Zoroastrianism

O.k. check it. while studying Iran, and then Persia, I came upon the old religion of Zoroastrianism. This is the original religion of Iran/Persia; before all the invasions from other countries/religions/armies --- for a while they were forced into Christianity because of the Roman invasions, and then the final Muslim/Arabian invasion that turned almost the entire country into believers in Islam. But before this they were Zoroastrians. don't pay attention to the details if you don't want to. just read this. you're not going to believe it: This is from 1700 BC, long before the formal religions of Judaism, Islam, or Christianity were developed:

”In his writings Zoroaster speaks of an ethical and moral opposition between Asha (“order”), which he equates with righteousness, and Drug (“confusion”), which he equates with evil and the lie. Zoroaster personifies this dualism in a pair of spirits called Ahura Mazda (“Wise Lord,” known as Ohrmazd in Middle Persian), and Angra Mainyu (“Evil Spirit,” known as Ahriman in Middle Persian). See also Persian Language.

According to Zoroastrian doctrine, Ahura Mazda is a perfect, rational, and omniscient (all-knowing) entity. Thus, Zoroastrians believe that Angra Mainyu created sin, disease, death, and similar evils. Ahura Mazda is said to have created six Amesha Spentas (“Holy Immortals”), who represent aspects of material creation, in addition to other minor spiritual beings who assist in protecting the world and all creatures. Angra Mainyu is said to have produced numerous Daevas (demonic spirits), who represent aspects of pain, suffering, and death, to attack Ahura Mazda’s creations.

Zoroastrians believe that Ahura Mazda created humans as allies in the cosmic struggle against evil and that humanity will be resurrected and granted immortality once evil has been defeated. They further view the material world as a trap into which evil has been lured and in which evil will undergo defeat by divinities and humans working together. Zoroastrianism preaches that when someone dies his or her soul undergoes individual judgment based on actions while alive. If the soul’s good deeds are greater than its evil deeds, it enters paradise. If the soul’s evil deeds outweigh the good done while alive, it is cast into hell to await the day of universal judgment. In cases where a soul’s good deeds equal its evil deeds, it is consigned to limbo.

Close to the end of time a savior will resurrect the dead, Zoroastrianism claims. Ahura Mazda will descend to earth with the other good spirits. Each sinner, having already suffered in hell or limbo after death, will be purified. Thereafter, immortality will be granted to all humans. Ahura Mazda, the holy immortals, and other divine beings will annihilate the demons and force Angra Mainyu to scuttle back into hell, which will then be sealed.

The Zoroastrian doctrine of heaven, hell, and limbo influenced the other faiths. Islam absorbed not only the ideas of heaven, hell, and limbo, but also the scheme of individual judgment at a celestial bridge and the notion of final, universal judgment. Christianity further assimilated the Zoroastrian belief of heaven, hell, purgatory, individual judgment, the soul’s afterlife and the appearance of a savior, resurrection, and eternal life at the end of the world.”
So it turns out that our modern religions of Islam –which is based on Christianity –which in turn is based on Judaism – are all taken from, at least in part it appears, if not downright founded on this older religion of Zoroastrianism – right down to just about any belief that any of them possess, give or take a few Hail Marys and Allahs. Its interesting, because we don't see mankind’s religions in an accurate light most of the time... most people’s perception of religion is that they are each different... that one is right or true, and that the other ones are not right or not true.... because 99 percent of the time we are raised and educated with only our religion being taught to us as ‘the religion’ and the rest of them are usually overlooked or not taught to us, we tend not even to learn about the others... so what happens is that we assume several things: one, that whatever religion we were raised to believe in is the right one, mainly because of the brainwashing that is in play there with just being taught something over and over again when you are so young, and two, because we just don't know any different because, not being offered a choice in the matter, we were only taught about that one religion so we just don't know about the others... another thing that happens is that because we were never taught about any of the other religions that people have come up with and believe in, most of us never take the time to even look into them, so again, we just assume the others are the “not the right/true” religions, and we never come to know or understand how similar they all are and how they were all built on top of each other, each one coming successively from the other, different peoples from different areas just adding their own little twist to them...

