Zoroastrians Fight Extinction

VOANews ^ | 12/23/03 | VOANews

[Cronos]

Actually speaking, Buddhism, or rather pure Buddhism is not polytheistic, rather it doesn't believe in the Gods and it is older than Christianity by 700 years.

[Cronos]

Zoroastrianism that Judaism is a heretic sect of it.

I kind of doubt that. I'd say that Judaism was influenced by Z after the exile, but it's not a branch of Z. EVen Parsees say that it can't be older than 1700 B.C. -- which is about the time of Hammurabi or the Mosaic laws (some scholars contend that the Mosaic laws are around that time, making Hammurabi a contemporary of Moses). Judaism and Z can from a similar region, but from different backgrounds -- judaism is semitic, inherently so while Z has it's roots in Aryan religions as I've stated above. Judaim after the exile may well have blended the two together -- and Z was also influenced.

[RightField]

True story ...

My daughter had to do an oral report on Zoastrianism in her college history class Spring semester, 2002. Her report included a post-sized drawing of Zoaster, and the poster ended up looking quite like Osama bid Laden. She also made posters with Arabic writing on them, and a big diagram/design of some sort.

Now her best friend is the wife of Marine, and they live on the base nearby here. Not thinking that her class report materials might be significant, she put them into her trunk after class and drove to her friend's house later that night. As luck would have it, she was pulled over for a random search by the guards at the gate to the base. They opened her trunk, then she said all of a sudden she was surrounded by about 8 Marines with weapons at the ready, and told to get out of her car now! She was quite frightened until she was able to explain that the materials were NOT terrorist related. Needless to say, that stuff was burned in the fireplace the next day!

[Cronos]

Parsees -- like Freddie MErcury of Queen (or to give him his real name Fourokh Bulsara, escaped from Persia fleeing slammie persecution and landed on the west coast of india. now the Indians on the WEst had had skirmishes with the Persians for millenia, so though they were welcomed as escapees from the barbaric slammie, the Rajah made themj promise to only marry among themselves. So over 14 centuries they did that and bred themselves out of existance.

The Jews were also given refuge in Kerala in AD 70 but no such promises were made!

[Cronos]

It's pretty sad that so much gets mistaken for OBL. The Zoroastrians prided themselves on their beards and so do the Sikhs, yet we mistake them for OBL. Wasn't there some Sikh guy that got killed in 2001 because some nuts thought he was OBL (in the US?!!)

[browsin]

The opening bars of Richard Strauss’ composition “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” became famous as the theme for Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Strauss' Thus Spoke Zarathustra was inspired by the work of the same name by Nietzsche.Nietzsche's Zarathustra was the prototype Superman,the ultimate 'individualist' whose goal was to destroy religion and collectivism and establish a new 'super' race of individualists(Hitler misunderstood and thought of it in biological instead of philosphical terms).The score was applied to 2001:A Space Odyssey because it was a story about the evolution from ape to man to Superman.Quite the opposite of Zoroastrian philosophy,though ofcourse they claimed the name first.

[Cronos]

founder of the first monotheistic faith
well, that is open to debate. There are three contenders for that crown:
a. Moses who one might say 'founded' the Judaic faith and codified it transforming it so that there is only one God, the others are false.
b. Akhenaton who worshipped the sun, the aten,
c. Zoroaster.

I'd venture to say that the first was Abraham and through him, Moses. Some scholars have put the date of the Exodus to before 1700 BC, so the Pharoah in question was NOT Ramsess the Great, but some other dude (can't remember tha name either) and this happened BEFORE the invasion of Egypt by the Hyksos. Actually this is quite valid, as the Israelites battled with the Amalekites who were heading in the opposite direction -- to attack Egypt. just think of it -- you're a middle eastern monarch and you hear that the Pharoah of Egypt, the richest, most powerful land has had all his chariots destroyed and his land weakened considerably by strange plagues. If you were that Monarch and you had a substantial army you'd say, let's rock and roll and conquer Egypt (1720 B.C.). And that's what they did.

So, anyway, the Israelis leave Egypt and after a skirmish with the Amalekites move west. the Mosaic law is codified.

Hammurabi may have heard of this or he may have come up with his own set of laws (no way to prove either), but hammurabi's laws are essentially secular unlike Mosaic.

