6 replies to this topic

[Darkness]

I've decided to study zoroastrianism in greater detail. Has anyone else looked into it?

[Rhuen]

As part of my study on world religions,

it is an interesting religion, one of the first official examples of a ruler converting to a faith and that resulting in its official spread through out a region, as well as factors of it influencing later religons such as the fiery pit and its god of evil. It is officially a bitheist system (two gods, one of evil and one of good) but the good god also has daughters which are like angels.

[Etu_Malku]

Luciferianism is not complete without a study of Ahriman / Ahura Mazda and the Avesta.
Looking forward to hear what you get out of this study.

[Darkness]

I'm actually more interested in Zoroastrianism before Ahriman or evil was personified and even deified.

[Etu_Malku]

I'm actually more interested in Zoroastrianism before Ahriman or evil was personified and even deified.

Didn't there always exist Angra Mainyu? I've always understood this belief system, besides being possibly the oldest monotheistic one, to be the first system to implement duality as opposition.

Edited by Etu_Malku, 23 June 2012 - 07:35 PM.

[Etu_Malku]

Hello?

[Darkness]

I just started reading the FAQs at www.zoroastrianism.cc, so you'll have to give me time to catch up on what the interpretation there is of Angra Mainyu.

# 75) Q: mazda is a real entity right? but angra and spenta mainyu are not real entities, they are only ways of thinking. In other words is angra supposed to be a real entity like satan is supposed to be real or is angra just a way of thinking? sorry if this sounds like a dumb question but im confused.

A: There are no dumb questions, ever!!!!. The confusion, in any case, is not of your making. Zarathushtra composed his Hymns in Old Avestan. Some centuries after his demise a kindred people, speaking a close, but not identical language, that scholars have named Young Avestan, either conquered them, or were converted by them, probably the first, as there is some circumstantial evidence in the way of a traditional account. In any case, these others misrepresented the idea of mainyu ( mentality way of being) as spirits and from here we have the well known in the West identification of Zoroastrianism with Cosmic Dulaism, which culminates in Sassanian times in basically two gods.

But if you restrain yourself to what Zarathushtra taught and to a linguistic definition of the term mainyu, as opposed to inserting spirit into the term, there is no dualism and aka/angra mainyu is a mentality in human beings. Indeed Mazda Ahura is said to possess or to have a Most Spenishto ( Spenta) Mainyu, but never an Aka or Angrah mainyu.

Btw, I had decided to revisit this after reading more about the Game of Thrones. "The Red God takes elements from Zoroastrianism and the Cathar heresy"