What we have now (I say now as a record of this point in time in human history, assuming that this will not be the case forever as the information age, technology, and the personal expression age continue to bring us closer and closer together) is a bunch of people scattered all over the earth --- what are we now? 6 billion in total now? --- who are a lot more like each other than they realize, and whose religious beliefs are all based on and preaching the same teachings with just little differences here and there. But here's the kicker; the people just don't know it. the problem is mainly due to the causes I outlined above one assumes ---- parents’ ignorance (anyone who was ever or will ever be a parent) of other religions and the inherent similarities and origins of them and thus their inability or lack of desire to pass this information on to their children (that's us too since we were all once children); these children (yep, that's us too) continue to do the same thing to our children when we become parents eventually and on and on it goes...and of course geographical separation is a huge contributor to this, along with probably a little racism and nationalism thrown in because everyone assumes that because they look different then they are different and then bam! You end up with an entire planet of people all thinking they have different beliefs when they really don't –so the separation and the lack of understanding perpetuates throughout humanity age after age... fascinating...

Ok so what does this mean, if anything? Well that's what it all comes down to, is what this all means... none of it is much different than your basic Hollywood movie... I think that's why humans are so susceptible to and crazy about both religion and Hollywood movies... you got a good guy/God who knows almost everything but just not quite how to fix everything and is responsible for all the great things that are going on in the world. And then you have a bad guy/devil/infidel who doesn’t know as much but who is responsible for all the bad things going on. He dresses cooler and seems to get more chicks but is just pissed off all the time so he's always causing trouble... The good guy knows about the bad guy and all the bad stuff he's doing, but just can’t do anything about it for one reason or another, but really wants to... so in the meantime the people in the movie/on the earth have to suffer... but they can take comfort in the fact that the good guy is trying really hard to figure how the hell to save the day by the end of the movie/life on earth, and he's going to do this by either coming down here and dying and then resurrecting and then coming again for some reason, or he's going to just come here once and kick some bad guy ass, and then the world is going to be a great wonderful place forever and the movie is going to end... but just in case this doesn’t happen in our lifetimes/in part one of the series, don't worry because there is another sequel coming next summer/another life after this one, and if you die its all awesome in this other world either way if you were a good person... so as far as “here” goes, just try to grin and bear it as best you can...

I'm on a plane now...

O.k. check it further.... what does “be a good person” mean to these people? well the Christian’s version of a good guy is the cat they call the prince of peace and he preached peace and turning the other cheek and all that, but the Christians as a group have killed more human beings than any other single group of people in humankind’s history... in the famous reference book ‘the one hundred most influential people of human history,’ the author explains that you cannot possibly call Jesus the most influential person in human history because though he preached the ideas of turning the other check and compassion and peace, the Christian religion that sprung up around him and his teachings has so far been so damn destructive to so many millions of people for two thousand years that he may have started a religion but his teachings just didn't have a powerful influence on his followers. [argue about that one till you're blue in the face, but one would assume that the 200,000,000 [million] native peoples of America killed in the last four hundred years by the Christians alone would settle the argument pretty fast.] That doesn’t bode too well for them as far as ‘being good people’... if there is such a thing as purgatory, and a just God, then its highly likely that all Christians are going to end up there for a while just so justice is served for the rest of humanity who have suffered at their hands... but the brilliant thing about Christianity is their whole concept of ‘I'm going to heaven no matter what because Jesus died on the cross for my sins and all I have to say is I believe in God... etc..’ they have this whole ‘I’m a sinner and I know it and I will always be a sinner and all people are sinners and in fact we are born sinners and it doesn’t matter because if I profess my belief in Jesus as God and as my own personal savior I am forgiven no matter what I do...’

