Blog Smith is inspired by the myth of Hephaestus in the creation of blacksmith-like, forged materials: ideas. This blog analyzes topics that interest me: IT, politics, technology, history, education, music, and the history of religions.
The hippiesubculture began its development as a youth movement in the United States during the early 1960s and then developed around the world.
Its origins may be traced to European social movements in the 19th and early 20th century such as Bohemians, and the influence of Eastern religion and spirituality. From around 1967, its fundamental ethos — including harmony with nature, communal living, artistic experimentation particularly in music, and the widespread use of recreational drugs — spread around the world during the counterculture of the 1960s, which has become closely associated with the subculture.
The change in the public label from "beatnik" to "hippie" occurred after the 1967 Human Be-In in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, where Allan Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and Michael McClure led the crowd in chanting "Om". Ginsberg was also at the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention, and was friends with Abbie Hoffman and other members of the Chicago Seven. Stylistic differences between beatniks, marked by somber colors, dark shades and goatees, gave way to colorful psychedelic clothing and long hair worn by hippies. While the beats were known for "playing it cool" and keeping a low profile, hippies became known for displaying their individuality.
On January 14, 1967, the outdoor Human Be-In in San Francisco popularized hippie culture across the United States, with 30,000 hippies gathering in Golden Gate Park. The Monterey Pop Festival from June 16 to June 18 introduced the rock music of the counterculture to a wide audience and marked the start of the "Summer of Love." Scott McKenzie's rendition of John Phillips' song, "San Francisco," became a hit in the United States and Europe. The lyrics, "If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair", inspired thousands of young people from all over the world to travel to San Francisco, sometimes wearing flowers in their hair and distributing flowers to passersby, earning them the name, "Flower Children."
Bands like the Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company (with Janis Joplin), and Jefferson Airplane continued to live in the Haight, but by the end of the summer, the incessant media coverage led the Diggers to declare the "death" of the hippie with a parade. According to the late poet Stormi Chambless, the hippies buried an effigy of a hippie in the Panhandle to demonstrate the end of his/her reign. Regarding this period of history, the July 7, 1967, TIME magazine featured a cover story entitled, "The Hippies: The Philosophy of a Subculture." The article described the guidelines of the hippie code: "Do your own thing, wherever you have to do it and whenever you want. Drop out. Leave society as you have known it. Leave it utterly. Blow the mind of every straight person you can reach. Turn them on, if not to drugs, then to beauty, love, honesty, fun."[29]
It is estimated that around 100,000 people traveled to San Francisco in the summer of 1967. The media was right behind them, casting a spotlight on the Haight-Ashbury district and popularizing the "hippie" label. With this increased attention, hippies found support for their ideals of love and peace but were also criticized for their anti-work, pro-drug, and permissive ethos. Misgivings about the hippie culture, particularly with regard to drug abuse and lenient morality, fueled the moral panics of the late 1960s.
Charles Manson was a lifelong criminal who had been released from prison just in time for San Francisco's Summer of Love. With his long hair, charisma and the ability to charm a crowd with his guitar playing, his singing and rhetoric, Manson exhibited many of the outward manifestations of hippie identity. Yet he hardly exemplified the hippie ideals of peace, love, compassion and human fellowship; through twisted logic, hallucinogenic drugs, and psychological manipulation, he inspired his followers to commit murder. Manson's highly publicized 1970 trial and subsequent conviction in January 1971 irrevocably tarnished the hippie image in the eyes of many Americans.
Charles Milles Manson (né Maddox, November 12, 1934 – November 19, 2017) was an American criminal and cult leader. In the late 1960s, he formed what became known as the Manson Family, a quasi-commune in California. Manson's followers committed a series of nine murders at four locations in July and August 1969. In 1971 he was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder for the deaths of seven people, all of which were carried out at his instruction by members of the group. Manson was also convicted of first-degree murder for two other deaths.
At the time the Manson Family began to form, Manson was an unemployed ex-convict who had spent half of his life in correctional institutions for a variety of offenses. Before the murders, he was a singer-songwriter on the fringe of the Los Angeles music industry, chiefly through a chance association with Dennis Wilson, drummer and founding member of the Beach Boys. Manson believed in what he called "Helter Skelter", a term he took from the Beatles' song of the same name to describe an impending apocalyptic race war. He believed the murders would help precipitate that war. From the beginning of his notoriety, a pop culture arose around him in which he ultimately became an emblem of insanity, violence and the macabre. After Manson was charged with the crimes of which he was later convicted, recordings of songs written and performed by him were released commercially, starting with Lie: The Love and Terror Cult (1970). Various musicians have covered some of his songs. On March 6, 1970 (the day the court vacated Manson's status as his own attorney), LIE, an album of Manson music, was released. This included "Cease to Exist", a Manson composition the Beach Boys had recorded with modified lyrics and the title "Never Learn Not to Love". Over the next couple of months, only about 300 of the album's 2,000 copies sold.
