Talk:Zoroastrianism/Archive 1

message: Of the below links that were removed, I would question the removal of Syncretism, because this subject is dealt with in the second sentence, and because the argument that Zoroastrianism and its offshoot/cousin, Mithraism, are at the foundation of mainstream Hebrew and Christian doctrine is one of the most popular current arguments regarding the history of religious belief.  I would encourage anyone who is interested to investigate the validity of this argument.  Carefully look into the known data about the ancient roots of Zoroastrianism, when Zarathustra (aka Zoroaster) lived, the nature of his religious reformation, the the way in which his teachings, in their most pure, original form, were interpreted by his first folowers, how and when those interpretations evolved, the timing of the first appearance of Ahriman and Ormuzd in written form and the timing of the first appearance of messianism in Mithraism.  Also carefully look into the history of Judaism and its scriptures, both in general, and specifically, regarding the writings of Isaiah and Daniel, and the Bablyonian/Persian exile.  I would be very interested if anyone were able to show overwhelming evidence that 6th C. BCE Zoroastrianism is at the root of key Judeo-Christian doctrine, and not the other way around.  --dave c
:Mithraism may have some roots in proto-Zoroastrian Indo-Iranian paganism. --Zosodada 20:05, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Syncretism 

message: Removed these links: 
:New Age, Syncreticism, Occultism, Cabala
I think these are irrelevent to the article. If I'm wrong, please fix.
::Syncreticism may not be irrelevant. The others seem to be. --Zosodada 20:05, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rm links 

message: Confuse! Angra Mainyu has his own page under the alternate name Ahriman -- but Ahura Mazda comes back to Zoroastrianism, and his alternate name Ormuzd is nowhere to be seen either. Does evil get better coverage here? :) --FOo
:Evil is cool. :) --Bryan
::That must mean that in the war between the Truth and The Lie, The Lie is winning. --Zosodada 20:05, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Also note that someone has categorized Ahriman as a "Zoroastrian god";  in this case all of the "Christian gods" should be categorized as well, including Satan. --Zosodada 20:13, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page messup 

message: This seems contradictory to me:
:Unlike Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism does not associate matter with evil. On the contrary, material pursuits such as raising a family and creating wealth are considered to aid Ohrmazd. 
--Lirath Q. Pynnor
:That's accurate.  Manichaeans believed that all matter was evil, including the human body, and engaging in animal pursuits like sexual intercourse was inherently evil.  Zoroastrians, on the other hand, consider it the responsibility of human beings to reproduce and so create helpers for Ohrmazd in the fight against evil. --KASchmidt 04:56, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anti-Materialist? 

message: I think the figures for the Zoroastrian population of today given in the article are far too high.
Here's why:
The parsi population of india is only about seventy thousand according to a recent census. The total number of zoroastrians is estimated by the Zoroastrian Trust Fund of Europe to be 6000 to 7000, ergo the total number of parsis in Europe is less than 6000 to 7000. There are about 2500 parsis in Pakistan (according to a Pakistani parsi I met at the 2004 World zoroastrian youth congress, which was really a parsi congress in all but name) and I estimate the parsi population of North America and Australia to be very optimistically 12000. Adding a few thousand to account for parsis in the united arab emirates, oman, and other gulf countries and another few thousand (optimistically) for prsis living elsewhere and the sum total should be less than hundred thousand, probably significantly less, say ninety thousand. parsis have a serious demographic problem: over thirty percent of the parsi population is over sixtyfive (in India, certainly according to the census of the govt. of India, anecdotal evidence would support this for other countries also). 
Official figures concerning the irani zoroastrian population of the govt. of the islamic republic of iran are too high by a factor of ten, according to somebody from the zoroastrian trust funds of Europe. According to him Irani zoroastrians number in the ten thousands, most likely about thirty thousand. 
I too agree that parsis should have a seperate page.
Aside: I've never written a wikipedia article, so I dont know how to put links, signature etc, I might come back to this later and find better references, add links and edit the main article (and use capital letters).
::Hopefully you will soon discover the shift key. You're forgetting about the Zoroastrians in the US, Britan, the Netherlands, France &c., &c. --Zosodada 19:56, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A lot less than 250,000 zoroastrians worldwide. 

