zoroastrianism

zoroastrianism
1. (Zoroastrianism) (312↑, 19↓)
The dualistic religious system founded by the Persian prophet Zarathustra (Zoroaster in Greek) and set forth in the Avesta in the late 7th or early 6th centuries BCE, teaching the worship of Ahura Mazda in the context of a universal struggle between the forces of light and of darkness. It is one of the most ancient of living religions and once the faith of the Persian Empire. It is also rooted in ancient Aryan traditions. Today there are less than 200,000 Zoroastrians, mostly in Iran, India, and the West. At the age of 30, Zarathustra was returning with river water for haoma for spring festival when he had a vision and was taken before Ahura Mazda, The Wise Lord, the supreme creator & his 7 created helpers, the Holy Immortals (Amesha Spentas) by the Vohu Manah. Zoroastrianism teaches that Ahura Mazda is the supreme god and all others are subordinate to him. It also teaches that the evil spirit, Angra Mainyu (Ahriman in Pahlavi) and his demons (daevas) upholds the Lie (druj) instead of Truth (asha). As a result, this creates conflict between humans who follow the Lie (dregvant) and those who uphold the Truth (ashavan).

The religion also teaches that each person has free will to choose, with consequences of happiness and misery. Zoroastrians believe that when someone dies, the body must be kept in home for 3 days while the soul hangs about it. On the 4th day, the corpse-bearer raise a massive Tower of Silence (dakhma) with a circular stone platform on the top inclined to a central wall. The body is stripped and then placed on this, exposed to vultures and elements. When the flesh is gone, the bones are swept into the well to disintegrate. This is done to minimize effects of decay on the air, fire, earth, and water. Many Parsis still use Towers of Silence, but those in Iran have shifted to earth burial and those in the West use burial or cremation. After this life, each person is judged at the Chinvat Bridge, shaped as a sword. It turns on its edge for the evil and they fall into an abyss of torment and the righteous pass over it as a broad and flat path to rewards in heaven. The traditional temple of Zoroastrianism is the Fire Temple. It has a central chamber with a stone platform on which fire is always burning in a metal urn on a bed of sand or ash. The priest (magi) keep the fire, perform rituals, prayer, and wear masks so they do not pollute the fire. The fire at Udvada north of Bombay is held to have burned for over 1,000 years.

2. (Zoroastrianism) (118↑, 12↓)
Zarathustra (in Greek, Zoroaster) was a Persian prophet who at the age of 30 believed he had seen visions of God, whom he called Ahura Mazda, the creator of all that is good and who alone is worthy of worship. This was a departure from previous Indo-Persian polytheism, and Zarathustra has been termed the first non-biblical monotheist (though monotheism in Zoroastrianism never took on the absolute quality that it assumed in Judaism and Islam). Though there is disagreement among scholars as to exactly when and where Zarathustra lived, most agree that he lived in eastern Iran probably around the sixth century B.C.E. Zoroastrian theology is strongly dualistic. In his visions, Zarathustra was taken up to heaven, where Ahura Mazda revealed that he had an opponent, Aura Mainyu, the spirit and promoter of evil. Ahura Mazda charged Zarathustra with the task of inviting all human beings to choose between him (good) and Aura Mainyu (evil). Consequently, Zoroastrianism is a highly ethical religion. Zarathustra taught that humans are free to choose between right and wrong, truth and lie, and light and dark, and that their acts, words, and thoughts would affect their lives after death. He was thus the first to promote a belief in two heavenly judgments: of the individual soul right after death and of all humankind after a general resurrection. His ideas of heaven, hell, and the resurrection of the body profoundly influenced Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Later Zoroastrianism conceived of an opposition between body and soul, though there was no suggestion in its theology that the body was evil and the soul was good. A wandering preacher from Mesopotamia named Mani developed those theories into an extreme form of dualism called Manichaeism. The Zoroastrian "Avesta" ("Book of the Law") is a fragmentary collection of sacred writings divided into: liturgical works with hymns ascribed to Zarathustra; invocations and rituals to be used at festivals; hymns of praise; and spells against demons and prescriptions for purification. Compiled over many centuries, the Avesta was not completed until Persia's Sassanid dynasty (226-641 C.E.). Zoroastrianism all but disappeared in Persia after the Muslim invasion of 637 C.E. Only about 10,000 survive in remote villages in Iran, but over the centuries many sought religious freedom in India.

(BTNH)yo who the fuck are they (CTONN) oh them they are zoroasters (BTNH) What the fuck (CTONN) I know

3. (zoroastrianism) (81↑, 38↓)
Freddie Mercury's religion.

Person A: Queen mentions God in a lot of their songs. Person B: That's because Freddie was a Zoroastrian.

Related: agnostic, ahura mazda, atheist, bible, deist, god, hell, islam, logic, persian, theist, zoroastrian
Last updated: 2012.03.01

Urban English dictionary. 2013.

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