Most people think that suffering is a random, natural part of life but in actuality suffering is a mechanism used by the gods to either teach humanity a less, or use it for their own selfish needs. Throughout the book of Job God, or Yahweh used suffering to prove to the Accuser that he was loyal to Him, and not only because God had given Job a blessed life. The Roman pagan gods used suffer for their own personal vendetta such as when Odysseus blinded the Cyclops, who was the son of the Roman god Poseidon, and to get back at Odysseus Poseidon created a storm so he could not get home to make him suffer his homesickness further. The Greek pagan gods also used suffering to their own person use, such as when Jupiter raped and transformed a girl into cow to hide what he had done from his wife. Having hope in the god you worship is a very important thing, because if that hope is lacking then when gods cause someone to suffer there is no hope of it getting better and no hope that their god will help. When the hope is there it gives the person a reason to have respect for their god or gods, and a reason to worship the them because when the person suffers they have hope that it will eventually get better and that their suffering is happening for a reason and not just because the gods are mad at them and not because the gods gave into some temptation they had. Although Yahweh and the Greek and Roman gods have different reasons of making humanity suffer, they are the ones who decide who suffers and who does not, whether the reason is of their own personal reasons, or if it is to prove a point.
In the book of “Job”, Job is a wealthy, God fearing man who is blameless, upright, and cautious of evil. Being proud of Job Yahweh boaste...
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...e in their gods, they knew that whatever happened was the work of the gods and there was no changing it or making it better. Whether it’s the Greek gods causing suffering for their own personal agendas, the Roman gods using suffering to get back at humans for something they did wrong, or Yahweh using suffering to prove a point to His lesser gods, no matter the religion or the region the gods use suffering as a mechanism to get what they want.
Works Cited
Homer. The Odyssey. Norton Anthology Western Literature 8th Edition. Ed. Sarah Lawall. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2006.
The Book of Job. Norton Anthology Western Literature 8th Edition. Ed. Sarah Lawall. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2006.
Ovid. Metamorphoses. Norton Anthology Western Literature 8th Edition. Ed. Sarah Lawall. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2006
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is part of the human suffering due to his cherished relational nature with humans. However,
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