You’ve undoubtedly heard that Jerusalem represents the third holiest city in Islam.
That is provably untrue.
Or, perhaps you’ve read in Wikipedia or heard on CNN that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest place of worship in Islam.
That, too, is a provable lie.
Or, maybe you heard about the vote by UNESCO in 2016 that denied any Israeli connection to the Temple Mount, referring it only by the Islamic name, “Haram al-Sharif.”
Before I get to the history of these myths, these aberrant legends, these anti-Semitic fictions from hell, let me tell you why anyone with a clear head and objective, rational mind can see the truth in spite of the powerful delusion that has cast a spell upon the world – deliberately, with political purpose and very recently, too.
Everyone should recognize the No. 1 holy site in all Islam is Mecca, the Qaba, which draws millions of pilgrims annually – perhaps more than any other religious shrine in the world. For instance, while some 5 million visit the Vatican City every year, 18 million Muslims visit Saudi Arabia and, almost all of them, go to Mecca, which doesn’t allow non-Muslims to enter the city. The annual five-day Hajj, alone, attracted more than 2 million in 2017.
Spiritual pilgrimages are a big deal in Islam, and the No. 2 holy site in all Islam is probably Medina, where Muhammad is buried.
But after Mecca and Medina, there is actually much dispute, even among Muslims, as to which would be Islam’s third holiest city. Why? Because while Mecca and Medina are considered holy to all Muslim followers of Muhammad and Allah, not all of them are Sunni. Sunni Islam adherents represent about 80 percent, or roughly 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide. But another 20 percent are Shia, representing as many as 300 million. And Shia Muslims revere shrines in two other cities in Iraq – Najaf and Karbala.
How many make pilgrimage from Najaf to Karbala annually during the Shia Arba’een Pilgrimage? Hold on to your burqa or keffiyeh. Some accounts put it at 30 million from as many as 40 countries, often braving attacks from Sunni terrorists and usually traveling barefoot. That’s right. This Arba’een Pilgrimage, is a much longer one than the five-day Mecca Hajj and, according to many sources, much larger in sheer number of participants.
Now let’s consider Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock and Jerusalem.
How many Muslims make pilgrimage to Jerusalem? Israel hosts a total of about 2 million tourists from all over the world every year, but only a tiny fraction are Muslims. Israeli tourists are diverse ethnically but almost all Jewish and Christian. And please don’t tell me Muslims are not welcome, because they are. In 2014, the latest statics I could find, showed 26,700 tourists from Indonesia; 23,000 from Turkey; 17,700 from Jordan; 9,000 from Malaysia and 3,300 from Morocco. And those were the biggest numbers.
And maybe you think Muslims stopped coming to Jerusalem, their “third holiest city,” after Israel reunified it in 1967. Quite the opposite. There was scarcely any interest in Jerusalem when Jordan controlled Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock. Even King Hussein never visited Jerusalem during the time he controlled part of the city for two decades.
If you want to go back further, before the first Zionist Aliyah, you can see what the Dome of the Rock circa 1875 looked like – abandoned, in total disrepair, unvisited. In fact, it didn’t get its famous gold-plated roof until the 1950s under Jordanian control, and it had to be redone in 1993 under Israeli authority.
While we’re starting to travel back in history, let’s look for Jerusalem in the Quran. Let me save you some time. You can stop looking. You won’t find it. It’s not there, though a passage we read in the Quran did indeed inspire the building of Al-Aqsa.
The Muslim “claim” to Jerusalem is based on what is written in the Quran in Sura 17:1, which says, “Glory be unto Allah who did take his servant for a journey at night from the Sacred Mosque to the Furthest Mosque.” How did this “Furthest Mosque” become the one visited by Muhammad in a dream in which he rode a flying camel or horse?
In Muhammad’s lifetime, Jerusalem was occupied by the Byzantine Empire. While Muhammad died in 632, Jerusalem was captured by Muslims in 638. When they came, of course, there was no mosque and no Dome of the Rock anywhere in Jerusalem, only churches. One of those churches is believed to have been built atop the Temple Mount. It may have even been converted into the Al-Aqsa Mosque. In fact, both the dome and the mosque display undeniably noticeable Byzantine architectural influences.
