It would help if you cited a few passages which illustrate what you claim Plato to have said.

The Greek Gods were far from morally perfect and are often depicted in the Greek myths as subject to all manner of passions and flaws. Socrates, recall, was executed for encouraging atheism amongst the youth of Athens, 'atheism' being scepticism about the pantheon of Gods.

Plato's 'demiurge' was a very different conception to the Gods of civil religion, but again, it would help the OP a lot if you could provide either some references or a passage or two in support of these distinctions.

I don't know for sure but I think it will be either in the Ion or in the early parts of the Republic. That is where Plato sets out his hostility to Poetry. Its depiction of the gods as flawed is one of several reasons he gives for why poetry should be banned.

According to Plato‘s dialogues from my point of view Socrates him self was morally perfect, and the Athenians sentenced him to death. Now if you try to imagine a morally perfect god, what do you think, does he/she/it would drink that hemlock to keep it‘s perfection or not? And If there is a choice (for us) wouldnt be nice from this morally perfect god, if he wouldnt spoil the whole thing, but to let us first realise, then decide what just happend?

Plato's (or Socrates'?) views on the gods are articulated in Book 2 of The Republic. I, too, have wondered where he got the idea that they must be perfect, since it is, as he there admits, antithetical to their depiction in Homer and Hesiod, etc. Was there, then, a separate tradition on the nature of the gods? Why should Socrates and Glaucon (his sounding board) so easily assume that the gods must be perfect? The idea must have been around somewhere . . . ?

I don't know the facts but will take a reasonable guess at Plato's rationale. Implicitly, we all understand the word God to mean 'that which nothing greater can be conceived' (later explicitly stated by St. Anselm). This definition implies perfection, which includes moral perfection.

I know that the greek gods were not seen as perfect, but I think Plato, just like Socrates, was referring to a different concept of the word god, much closer to our modern definition.

It is a pre-socratic argument. Xenophanes, Heraclitus and Parmenides (at least) would vouch for that statement (about how the mythical presentation of gods is flawed because it presents the gods as immoral). To be sure, the undertones would be different in each (Parmenides basically ditched the idea of gods-of-the-myth as simply false, while Xenophanes berated the myth for misrepresenting them).

The opposition between the philosophers and the mythmakers precedes Plato. But we must note that Plato (and Aristotle too) would later find a middle ground that allowed them to give to myths their proper value, at least as precursors of philosophy. Indeed, Plato is the greatest mythmaker, precisely because he understood the value of myths and the limits of human discourse.

myths depicting them as acting immorally are false. — Jedothek

This seems like an oxymoron. How can ''myths'' ever be true.

The truths become myths as their truth is denied. "These stories of sinful, ridiculous gods are lies! The truth is that gods are morally perfect. "

"These stories of sinful, ridiculous gods are lies! The truth is that gods are morally perfect. " — visit0r

How shall I say this now? Plato needn't dismiss the accounts of god(s) as lies in the first place. Perhaps he wasn't familiar with the notion of crazy wisdom. Indeed, God could be morally perfect and still engage the world in human-like fashion - jealous, greedy, vengeful, etc. This being done to convey divine wisdom to humans who are, quite obviously, limited in their capacity to comprehend it. Think of it like God, to make things easier for humans, ''translating'' godly wisdom to man-speak.

This seems like an oxymoron. How can ''myths'' ever be true. — TheMadFool

Strangely enough, the idea that myths cannot be true is a... myth.

By which I don't mean it is false; I mean it is a foundational story for many groups.

This reply is a beginning (as good as many others) of the answer to an inquiry about the relationship between myth and truth.

Knowing you to be a theist it seems like you want myths to be true. Perhaps to justify your own beliefs??

Personally I think there are elements of truth in all myths, religious or otherwise. It only takes a bit of exaggeration to change truth into a myth. So, to devalue myths would be mistake, running the serious risk of losing valuable information.

Knowing you to be a theist it seems like you want myths to be true. Perhaps to justify your own beliefs?? — TheMadFool

Knowing logic, this is not relevant.

Whether or not I want myths to be true is not relevant. And whether I want to justify my beliefs is also not relevant.

Take a look at the wiki entry for "myth". Or at Joseph Campbell. Or at Carl Jung. Or at René Girard. Etc.

Personally I think there are elements of truth in all myths, religious or otherwise. It only takes a bit of exaggeration to change truth into a myth. So, to devalue myths would be mistake, running the serious risk of losing valuable information. — TheMadFool

If you are saying that a myth is an account that became untrue because of exaggeration, you are going against scholarship on the subject.

I have no problem with anyone (including Plato) presuming the moral perfection of the Gods without argument, especially an idealist such as Plato. Why would he waste his time arguing the perfection of that which appears to us as if it were shadows upon a wall in a cave? Is there a difference between the "ideal" and the "perfect" when it comes to the Gods?