Early World Civilizations: Supplemental Guide 3A | The Religion of Babylon 59Essential Background Information or Terms 10 minutes
Tell students that they are going to learn about something else that
was important to the people of Mesopotamia: religion. Explain that
religion is a system of beliefs often used to explain the world and
the way people should live in it. Show image 3A-1: Mesopotamian looking at desert sky
Say:
A long, long time ago, before people knew much about science
to explain how the world works, they wondered about nearly
everything, just as we do today. But they didn’t have many answers
yet.
They might say, “The wind is blowing from the east. Yesterday
it was blowing from the west. Why doesn’t the wind always blow
from the same direction?”
They might look up at the night sky and ask, “Why don’t those
stars fall down and hit us on the head?”
They might wonder, “Why is the ocean over there and the land
over here? How come everything isn’t dry land, or all ocean?” They
just didn’t know.
Sometimes it took a long time to get the right answers.
Someone would learn one part of the answer, and someone else
would add something to it. This would go on and on, until at last
someone fi gured out the answer. Learning a bit at a time like this
might take hundreds, or even thousands, of years.
And guess what: it is still going on! We are still learning new
things based on what people before us fi gured out. That is one
reason it’s so important to be able to read and write: so we can
learn what other people have learned and tell other people what
we discover.