Akhenaton (1330 B.C.) uses the precepts of established Isarelite tradition to format his own worship of the Sun.
Zoroaster, ah, now that is difficult -- did he do it on his own or was he influenced? Do note that Buddhism and Jainism also flourished around the accepted time of Zoroaster's birth -- the 7ths to the 5th century BC.

[TheMole]

There is an "official" Zoroastrian website:

The World Zoroastrian Organisation

[F14 Pilot]

Bump!

[Beck_isright]

If you're a history nut, read up on this subject. You'll find the basis for Christianity and Islam within the writings of this religion.

[Beck_isright]

If you're a history nut, read up on this subject. You'll find the basis for Christianity and Islam within the writings of this religion.

[KevinDavis]

Dying Religion Ping!

[AAABEST]

and they said let's hop on our camels and get going to worship this Kid.

LOL!

[HiTech RedNeck]

As C. S. Lewis pointed out, the similarity of facets of other faiths to Judaism and Christianity does not disprove the ultimate truth of these faiths; rather, it illustrates an idea which was never entirely absent from the mind of man. Of all the religious fogs of man, Z. was one of the least foggy.

[HiTech RedNeck]

I'd venture to say that the first was Abraham and through him, Moses.

You're assuming that there is nothing to the very early accounts of Genesis. Otherwise the first humans, Adam and subsequently Eve, would be "it." They saw God as He was which was, natch, monotheistic.

[ASA Vet]

If it wasn't for their few supernatural beliefs buddhism would be more a philosophy than a religion.

[SedVictaCatoni]

It might also have caused quite a bit of alarm -- remember that the Romans were fighting against the Parthians then and they never defeated them until Trajan in 100AD of thereabouts.

The Romans never really "defeated' the Parthians (or the Persians which preceded and succeeded them). They weren't invincible before Trajan; Marc Antony's legate Publius Ventidius defeated one of their invasions of Syria. Trajan conquered Mesopotamia and took the Parthian capital at Ctesiphon in 115. However, the Romans' ancient enemy had little trouble in recapturing the East, and periodic Roman expeditions had mixed success. The war of Julian the Apostate against the Persians in 363 BC was a catastrophe, culminating in the death of the Emperor. Later, of course, in the time of Heraclitus the Romans lost the entire East to the Parthians, effectively for good (they reconquered it, only to see it fall to Islam a few years later).

Trajan is quite extraordinary -- he pushed the Empire down into the Persian Gulf and dreamed, like Alexander before him, of getting to India. Imagine if the Emperors following him had had the gumption to do so, and Roman law, discipline was passed onto lands as far east as India. This would have put a more united front against Islam.

The Romans never really understood exactly how far it was to India, and so their logistics always failed. Julian's supply lines were extremely tenuous, and it's not clear that any Roman military occupation would have been able to hold on for any great period of time. The other significant problem is lines of communication, both cultural and governmental. The Roman world enjoyed the use of the Mediterranean, whereby it was possible to get from Gades to Alexandria in rather little time. To have half the Empire rely only on overland communications would have been extremely taxing. (Note that Gaul was well served by rivers, and that the Rhone actually flows into the Mediterranean.)

So it's not a question of gumption - it's a question of logistics. A lasting Roman conquest of Parthia would have been logistically and culturally extremely difficult. Alexander managed to race through and nominally seize the whole region, but what he left behind him was simply a new Persia with a change of dynasty, and which thought of itself as theoretically Greek in outlook. The Romans probably would have been able to do little better.

[Cogadh na Sith]

well they may put you on a mountaintop and feed you to eagles, but it won't make a whit of difference to your soul. it will be in heaven if you have trusted in Jesus Christ for your eternal life.

I agree completely. That's why it's cool to leave a pain-in-the-ass last request like that.

[Cogadh na Sith]

Judaism and Z can from a similar region, but from different backgrounds -- judaism is semitic, inherently so while Z has it's roots in Aryan religions as I've stated above. Judaim after the exile may well have blended the two together -- and Z was also influenced.

I agree with that view. The other is speculation--I probably should have caveated that statement more strongly...

[Cogadh na Sith]

Zoroaster choose one God -- Ahura Mazda, the god of light as the main, one of only two gods, the other being some other name I can'#t remember ;-P

Aingra Mainyu.

Is that not just the most evil name for an evil spirit!? I'm fascinated by this stuff as well.