Civilizations are usually shaped by their religion. Here in the United States, gay marriage is prohibited, because people believe that God wanted it this way. The writings of the bible have been passed down for centuries, and most of it could have been interpreted incorrectly, but we follow it regardless. In the days of Ancient Near East, Mesopotamians, Egyptians, and Israelites had nothing passed down to them, since they are the ones who started religion. They did not know how they ended up there, so the idea that superior beings brought them there was the only logical choice for them. They all felt like it was their responsibility to figure out the relationship between them and the universe. All three cultures were significantly impacted by their religions.
There were several themes that arose in the development of the religions: the problem of order, the problem of evil, the problem of imagining what perfection of being might be and of attaining or participating in it, and the problem of knowing what lies beyond us. They became aware of birth and death. They realized how important reproducing was for their survival. They understood that they had to create rules to keep order and not start chaos.
Mesopotamia is thought to have created the oldest known religion, dating back about 3,000 years. They were polytheistic, because they did not have an answer for everything that occurred in their lives. They would associate gods with things such as the sun, moon, stars, animals, and oceans. Because of this, some gods held more power over others, but each god was the lord in their own area of responsibility. The terminology used in the Mesopotamian literature suggests that the power and authority of the gods was an essential factor in their thinking. The proverb “the king is like the (very) image of god,” was used to express the similarity between the gods and kings. 
Mesopotamia was surrounded by two rivers, the Tigris-Euphrates and the Nile, which is why they were named after the Greek word for “between two rivers.” Floods happened often and were unpredictable. They did not have an explanation for it, so they believed that their gods were using it as a punishment. They saw their gods as evil and gloomy because of this. The Epic of Gilgamesh was written due to the widespread negativity. It was about Gilgamesh, the ruler of Uruk. He forced his people to do vigorous laboring and military service, and it left them discouraged. They prayed to the goddess, Aruru, to create another creature, Enkidu, to distract him and go onto quests with him. They set out to kill a monster named Huwawa, and a goddess named Ishtar falls in love with Gilgamesh in the process. Gilgamesh rejected her, and that left Ishtar furious, so she set out to unleash the bull of heaven on Gilgamesh and Enkidu. They ended up killing the bull of heaven, but after they kill it, Enkidu tears off its shin and throws it at Ishtar. As a punishment, Enkidu is sentenced to death. Gilgamesh goes into a depression after the death. He never took death seriously, and now that his friend is dead, he wants to become immortal. He heard a story about one of his ancestors, Utnapishtim, in which he was granted immortality as a gift and now lives at the end of the earth. Utnapishtim explained that he obtained the immortality because the god Ea needed him to build an ark to save his family and animals. The gods were so grateful that they presented him immortality. Gilgamesh now realized that this was a one-time thing, and he would not be able to replicate it. Utnapishtim tells him about a plant that gives renewed youth, and Gilgamesh dives into the ocean to look for it. He ends up finding it and keeps it in his pocket, and he then felt liked taking a swim into a cool pond since he felt hot. A serpent came out of nowhere and eats the plant, and it gains shiny, new skin. Gilgamesh loses all hope at this point, and goes back to Uruk, where he sees the great walls that he help built. When it was all said and done, Gilgamesh realizes that you have come to terms with death and not being able to become immortal, and once you do, you can live in harmony with nature and the gods. Gilgamesh left with him the great wisdom needed to build the wall in Uruk, and the knowledge obtained from the gods that he passed down to the people.
