indirectly Greek philosophy influenced many "non-western countries" such as Russia - through the influence of western culture and nowadays we may say it is part of the world culture, meow-meow!

Meow is absolutely right! Greek myths are part of our culture. Greeks culture & philosophy had a huge impact on our way of thinking and on our arts. In our history, we had a time called "Renaissance " (sorry, I don't know the word in English...) where the texts of Ancient History were re-discovered by monks in Italy. This old source of knowledge rapidly spreads all over Europe and inspired new forms of arts, politics, philosophy. Needless to say that Greek myths were very important. Just look at the name of old operas. In France, Louis XIV liked to be seen as a mythologic hero: everything in his castle is inspired by these old myths. I would like to tell you about the influence of greek words on western language but this has nothing to do with your question. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_mythology#Motifs_in_Western_art_and_literature In brief, Ancient Greece is the very root of our western culture. With Roman Empire and the Bible of course...

Greek mythology is considered to be part of Western culture. They think so.

Zeus is damn awesome. A god that throws lightning. My kind of guy