^18 kg.
So Lifting it and holding it would require overcoming Earth's gravitational pull (Standardized, though it would weaken due to the ranges involved):
F=ma
m=5.3 x 10^18 kg
a=g=9.81 m/s^2
So Herc would need to sustain a force of 5.1993 × 10^19 Newtons.
We know that he needed to switch with Atlas and didn't lift it any further so this is the limit and not a low end limit (As would be the case for lifting the Sky up).

Also, the mass of the Earth is about 6e24 kg, so the kinetic energy,
E = (m*v^2) / 2
would be
(6e24 * (2.978e4)^2) ) / 2 = ~3e33 J

Heh, who needs the DS (Yeah, yeah 1e38...).
Thanks, I didn't know the speed involved in the earths rotation and whether just the rotation speed needed to be taken into account (Gravitational pull from other Celestial objects etc' spring to mind).
Thanks for the answers

In addition Zeus was throwing Mountains like pebbles during his fight with Typhon.

The fact is that it doesn't matter if the Earth forces can Nuke Olympus (And thats if it could get past the Aegis [Pity we are'nt using the quantifiable "gods" from Ilium and Olympus ], since the Gods can easily corrupt, mind control, replace or kill the leaders of every nation on Earth, and could easily manipulate other religions by masquerading as Jesus/Mohammed reborn (Easy enough to do for someone like Odin, the Greek Gods, or Loki)

[Darth Wong]

Well if i gather...this wasnt just 'the sky' per se.

Atlas was being punished by having to hold this thing, and from the description and the drawing in a myth book i saw it appears to be a physical object upon his back.

Which means it can't be too heavy, or his feet would sink into the ground.

Personally i dont want to piss of anyone whose supposed to be tall enough to use a mountain as a throne (like the Titans) or who can hurl lightning bolts at me from space or wherever Olympus is, so weather Herc was lifting the sky or not my strategy is to avoid them at all costs and quietly make whatever animal sacrifices i have to for them not to kill me.

The fact that Zeus uses lightning bolts as weapons is a limit on how powerful they can be.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Which means it can't be too heavy, or his feet would sink into the ground.

Questionable, since the gods could fly, we also have examples like Thor drinking so hard that he caused the tides (Meaning that he could exert a gravitational pull similiar to that of the moon, not a bad kisser, eh )

The fact that Zeus uses lightning bolts as weapons is a limit on how powerful they can be.

How so?
He used them as a primary weapon against Typhon, a fight in which he was throwing mountains as if they were pebbles.
It's quite possible that "divinely forged" lightning bolts that can be controlled might be stronger than natural, non controllable bolts.
(Not to mention the fact that Setting them as a higher limit seems shaky since while they are his favoured weapon, so are guns for the us army (Or tanks/vehicles), which while constantly used is not the most powerful almost never used weaponry available to the army [Nukes]

[Rye]

The fact that Zeus uses lightning bolts as weapons is a limit on how powerful they can be.

Remember, though, somehow he shattered a mountain the size of Mt. Etna when the Typhon held it above his head with a lightning bolt.

[Darth Wong]

The fact that Zeus uses lightning bolts as weapons is a limit on how powerful they can be.

Remember, though, somehow he shattered a mountain the size of Mt. Etna when the Typhon held it above his head with a lightning bolt.

Obviously, the mountain was not a real mountain. If it were a real mountain, it would be impossible to "hold it over your head" even with infinite strength because it would disintegrate when someone attempted to lift it.

[The Grim Squeaker]

The fact that Zeus uses lightning bolts as weapons is a limit on how powerful they can be.

Remember, though, somehow he shattered a mountain the size of Mt. Etna when the Typhon held it above his head with a lightning bolt.

Obviously, the mountain was not a real mountain. If it were a real mountain, it would be impossible to "hold it over your head" even with infinite strength because it would disintegrate when someone attempted to lift it.

He could have some sort of telekinetic field/Magic power holding it together.

This would be even more necessary"logical"\possible from other examples of myth, such as the Story of the Midgard Serpent encircling and squeezing the Earth (And holding the oceans in place) without cutting a torus shaped hole in the parts it squeezed (Or Thor's aforementioned Quaffing of the Oceans while in the hall of Utgard-Loki, king of the Giants).
The fact is if we're told that it is a [Named] mountain then it's a mountain (Especially if it meshes with some other examples of mountain throwing or sky holding).
As I understand it, [by Occam's Razor':?', Though I fear That I am misusing it]
Confused It's easier to accept that the gods had a magic power allowing them to hold the objects without punching a god shaped hole through them than that they held up large mountain shaped rocks (Especially with the Hercules/Atlas example contradicting this, though the question does arise as to how the sky stayed up before Atlas was supporting it )

[Darth Yoshi]

My understanding is that prior to the Titans, Uranus was the sky and held himself up. I'm not sure who held up the sky during the reign of the Titans, though.

Yes, tactile TK appears to be the best explanation for the gods' superhuman feats of strength.

[Darth Wong]

Yes, tactile TK appears to be the best explanation for the gods' superhuman feats of strength.

Only if you insist upon interpreting them a certain way, ie- assigning arbitrarily large dimensions to the word "mountain". If these myths did not include numbers, you have no reason to do so.

[Majin Gojira]

Typhon was, IIRC, a giant (how big, they don't say), so that might have helped him lift...if only a little.

For comparison, Greeks considered the "Golden men" -- their heroes and such, to be giants. They would find fossilized elephant/horse/rhino bones and claim that they were the thigh/foot/whatever of Achilies/Heracles/etc.

At least, accoding to one theory that explains the origins of various greek myths that I happen to like.

I guess that would give them an idea of how big they felt their gods were.

I dunno, I'm just throwin' that out there...