“But I recall stories about modern pesticide poisoning of carrion birds that affected their funeral rites negatively.”
You might have read about poisoning in this thread a few years ago & applied to a small community of Zs in India: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2717607/posts#49
Could it be that they have the equivalent of ‘old order Mennonites’ who still use the old ways in modern times or something?”
That’s a small community of Zoroastrians in India. Some of them tend to still use the old ways. But that’s changing too.
Zoroastrians in India (known as Parsi or Parsees) are descendants of original Persians who escaped to India after Arab-Islam invasion of Iran 1400 years ago. They are typically a closely-knit community. They had to be over the centuries to preserve their Persian and Zoroastrian heritage and ethnic identity in India.
I don’t care if it is changing, they can do it however and I pray that it’s alright for them. They aren’t a problem, and if all the potential violent Islamists converted to this the world would be a less violent place.
Freegards