When rivals of Muhammad’s successors captured Jerusalem from the Christians, they first built the Dome of the Rock, a shrine the conquerors believed to have been the site of the Second Temple, destroyed by the Roman Empire in 70 A.D. The dome was completed in 691 and the Al-Aqsa Mosque some 20 years later, or some 80 years after the death of Muhammad. The “ascension” of Muhammad from the rock under the dome is believed to have been conjured during this period by Khalif Omar, who sought to construct a new holy site to rival the one in Mecca.
Nevertheless, the idea of establishing this shrine and the Al-Aqsa mosque atop the old Temple Mount as permanent Islamic holy places did not catch on, as we can see by comparing them to others in Mecca, Medina, Najaf and Karbala.
In fact, not through the entire time of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, which controlled Jerusalem until World War I, and not until 1929, did the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque stir any passionate interest in Islam. And that was thanks to Adolf Hitler’s Muslim friend, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, who reminded his radical followers of Muhammad’s “Night Journey.” He stoked the myth to initiate riots that year.
Then, another dreamer, after the 1967 Six-Day War in which Israel reunified Jerusalem under its control, Yasser Arafat, used the shrines to stir Islam’s claim to the city, which he called “Al-Quds.” Arafat also launched the lie that no Jewish Temple ever rested atop the Temple Mount, though that is precisely why both the dome and the mosque were built there on what Omar believed to be the Temple’s very foundation.
On one level, the propaganda coup has fooled most of the world – to such an extent that most Muslims believe the Al-Quds myth. They riot for it all over the world. They commit terrorism in the name of “liberating” it. They boycott, divest, impose sanctions, throw stones, launch missiles, start intifadas and more.
But, one thing they don’t do? They don’t visit. They don’t do pilgrimages. Go figure.
For Romans shaving was very serious business. Shaving set set them apart from mustache-wearing barbarians and bearded Greeks.
The very first shavings in the Roman Empire probably happened with primitive metal razors. Another option was obsidian, a volcanic glass, used for thousands of years to make cutting tools. Furthermore flint was sometimes made into very sharp blades for the same purpose.
Roman men who belonged to the upper classes would have a skilled live-in servant to shave them. The common folk would start their day with a trip to the tonsor, or barber, who would shave their face with an iron Novacila.
There was, however, one problem with these blades: They corroded very quickly leading to many cuts. This was not a problem as the barber would apply a special lotion comprised of perfumed ointment and spider webs soaked in oil and vinegar.
After this was done you were ready to face the day with a clean shaven face.
John Lennon wrote this about the Maharishi while he was leaving India in 1968. After attending his Transcendental Meditation camp with the other Beatles, Lennon thought The Maharishi was a crock.
The song describes Lennon's total dissatisfaction with the Maharishi. While at his retreat, it has been said that the Maharishi attempted to rape Mia Farrow. Once The Beatles learned of this, they immediately went to the Maharishi, and Lennon announced they were all leaving. The Maharishi asked why? Lennon said, "If you're so cosmic, you'll know why." As originally written, some of its lyrics were considered obscene, and had to be refined. Lennon had used the Maharishi's name, but had to change it for fear of being sued. But, Sexy Sadie is the Maharishi. Needless to say, that was the end of the Maharishi and The Beatles relationship. >>
Lennon dubbed the Maharishi "sexy" after he hit on Mia Farrow. Farrow's sister, Prudence, was also there, and her experience led Lennon to write "Dear Prudence."
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was born January 12, 1917. The founder of the Transcendental Meditation Movement, the Beatles spent time with the Maharishi in 1967-68; they were visiting him when they learned of the death of their manager Brian Epstein. John was disenchanted with the Maharishi and thought he was a hoax, and left abruptly convincing the others he was using the girls The Beatles had brought him.
This song required 52 takes and a full day-and-a-half of studio time. Lennon spent much of time cussing his way through the sessions, deeply hurt after coming to the conclusion that the Maharishi was not as holy as he'd hoped.
Sexy Sadie, what have you done You made a fool of everyone You made a fool of everyone Sexy Sadie, ooh, what have you done
Sexy Sadie, you broke the rules You laid it down for all to see You laid it down for all to see Sexy Sadie, ooh, you broke the rules
One sunny day the world was waiting for a lover She came along and turned on everyone Sexy Sadie, the greatest of them all
Sexy Sadie, how did you know The world was waiting just for you The world was waiting just for you Sexy Sadie, ooh, how did you know
Sexy Sadie, you'll get yours yet However big you think you are However big you think you are Sexy Sadie, ooh, you'll get yours yet
We gave her everything we owned just to sit at her table Just a smile would lighten everything Sexy Sadie, she's the latest and the greatest of them all
According to a study by the Dynamic Catholic Institute: 6.4% of registered parishioners contribute 80% of the volunteer hours, 6.8% of registered parishioners contribute 80% of financial contributions. There is an 84% overlap between the 2 groups. Only 17.8 million of the 96 million people in the U.S. who describe themselves as “Catholic at some point in their life” attend Mass weekly, & fewer than 3 million are involved in the parish outside of Mass.
