Suffering is a facet of life that all cultures must learn to deal with. Whether it is religion or mythology, humans must find a way to explain suffering and more importantly, death. Death is the single most unifying aspect of all cultures - after all, it doesn't discriminate. Ancient civilizations such as the Babylonians, Hebrews, and Greeks all had different mythology to explain the reasons behind suffering and death, but all of it is fundamentally the same. When life seems too harsh and unhappy, society will create a way to welcome death. This is true throughout the entire history of civilization, even today. However, in ancient times, it was much easier for the people to swallow because it also provided an explanation for all the unexplainable that occurred around them all the time.

The concept of divine intervention seems to pervade Mesopotamian culture when concerning suffering and death. In "Lament for Ur," the God Enlil punishes the city of Ur by summoning a hurricane that ravages the town until "the people lay in heaps." This idea of divine intervention explaining the suffering brought on by a hurricane is the only way their ancient culture had of dealing with the random na

The Greeks took the idea of personal responsibility even further than the Jews. The Greeks believed in the greatness of man, and so the God or Gods played a bit lesser role than in the previous two societies. The Greeks followed the Karl Marx line of thinking, using religion and the Gods as an opiate for the people. In Antigone, Sophocles preaches of the greatness of the human being, and also sheds light on their view of suffering: "Only Death, and Death alone he will find no rescue/but from desperate plagues he has plotted his escapes." The strength of the human is enough to overcome adversity and suffering, and with the assistance of God one can find happiness, or as Pindar put it in "The Pursuit of Excellence," one can find "God-given splendour."

A view of pessimism resulted from the way Mesopotamia viewed suffering. If there was nothing that could be done to predict it, if no god can be prayed to for assistance, then how can one have an optimistic view of life? In "Mesopotamian Wisdom Literature," the author conveys his frustration to the Gods. "What is good for oneself may be offense to one's God/What in one's heart seems despicable may be proper to one's God," he bemoans, his pessimism towards the gods and life in general a direct result of the suffering he has endured in life, and the futile task of rallying against divine intervention seems too much for him to take.

The perception of the afterlife is also one of severe darkness and foreboding. The "Epic of Gilgamesh" presents a gloomy and ominous picture of death and what it brings. Gilgamesh talks of the "house whose people sit in darkness; dust is their food and clay their meat." How can one invite death if this is the afterlife they have to look forward to? The beliefs espoused in texts such as Gilgamesh shed light on the pessimism the Mesopotamians felt for death. To them, suffering is not only part of the human experience; it awaits them in death a

Some common words found in the essay are:
Epic Gilgamesh, Achilles Gilgamesh, Intervention Job, God Enlil, Hebrews Greeks, Wisdom Literature, Garden Eden, Civilizations Suffering, Achilles Iliad, Tower Babel, divine intervention, human suffering, suffering death, idea divine intervention, idea divine, easier accept, anger towards, human experience, towards gods, death afterlife, religion gods,
Approximate Word count = 1299
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)