On getting angry

Dear Parviz

I agree with you on the grounds that what you are discussing is the real and historically accurate Zarathushtra and not some made up fantasy idea of Zarathushtra. What's wrong with paganism anyway? What REALLY has screwed people up is the idea of an authoritarian universal monolithic faith which is not even open for consideration but must merely be obeyed or else one's head gets chopped off. That's totally uncivilized. This is why to get Zoroastrianism right we should not stare at only one point in time but look at the wider perspective. What did Zarathushtra achieve and what did this achievement say both about him, his culture before him and his culture after him? In other words, let's focus on the religion of Cyrus The Great and we will get things right.

Ushta
Alexander

2009/1/23 Parviz Varjavand

The reason I get angry at times



Dear readers,



At times I loose my cool and some persons in particular make me angry. I owe it to all you gentle-readers to explain myself why some presentations push my buttons. Among the issues that make me angry, there is a parallel between Christianity and Zoroastrianism. I will begin with Christianity because it may be easier for you to understand, and then move to Zoroastrianism.



Christians can go on and on about what a wonderful person Jesus was and how he walked on water and made the dead come alive and so on and so forth. All that does not bother me, I chuckle inside, but I do not loose my cool and listen to it all taking it with a grain of salt. But when the preacher begins to insult the pre-Christian religions and culture calling them ugly names, I see red, because I like the Roman and other pre-Christian religions, arts, and culture. It is then that I open my mouth and talk about how all of Christianity is nothing but a poor version of Mithraism stolen shamelessly from the Romans, the Greeks, the Armenians, and the Persians. This tief wants to legitimize now its hold on all that it has stolen, so it begins to poison the minds of the listeners about the legitimacy of the older cultures out of whose bosom it has come to life.



Zaratustra when described as great and glorious and this wonderful thing and that, does not bother me. I even go along with the chorus and sing the praises of Zara just like any other Zoroastrian. But when they begin to bad-mouth the religious traditions before Zara, I can not take that. I dislike it when they start insulting the traditions before Zara in order to make him big. My point is that if Zara was great, it was because he walked on solid foundations laid down by those thinkers who came before him.



Ushta

Parviz Varjavand