Martin Luther—who published his 95 theses in 1517—did not see himself as a reformer. Rather, he believed that he was proclaiming the true word of God. The Catholic Church convened the Council of Trent in part to respond to Luther’s challenge.
The Renaissance began in the late 14th century and ended in the 17th century. This era is characterized by a widespread and long-lasting renewal of classical thought and practices, including in the areas of art, literature, and politics. In contrast to the scholasticism of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance gave rise to humanism or studia humanitatis.
According to the Zoroastrian story of creation, Ahura Mazda existed in light in goodness above, while Angra Mainyu existed in darkness and ignorance below. They have existed independently of each other for all time, and manifest contrary substances. Ahura Mazda first created seven abstract heavenly beings called Amesha Spentas, who support him and represent beneficent aspects, along with numerous yazads, lesser beings worthy of worship. He then created the universe itself in order to ensnare evil. Ahura Mazda created the floating, egg-shaped universe in two parts: first the spiritual (menog) and 3,000 years later, the physical (getig). Ahura Mazda then created Gayomard, the archetypical perfect man, and the first bull.
While Ahura Mazda created the universe and humankind, Angra Mainyu, whose instinct is to destroy, miscreated demons, evil yazads, and noxious creatures (khrafstar) such as snakes, ants, and flies. Angra Mainyu created an opposite, evil being for each good being, except for humans, which he found he could not match. Angra Mainyu invaded the universe through the base of the sky, inflicting Gayomard and the bull with suffering and death. However, the evil forces were trapped in the universe and could not retreat. The dying primordial man and bull emitted seeds. From the bull's seed grew all beneficial plants and animals of the world, and from the man's seed grew a plant whose leaves became the first human couple. Humans thus struggle in a two-fold universe trapped with evil. The evils of this physical world are not products of an inherent weakness, but are the fault of Angra Mainyu's assault on creation. This assault turned the perfectly flat, peaceful, and ever day-lit world into a mountainous, violent place that is half night.
Zoroastrianism,[n 1] or more natively Mazdayasna,[1] is one of the world's oldest religions, "combining a cosmogonic dualism and eschatological monotheism in a manner unique... among the major religions of the world."[2] Ascribed to the teachings of the Iranian Prophet Zoroaster (or Zarathustra),[3] he exalted their deity of wisdom, Ahura Mazda, (Wise Lord) as its Supreme Being.
Leading characteristics, such as messianism, heaven and hell, and free will influenced other religious systems, including Second Temple Judaism, Gnosticism, Christianity, and Islam.[5] With possible roots dating back to the second millennium BCE, Zoroastrianism enters recorded history in the 5th-century BCE,[4] and including a Mithraic Median prototype and Zurvanist Sassanid successor it served as the state religion of the pre-Islamic Iranian empires from around 600 BCE to 650 CE.
Zoroastrianism was suppressed from the 7th century onwards following the Muslim conquest of Persia.[6] Recent estimates place the current number of Zoroastrians at around 2.6 million, with most living in India and Iran.[7][8][n 2] Besides the Zoroastrian diaspora, the older Mithraic faith Yazdânism is still practised amongst the Kurds.[n 3]
The religious philosophy of Zoroaster divided the early Iranian gods. The most important texts of the religion are those of the Avesta. In Zoroastrianism, the creator Ahura Mazda, through the Spenta Mainyu (Good Spirit, "Bounteous Immortals") is an all-good "father" of Asha (Truth, “order, justice,") in opposition to Druj (“falsehood, deceit”) and no evil originates from "him". "He" and his works are evident to humanity through the six primary Amesha Spentas and the host of other Yazatas, through whom worship of Mazda is ultimately directed. Spenta Mainyu adjoined unto "truth" oppose the Spirit's opposite,] Angra Mainyu and its forces born of Akəm Manah (“evil thinking”).
