The Omnipresent Fear of Death

As far back as we have literary reports -- beginning with the Epic of Gilgamesh, our earliest surviving narrative, written centuries before the oldest accounts of the Bible -- humans have feared death more than almost anything. Many people fear the process of dying; others fear facing eternal torment; yet others fear the void, the idea of non-existence. In this episode we talk about ancient reflections on death and about why some stalwart souls insisted that in fact there was nothing to fear.