Minds vs Books - What do Zoroastrians worship?

Dear Mehrdad

You have completely missed the point of this discussion.
It is the STRENGTH of Zoroastrianism that we DO NOT have to rely on old books to LIVE our religion.
And this disregard is not Western arrogance.
IT WAS WESTERNERS THEMSELVES WHO INTRODUCE THE RIDICULOUS IDEA OF BOOK WORSHIP.
It came to Iran from THE WEST, from Europe and from the Middle East.
Now, let's get rid of it.
BOOKS ARE DEAD MATTER. What is important is top have LIVING MINDS. This is what Mazdayasna (and not Book-Yasna) is all about, by its very definition!!!
Zarathushtra never quoted old books, he did not hold any books as sacred. It is an Abrahamic idea.

Ushta
Alexander

2010/6/20 mehrdad farahmand

I cannot believe my own senses when I read that you guys call the scriptures of a religion as old moldy books. It is like telling a Hindu that the Vedas and the Upanishads are nonsense, telling a Buddhist that the Sutras and the Dhammapada are junk, like telling a Jew that Torah has to be abandoned, and so on.
This is another example of your Western arrogance, which prompts you to tell us that after four thousand years we do not know the product of our own thoughts and beliefs and you 'Johnny Come Latelys' can tell us what it all means and what the way is. This is nothing new for us. The Greeks did in the name of civilization and democracy, while they were the most oppressive forms of government themselves. The Romans did in the name of Pax Romana, while they were most brutal and barbaric of all. The Christians in the name salvation, while they raped the spirit of million, while burning their bodies. The Colonialist did in the name of progress, while all they did was rape, pillage, and steal, and now you do it in the name of science, while you would not what science is even it bit you in the ass.
How many of you are scientist? Have you ever been in a lab? Have you ever published anything in a credible scientific journal for your for your peers?
I am physician, neurologist-neurosurgeon-neuroscientist. I have a doctorate i philosophy of mind and spend most of my adult life, if not all of it, study mind and consciousness and diseases thereof. I have not even come across one credible scientist, who make these naive and informed claims that we understand and explain everything. In contrary, we do not even know what to do with ideas such as mind, consciousness, etc. We know somethings about brain FUNCTIONS, but what is a mind. Don't even mention consciousness. They idea of faculties such as cognition, emotions, and volition refer back to platonic idea of tripartite notion of mind. That does not pan out on the brain functions. Ask any credible physicist whether we understand and explain the workings of the universe and he will smile and tell you we have made great progress but we are not even close.
You fellas identify Mazda with collection of human intelligence and minds. Whose intelligence and mind? Yours maybe and people who think like you. Shall we worship you O Master?
Your arguments would not pass even in philosophy the laugh test. Hanging your hat on the Derridas, Delleuzes of the world does not buy much truth, only more confusion, narccisism, and arrogance.
A religion is based on some foundations, most notably its scriptures that must be living. It means that they must evolve with time WHILE MAINTAINING ITS IDENTITY. That is precisely the challenge. If you fellas are interested in creating your own religion, go ahead nobody wants or would stop you. Nobody could stop you from stealing the label from another religion and call yourself zoroastrians, but do not have the audacity to tell us that we are not zoroastrians.
Emergence and creation of the world is one the main things that any religion tries to explain and also where do humans fit in. How can the grounds of existence be the collection of human minds while the world and the universe existed for billions of years before any nervous system? That is nonesense. I have news for you there are not many sane minds in this world and intelligence is also a rare commodity. We could say that human mind is the inflection of that universal mind through our nervous system and brains. This is a philosophical question outside the realm of science. Science works with hows, philosophy works with whys. This is a metaphysical question and not a physical one no matter how the post-modern and post-structuralist bull-shit artists try to twist and turn it.
You guys would be well advised to read the moldy books from across traditions, modern philosophical works on mind and consciousness, and some real science and not play science cheer leaders.

mehrdad



On Sun, Jun 20, 2010 at 2:37 PM, Alexander Bard wrote:

Dear Bahman


You wrote to Dino:

"You are absolutely entitled to believe and preach and talk about whatever you believe in. Calling your belief however, Mazdayasa is a misnomer! It is misleading, since Mazdayasna refers and has referred to an old age religion and tradition whether fairytale or otherwise; which is not what you are stating."

I believe that what Dino has presented is indeed what Mazdayasna is all about and AT LEAST as much Mazdayasna as any dying historical project is.

Ushta
Alexander

2010/6/20 Bahman Noruziaan


Now refer to the posting in which I called Dino not a Zoroastrian!


"And Bahman should not tell Dino that Dino is not a Zoroastrian. That is a preposterous statement!"

Bahman




To: Ushta@yahoogroups.com
From: bardissimo@gmail.com
Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2010 20:50:15 +0200

Subject: [Ushta] Healing, angels and other superstitious nonsense


Mind is JUST brains and neurons and strictly material. Period!!!
To believe anything else is just to believe in fantasies and fairytales, the exact opposite of what Zarathushtra preached.
Craig Venter just invented artificial life that can reproduce itself. He used ONLY CHEMICALS and nothing else whatsoever. So everything is material, there is only one substance in the universe. Materia!!!
Which is what the Indo-Europeans always believed as they were always MONISTS. Both the early Zoroastrians (before the adevnt of Manicheism and Islam) and the Brahmanists in India were always MONISTS.
DUALISM (the belief that there is a spiritual substance separate from materia) is both unscientific, nonsensical and Abrahamic, and certainly not Zoroastrian.
And that's that.
And Bahman should not tell Dino that Dino is not a Zoroastrian. That is a preposterous statement! Especially coming from somebody whose idea of Zoroastrianism seems to be that Zoroastrianism is a form of Shia Islam.
Ushta
Alexander

2010/6/19 ardeshir farhmand

Dino,

so this is the brilliant analysis of one of the self proclaimed promising minds/philosophes of switzerland; not only he dodges a number of rational questions, but simply states that things beyond our understanding do not exist, HOW BRILLIANT;

so, dino, ur idea of mazda is that mazda is the sum of the wise minds of human beings and restricted to humans only ?????
so, was there genius, creativity, vision and ingenuity before men?????
will there be one thereafter??????
also define mind????
is that just brain cells and neurons or more to consciousness than the material aspect of the brain and the nervous system?????
also is consciousness wholly material???????

since u state u are a scientist;
all the things that are beyond our scientific reach today are fiction??????
so, 100 years ago, if someone predicted our advances today that was fiction at the time, correct??????

the problem here on this list is; that people like alexander, dino and P.V are ALWAYS RIGHT, there is NO healthy debate but one sided, repetitive, amateur psuedo rationalism incapable of withstanding rational examination.

ardeshir