Who are the Zoroastrians and what do they believe? Their faith is one of the oldest surviving religions on Earth, predating Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - and is actually (some say) the inspiration for all three... MUSIC: Lord Taylor - Until There's More Many thanks to artist Mitchell Nolte for his kind permission to use his Zarathustra (Zoroaster) artwork.
https://youtu.be/kLzsXLBD2rI
Zoroastrianism has no major theological divisions, though it is not uniform; modern-era influences having a significant impact on individual and local beliefs, practices, values and vocabulary, sometimes merging with tradition and in other cases displacing it. In Zoroastrianism, the purpose in life is to "be among those who renew the world...to make the world progress towards perfection". Its basic maxims include:
Humata, Hukhta, Huvarshta, which mean: Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds.
There is only one path and that is the path of Truth.
Do the right thing because it is the right thing to do, and then all beneficial rewards will come to you also.
The most important texts of the religion are those of the Avesta, which includes the writings of Zoroaster known as the Gathas, enigmatic poems that define the religion's precepts, and the Yasna, the scripture. The full name by which Zoroaster addressed the deity is: Ahura, The Lord Creator, and Mazda, Supremely Wise.
He proclaimed that there is only one God, the singularly creative and sustaining force of the Universe. He also stated that human beings are given a right of choice, and because of cause and effect are also responsible for the consequences of their choices.
Zoroaster's teachings focused on responsibility, and did not introduce a devil, per se. The contesting force to Ahura Mazda was called Angra Mainyu, or angry spirit. Post-Zoroastrian scripture introduced the concept of Ahriman, the Devil, which was effectively a personification of Angra Mainyu.[23]
Zoroastrianism was founded by Zoroaster (or Zarathustra), later deemed a prophet, in ancient Iran. The precise date of the founding of Zoroastrianism is uncertain. Zoroaster was born in either Northeast Iran or Southwest Afghanistan. He was born into a culture with a polytheistic religion, which included animal sacrifice[69] and the ritual use of intoxicants, quite similar to early forms of Hinduism in India. Zoroaster's birth and early life are little documented. What is known is recorded in the Gathas—the core of the Avesta, which contains hymns thought to be composed by Zoroaster himself. Born into the Spitama clan, he worked as a priest. He had a wife, three sons, and three daughters.
Zoroaster rejected the religion of the Bronze Age Iranians, with their many gods and oppressive class structure, in which the Karvis and Karapans (princes and priests) controlled the ordinary people. He also opposed animal sacrifices and the use of the hallucinogenic Haoma plant (possibly a species of ephedra) in rituals, but held the rooster as a "symbol of light"[70] and associated it with "good against evil"[71] because of his heraldic actions.
Vision of Zoroaster
According to Zoroastrian belief, when Zoroaster was 30 years old, he went into the Daiti river to draw water for a Haoma ceremony; when he emerged, he received a vision of Vohu Manah. After this, Vohu Manah took him to the other six Amesha Spentas, where he received the completion of his vision.[72] This vision radically transformed his view of the world, and he tried to teach this view to others. Zoroaster believed in one creator God, teaching that only one God was worthy of worship. Some of the deities of the old religion, the Daevas (Devas in Sanskrit), appeared to delight in war and strife. Zoroaster said these were evil spirits, workers of Angra Mainyu.
Zoroaster's ideas were not taken up quickly; he originally only had one convert: his cousin Maidhyoimanha.[73] The local religious authorities opposed his ideas, considering that their faith, power, and particularly their rituals, were threatened by Zoroaster's teaching against over-ritualising religious ceremonies. Many did not like Zoroaster's downgrading of the Daevas to evil spirits. After 12 years of little success, Zoroaster left his home.
In the country of King Vishtaspa in Bactria, the king and queen heard Zoroaster debating with the religious leaders of the land and decided to accept Zoroaster's ideas as the official religion of their kingdom. Zoroaster died in his late 70s. Very little is known of the time between Zoroaster and the Achaemenian period, except that Zoroastrianism spread to Western Iran. By the time of the founding of the Achaemenid Empire, Zoroastrianism was already a well-established religion.
A video that the life of the Iranian prophet Zoroaster and the essence of his teachings.
This is a product of Mexus Education Pvt. Ltd., an education innovations company based in Mumbai, India.
http://www.mexuseducation.com, http://www.ikenstore.in
The roots of Zoroastrianism are thought to have emerged from a common prehistoric Indo-Iranian religious system dating back to the early 2nd millennium BCE.[33] The prophet Zoroaster himself, though traditionally dated to the 6th century BC, is thought by many modern historians to have been a reformer of the polytheistic Iranian religion who lived in the 10th century BC.[34] Zoroastrianism as a religion was not firmly established until several centuries later. Zoroastrianism enters recorded history in the mid-5th century BCE. Herodotus' The Histories (completed c. 440 BCE) includes a description of Greater Iranian society with what may be recognizably Zoroastrian features, including exposure of the dead.
