I took a humanities course not long ago, and I learned about a religion called Zoroastrianism. Off the top of your head, tell me what you know about it. If you've never heard of it before, that's fine. I didn't hear about it until a few weeks ago.
You know, I remember hearing that Freddie Mercury was a Zoroastrian before, but that's not why I picked him. Weird, thanks for that little submission.
It's an old religion still practiced in Iran. It predates Islam and is probably the first religion to have the personified good vs evil dichotomy found in the major religions today. It's symbol is a gold bird with wings outstretched.
The Iranian government sees them as a competitor to Islam, so it doesn't do any thing to preserve its shrines and landmarks in Iran, which are now falling into decay. Many Iranian holidays still follow Zoroastrianism, such as the Persian new year.
A dualist or to some monotheistic faith native of ancient Iran, which was prophesied by prophet Zarathustra, it was the state religion of the Sassanian Persian dynasty, and for many Jude-christianity took many influences from it, such as angels.
It was "wiped out" by Islam, but there are still some believers in Iran and India.
I've heard of it. I know they believe that there's a spiritual war or something going on between a good god and an evil god, like with Christianity's God and Devil thing.. It had a lot of influence on Christianity.
Google it with the words Ahura Mazda and you will come up with tons of sites pertaining to the religion and it's belief system. I didn't hear about it until a few weeks ago in my mythology class, so I don't know alto about it, but I do know that Ahura Mazda is the supreme god in this Persian belief system.
Zoroasterianism was the first monotheistic religion, and it contributed very heavily to the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam).
Zoroaster lived at the time of the beginning of the bronze age. Very interesting time! The new found ability to make metal brought on the ability to make weapons, so this was also a time of conquest and invasion and occupation. The ancient Persians at that time believed in many spirits or 'auras'. Zoroaster promoted one Aura, Ahura Mazda, literally the Spirit of Wisdom, to the Creator God. The religion he founded was the first to have a moral code, prophesy, an apocalypse, a judgment day, eternal reward and punishment.
All this stuff doesn't show up in the Bible until the Book of Daniel. And that book was written during a period in Jewish history called The Great Exile, when Israel was invaded and occupied by Greeks (well, the Hellenistic empire) and many Jews were forced to flee to what is now Iraq. Some of them went a little further, to modern Persia, where it's thought that Jewish thinkers came into contact with Zoroasterians and borrowed all these ideas. Of course Jesus got it from the Jews. So, according to this theory, we have Zoroaster to thank for all of this. The age of religion they began is sometimes called 'The Axial Age', and we're still in it today.
And Zoroasterianism still exists, not just in Iran but in India, among the Parsi people. The Parsis have some beliefs that seem strange today. They leave their dead out in the open to be eaten by vultures, their idea of 'returning to nature', recycling their own bodies. The particular species of vulture in this part of India is endangered so the problem is that bodies are decomposing.
The 'top of my head' went to a Dictionary " Zoroastrianism ...taught that there is an eternal struggle between the powers of light and the powers of darkness, or good and evil".
Actually that's a lot of what the Bible teaches except that the struggle isn't eternal. The struggle between good and evil began with Lucifer's fall from Heaven with his followers and coming to Earth as Satan. There has been a struggle here on Earth ever since. But That will end when God returns and sets up another Garden of Eden environment. Satan will have been cast into eternal Hell -- God will be seen by all as being All-Powerful. The Winner / All born-again believers will be with Him.
It was the religion founded by Zoroaster and practiced in Persia until the Moslem conquest in the 600's.
Iranian teachings of Zoroaster who taught about the forces of good and evil or light and dark. Very old religion like Hinduism.
Only 2 religions: God's way and man's way.
Zoroaster is no different, from Muhammad's Islam, Joseph Smith's Mormons, Charles Russell's Jehovah Witness or Jim Jones' kook-aid Temple that followed false religions. It is just older.
From the very beginning the devil has been a deceiver. The fallen angels have corrupted men and women on this earth. In the beginning three people knew God's plan for mankind, Adam, Eve and the Old Serpent called the Devil and Satan.
Genesis 3:15 KJV "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."
The seed (Jesus) of the woman (Mary) bruised the head of Satan on the Cross of Calvary in total victory over Satan. Jesus took the keys of hades and hell from Satan.
God set the laws of nature and God set the laws of mankind. There is no older religion that the Way of God, and God tells us that there is only One God and He is God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob whose Son is Jesus the Christ.
I forget who said this but I totally agree with him. The man was asked what makes God real to you? He quickly replied, "the Jews my friend, the Jews." THINK ABOUT IT
It was once monotheistic.The religion is named after their prophet Zarathustra, he prophesied the coming of Jesus and also the coming of a world Prophet.
National religion of the Persian empire
believed in god of light and a god of darkness(Mazda &
Arahiman ?)
very few left today known as Parsees i think living in India, their holy books include the centavos & others
They also worshiped fire
they had an eternal flame in their capital city that burned for hundreds of years, which mysteriously went out the night the prophet Mohammed was born their priests recognized this as a sign of the fulfillment of a prophesy in their holy book Dasatir 14 which i think read something like 'when the mighty stiff necked Persians are sunk so low in morality & corruption, a man will be born in Arabia whose followers shall upset their religion their throne and their very life. The wise men of persia shall join them and say their prayers facing a House'
While digging the trench to defend Medina from a Meccan attack Mohammed (pbuh) smashed a fairly big stone, he then mentioned to his companions that on smashing the stone he had received a vision of his followers conquering the two then superpowers, Persia and Byzantium.
Who here's heard of Zoroastrianism?