Ridiculous right? Sounds like a complete copout. Just utter nonsense and a great way to get away with whatever the fuck you want to. But I swear to ‘whomever’ that I'm not making this up. So for two thousand years you have this pack of greedy blood thirsty humans called Christians running around the earth doing whatever the fuck they want to to the rest of us in the name of their God and religion and thinking that it doesn’t matter because some cat named Jesus died for their past and future sins. If I would have known all this when I was younger, I could have used it more to my advantage whenever I got caught doing something wrong...

O.k. so... the Muslims of course believed in most everything the Christians did, they accepted almost all of it.... except the whole ‘prince of peace’ thing... they thought he was cool and that he was smart and hip and prophetic and all that, but he was definitely not “the one” and they also didn't necessarily dig the whole ‘turn the other cheek/peace’ aspect either... they quickly demonstrated this by jumping up on horses, drawing swords, and riding all over most of the civilized world killing millions of people to convert them as soon as they came up with this slight twist on the Christian religion...

The Jewish religion’s original motto (they called it a commandment) was ‘thou shall not kill.’ Catholicism/Christianity absorbed Judaism and altered this motto a bit to read more like “thou shall not kill... unless thou really wants to, and if thou does, its o.k. because thou is forgiven.” Islam modified the motto a bit more even to just: “fuck it, go ahead and kill.”

After a few hundred years, the Christians started seeing that there were more and more Muslims in the world and fewer and fewer Christians, so much so that the new motto of the Muslim’s started to seem pretty appealing... “fuck it, just go ahead and kill” seemed to make a bit more sense in light of the fact that religion was seeming less about God and more about just the basic survival of your race and nation.... so the Christians embraced this new Muslim motto with reckless abandon... they christened the event ‘the Crusades,” and went on a wild killing spree in the name of their God who was pretty much the same God as the Muslims and the Jews.

The Spanish, who were especially enamored with this new subtle twist the Christians made to the motto, took it even further with their big Spanish Inquisition Soiree, a brilliant and lavish party that lasted for years and wiped out millions more of us in the name of the Christian prince of peace – they took “fuck it, just go ahead and kill” to whole new levels, because they added rape, extortion, and torture to the mix, making the newest version of the motto something akin to ‘fuck it, go ahead and kill, and while you're at torture if you have to, or if you need the money, or the land, or even if you just want to.’

Now while all this was going on, the Jews, who these other religions are based on – one assumes that the other non-Jew humans got impatient and started adding all these other things to the Jewish religion which was good enough on its own, was because they just didn't want to wait anymore --- have been sitting back chilling all this time, for thousands of years... still waiting for the good guy in their movie to come on screen and save the day. they’ve watched the other religions “discover” their messiahs and prophets and watched these religions kill hundred of millions of people in the names of these messiahs and prophets... and they’ve just kept waiting patiently, almost as if they are at an auction, waiting for the perfect car or the perfect painting or the perfect house, which you have to respect... they know a good messiah when they see one, and according to any one of them, they just haven't seen one yet. Gotta hand it to their dedication to quality control on this one.

if I were a Jew I would be sitting back and looking at the movies of the other religions pretty suspiciously myself at this point I must admit. not much has gone on in the world in the name of other religions except for a lot death and torture and a whole lot of plundering.... I think the Jews probably know more about this than we care to admit. I mean, if what we've seen in the way of the Christians or the Muslims in the last two thousand years is a good example of what it means to be a religion or to have ‘found your prophet’ or ‘your messiah,’ well its no wonder the Jews are still holding out.

And none of that has anything to do with a God, which is what, strangely enough, religions are supposed to be all about... but actions speak louder than any Bible or Koran or Talmud ever will. And the Jews are just about the only religious people on the earth who haven't tried to kill the rest of us.

What does this have to do with anything? I have no fucking clue. I'm just on a plane and felt like writing.... but yes, let us not forget that all of these religions were based on this fascinating ancient religion of Zoroastrianism from Persia/Iran. Good stuff. Who would have known.

Here you go ... the three mottos of Zoroastrianism:

goftar-e-neek  ..... speak virtuous
pendar-e-neek .... think virtuous
kerdar-e-neek .... act virtuous

Sounds simple enough.