The Histories is a primary source of information on the early period of the Achaemenid era (648–330 BCE), in particular with respect to the role of the Magi. According to Herodotus i.101, the Magi were the sixth tribe of the Medians (until the unification of the Persian empire under Cyrus the Great, all Iranians were referred to as "Mede" or "Mada" by the peoples of the Ancient World), who appear to have been the priestly caste of the Mesopotamian-influenced branch of Zoroastrianism today known as Zurvanism, and who wielded considerable influence at the courts of the Median emperors.
The Zoroastrian Achaemenid Empire at its greatest extent was the largest ancient empire in recorded history at 8.0 million km2 (480 BCE).[35]
Following the unification of the Median and Persian empires in 550 BCE, Cyrus the Great and, later, his son Cambyses II curtailed the powers of the Magi after they had attempted to sow dissent following their loss of influence. In 522 BCE, the Magi revolted and set up a rival claimant to the throne. The usurper, pretending to be Cyrus' younger son Smerdis, took power shortly thereafter.[36] Owing to the despotic rule of Cambyses and his long absence in Egypt, "the whole people, Persians, Medes and all the other nations" acknowledged the usurper, especially as he granted a remission of taxes for three years (Herodotus iii. 68).
Darius I and later Achaemenid emperors acknowledged their devotion to Ahura Mazda in inscriptions, as attested to several times in the Behistun inscription, and appear to have continued the model of coexistence with other religions. Whether Darius was a follower of Zoroaster has not been conclusively established, since devotion to Ahura Mazda was (at the time) not necessarily an indication of an adherence to Zoroaster's teaching. A number of the Zoroastrian texts that today are part of the greater compendium of the Avesta have been attributed to that period. This calendar attributed to the Achaemenid period is still in use today. Additionally, the divinities, or yazatas, are present-day Zoroastrian angels (Dhalla, 1938).
According to later Zoroastrian legend (Denkard and the Book of Arda Viraf), many sacred texts were lost when Alexander the Great's troops invaded Persepolis and subsequently destroyed the royal library there. Diodorus Siculus's Bibliotheca historica, which was completed circa 60 BCE, appears to substantiate this Zoroastrian legend (Diod. 17.72.2–17.72.6). According to one archaeological examination, the ruins of the palace of Xerxes bear traces of having been burned (Stolze, 1882). Whether a vast collection of (semi-)religious texts "written on parchment in gold ink", as suggested by the Denkard, actually existed remains a matter of speculation, but is unlikely. Given that many of the Denkards statements-as-fact have since been refuted among scholars, the tale of the library is widely accepted to be fictional (Kellens, 2002).
The religion would be professed many centuries following the demise of the Achaemenids in mainland Persia and the core regions of the former Achaemenid Empire, most notably Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and the Caucasus. In the Cappadocian kingdom, whose territory was formerly an Achaemenid possession, Persian colonists, cut off from their co-religionists in Iran proper, continued to practice the faith [Zoroastrianism] of their forefathers; and there Strabo, observing in the first century B.C., records (XV.3.15) that these "fire kindlers" possessed many "holy places of the Persian Gods", as well as fire temples.[37] Strabo furthermore relates, were "noteworthy enclosures; and in their midst there is an altar, on which there is a large quantity of ashes and where the magi keep the fire ever burning."[37] Through and after the Hellenistic periods in the aforementioned regions, the religion would be strongly revived as a major thing.
Most of the Sassanid Empire was overthrown by the Arabs over the course of 16 years in the 7th century. Although the administration of the state was rapidly Islamicized and subsumed under the Umayyad Caliphate, in the beginning "there was little serious pressure" exerted on newly subjected people to adopt Islam.[43]
Because of their sheer numbers, the conquered Zoroastrians had to be treated as dhimmis (despite doubts of the validity of this identification that persisted down the centuries),[44] which made them eligible for protection. Islamic jurists took the stance that only Muslims could be perfectly moral, but "unbelievers might as well be left to their iniquities, so long as these did not vex their overlords."[44]
The Arabs adopted the Sassanid tax-system, both the land-tax levied on land owners and the poll-tax levied on individuals,[44] called jizya, a tax levied on non-Muslims (i.e., the dhimmis). In time, this poll-tax came to be used as a means to humble the non-Muslims, and a number of laws and restrictions evolved to emphasize their inferior status.
Under Abbasid rule, Muslim Iranians (who by then were in the majority) increasingly found ways to taunt Zoroastrians, and distressing them became a popular sport. For example, in the 9th century, a deeply venerated cypress tree in Khorasan (which Parthian-era legend supposed had been planted by Zoroaster himself) was felled for the construction of a palace in Baghdad, 2,000 miles (3,200 km) away.
In the 10th century, on the day that a Tower of Silence had been completed at much trouble and expense, a Muslim official contrived to get up onto it, and to call the adhan (the Muslim call to prayer) from its walls. This was made a pretext to annex the building.[45]
Another popular means to distress Zoroastrians was to maltreat dogs, as these animals are sacred in Zoroastrianism. Such baiting, which was to continue down the centuries, was indulged in by all; not only by high officials, but by the general uneducated population as well.
The first edict, adapted from an Arsacid and Sassanid one (but in those to the advantage of Zoroastrians), was that only a Muslim could own Muslim slaves or indentured servants. Thus, a bonded individual owned by a Zoroastrian could automatically become a freeman by converting to Islam. The other edict was that if one male member of a Zoroastrian family converted to Islam, he instantly inherited all its property.
Despite economic and social incentives to convert, Zoroastrianism remained strong in some regions, particularly in those furthest away from the Caliphate capital at Baghdad. In Bukhara (in present-day Uzbekistan), resistance to Islam required the 9th-century Arab commander Qutaiba to convert his province four times. The first three times the citizens reverted to their old religion. Finally, the governor made their religion "difficult for them in every way", turned the local fire temple into a mosque, and encouraged the local population to attend Friday prayers by paying each attendee two dirhams.[48] The cities where Arab governors resided were particularly vulnerable to such pressures, and in these cases the Zoroastrians were left with no choice but to either conform or migrate to regions that had a more amicable administration.[48]
Due to Islamic oppression and bigotry, Zoroastrians have fled to India, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Persia, and an expatriate community has formed in the United States (some from India), and to a lesser extent in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.
See the spread of the religion known as Zoroastrianism. It also includes Manichaeism but not any of the other religions that are associated with Zoroastrianism.
https://youtu.be/CuEGCNw3S_8
Zoroastrianism is often compared with the Manichaeism. Nominally an Iranian religion, it has its origins in the Middle-Eastern Gnosticism. Superficially such a comparison seem apt, as both are dualistic and Manichaeism adopted many of the Yazatas for its own pantheon. Gherardo Gnoli, in The Encyclopaedia of Religion, says that "we can assert that Manichaeism has its roots in the Iranian religious tradition and that its relationship to Mazdaism, or Zoroastrianism, is more or less like that of Christianity to Judaism".[66]
They are however quite different.[67] Manichaeism equated evil with matter and good with spirit, and was therefore particularly suitable as a doctrinal basis for every form of asceticism and many forms of mysticism. Zoroastrianism, on the other hand, rejects every form of asceticism, has no dualism of matter and spirit (only of good and evil), and sees the spiritual world as not very different from the natural one (the word "paradise", or pairi.daeza, applies equally to both.)
Manichaeism's basic doctrine was that the world and all corporeal bodies were constructed from the substance of Satan, an idea that is fundamentally at odds with the Zoroastrian notion of a world that was created by God and that is all good, and any corruption of it is an effect of the bad. From what may be inferred from many Manichean texts and a few Zoroastrian sources, the adherents of the two religions (or at least their respective priesthoods) despised each other intensely.
Zoroastrians believe that there is one universal, transcendent, supreme god, Ahura Mazda, or the "Wise Lord". (Ahura means "Being" and Mazda means "Mind" in Avestan language).[25] Zoroaster keeps the two attributes separate as two different concepts in most of the Gathas and also consciously uses a masculine word for one concept and a feminine for the other, as if to distract from an anthropomorphism of his divinity. Zoroaster claimed that Ahura Mazda is almighty, though not omnipotent.
Other scholars assert that since Zoroastrianism's divinity covers both being and mind as immanent entities, it is better described as a belief in an immanent self-creating universe with consciousness as its special attribute, thereby putting Zoroastranism in the pantheistic fold where it can be easily traced to its shared origin with Indian Brahmanism.[26][27] In any case, Ahura Mazda's creation—evident is widely agreed as asha, truth and order—is the antithesis of chaos, which is evident as druj, falsehood and disorder. The resulting conflict involves the entire universe, including humanity, which has an active role to play in the conflict.[28]
In Zoroastrian tradition, the "chaotic" is represented by Angra Mainyu (also referred to as "Ahriman"), the "Destructive Principle", while the benevolent is represented through Ahura Mazda's Spenta Mainyu, the instrument or "Bounteous Principle" of the act of creation. It is through Spenta Mainyu that transcendental Ahura Mazda is immanent in humankind, and through which the Creator interacts with the world. According to Zoroastrian cosmology, in articulating the Ahuna Vairya formula, Ahura Mazda made His ultimate triumph evident to Angra Mainyu. As expressions and aspects of Creation, Ahura Mazda emanated the Amesha Spentas ("Bounteous Immortals"), that are each the hypostasis and representative of one aspect of that Creation. These Amesha Spenta are in turn assisted by a league of lesser principles, the Yazatas, each "Worthy of Worship" and each again a hypostasis of a moral or physical aspect of creation.
Zoroastrian theology includes a duty to protect nature. This has led some to proclaim it as the "world's first ecological religion." Scholars have argued that, since the protections are part of a ritual, they stem from theology rather than ecology. Others have responded that, since the scripture calls for the protection of water, earth, fire, air, as once of its strongest precepts, it is, in effect, an ecological religion: "It is not surprising that Mazdaism (another term for Zoroastrianism) is called the first ecological religion. The reverence for Yazatas (divine spirits) emphasizes the preservation of nature (Avesta: Yasnas 1.19, 3.4, 16.9; Yashts 6.3-4, 10.13)." [29]
One of the worlds last and largest communities of Zoroastrians celebrates its annual fire festival in Iran, where the government has recently been more accepting of its pre-Islamic Persian heritage. WSJ's Bill Spindle reports.
"Zoroastrian rituals and prayers are solemnized in the presence of a Fire, which is scrupulously tended with sandalwood and frankincence and kept buning in a silver urn in the inner sanctum of every Zoroastrian "fire-temple" also called a Darbe Mehr (door of devotion). Fire is revered as a visual symbol of the Inner Light, the devine spark, that burns in each and every heart; a physical representation of the Illuminated Mind, Enlightenment and Truth. It is important to note that Zoroastirans do not "worship fire" as the religion denounces the worship of any idols or dieties." The mobed (priest) wears a mouth veil to prevent contamination of the fire.
"Ashem Vohu, vahishtem asti, Ushta asti, ushta ahmai Hyat ashai, vahishtai ashem
-To think a good thought, to speak a good word, to do a good deed, is the best. Everlasting happiness to those who follow the Path of Asha"
The World Religions class observing this prayer are wearing hats and head coverings as a sign of respect to the sanctity of the place of worship. It is very special and rare for nonpractitioners to be allowed into the inner sanctum.
What makes us morally responsible? The answer most people would give is that we have free will. We are free to choose what we do, and that is why we can rightly be praised or blamed. Our actions are up to us. But are they? Some philosophers have argued that we are not in control of what we do, that we do not have free will.
In this lecture, we will look at the problem of free will and determinism. This is the problem that we cannot make sense of free will in a natural universe, because a natural universe must work in a deterministic way. Everything in it, including us, must be determined. I will start by explaining what determinism is and why many philosophers are convinced that we live in a deterministic world, and how it implies that we could not possibly have free will in the sense that we ordinarily think we do. We will then look at various philosophical responses to the puzzle. According to one philosophical camp, ‘libertarianism’, we do have free will after all. A second approach, compatibilism, argues that although we do not have free will, it does not affect whether we should hold people responsible for their actions. Compatibilists (so called because they think that moral responsibility is compatible with determinism) argue that we can make sense of moral responsibility without free will. The last group argues that we do not have free will, and we do not have moral responsibility either. These philosophers call themselves ‘hard incompatibilists’, or ‘hard determinists’.
Additional Resources
Introductory
Beebee, Helen (2013) Free Will: An Introduction, Palgrave. (Opinionated Introduction to both compatibilism and incompatibilism).
Mason, Elinor (2005) ‘Recent work on Moral Responsibility’, Philosophical Books 46, 343-353. (Introductory survey of recent work on moral responsibility).
Talbert, Matthew (2016). Moral Responsibility: An Introduction. Polity. (Opinionated introduction, focussed mainly on compatibilist views).
Advanced
Pereboom, Derk, (2001) Living Without Free Will, Cambridge University Press. (A very clear defense of a hard determinist view).
Watson, Gary (ed.) (2003) Free Will, Oxford University Press. (Collection of essential readings on the topic, including the articles mentioned above by Strawson and Frankfurt).
Wolf, Susan (1990) Freedom Within Reason, Oxford University Press. (Influential defence of a compatibilist view).
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A tax on toilet paper; I kid you not. According to the sponsor, "the Water Protection and Reinvestment Act will be financed broadly by small fees on such things as . . . products disposed of in waste water." Congress wants to tax what you do in the privacy of your bathroom.
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