message: In an otherwise excellent recent addition to this article, there is this sentence:
"Mardanfarrokh, a Zoroastrian theologian in the ninth century A.C..."
Should "A.C." be "A.D." (or, if you prefer "C.E.")?  I think A.C. is a bit confusing here.  I'm assuming we mean AD here (there wouldn't be much reason to argue for dualism over monotheism in the 9th century B.C., when monotheism wasn't on most people's radar).  --Jfruh 20:11, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Google suggests AD and d is closer to c on the keyboard then a is to b the article us BC and AC elsewhere so AD would be consistent. --Geni 20:41, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "A.C."? 

message: Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR#User:SouthernComfort - for all who are interested in knowing what has been going on. --SouthernComfort 09:14, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  SouthernComfort 

message: As someone who has contributed a lot to this article but who has no strong opinion about the AD/BC - CE/BCE controversy, I have to say: this is quickly approaching candidate status for the list of lamest edit wars ever.  At the risk of sounding like your therapist, I urge all of you to take a step back, reflect on whether this issue is that important in regards to this article, and consider whether it's worth the energy that constant revisions take.  Maybe it would help to state on this thread exactly why you're so passionate about this issue, as it's kind of mystifying and nobody's really explained it -- that might help others  see your point view better than just reverting their edits and telling them they're wrong. --Jfruh 13:24, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: See [],[], their respective talk pages, rather a lot of posts to the mailing list and probably some other places I can't remember. --Geni 13:32, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Also see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jguk for background on my intentions and involvement. --SouthernComfort 14:05, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Jfruh, it is unfortunate that, after the failed policy proposal, some editors chose to implement it, and this is one of these pages. I apologise for the disruption to an article you clearly care about - particularly as the issues being fought over have nothing to do with Zoroastrianism. Hopefully it will all die down soon. Kind regards, jguk 18:21, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Take a chill pill, y'all 

message: This sentence seems to go off on a tangent that has little to do with Zoroastrianism:
:Judaism does not appear to become strictly monothesitic until after the Jewish people is freed from Babylon by Cyrus the Great (c539 BC). Even the first commandment reflects the henotheistic nature of early Judaism. "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me" implictly accepts the existance of other gods."
The earlier part, about the dating, does pertain to Zoroastrianism, of course, but this part seems unnecessary, in addition to controversial. --Jonadab
:This section was added by user 138.88.151.133 some little while ago. I shortened it, because it was too tangental, but left the last sentence. The last sentence was deleted recently, but rapidly restored by Marudubshinki. I'm in two minds about it. I happen to agree with the point that the first commandment is henotheistic, and the reference to it helps to clarify the claims in the earlier sentence. --Paul B 23:55, 8 June 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Judaism Tangent 

message: From my reading of Bakers' Evangelical Dictionary of Theology I see that the statement: "According to internal and external histories, Zoroaster lived in Iran / Persia no earlier than 1700 BC and no later than 600 BC (although Plato believed that Zoroaster lived some 6000 years previous to himself)." is disputed. According to their entry on Zoroastrianism (page 1310, 2001) they state:
:"The date of Zoroaster's birth has been given variously as 6000 BC, 1400BC, and 1000BC, but Herzfeld accepts the traditional date, approximately, as now confirmed (Herzfeld, 570-500BC; Jackson, 660-582BC)."
The sources of these statements are Herzfeld's Zoroaster and His World and A.V.W Jackson in Jewish Encyclopedia). Shouldn't we update the article based on this and add a note to the article about where I am getting this information from? - Ta bu shi da yu 06:31, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Update the article?! Herzfeld's book dates from 1947! Your reference clearly confirms the accuracy of the statement above - which you claim is "clearly the author's POV" (i.e. "Traditional Jews and Christians typically seek to place Zoroaster's life at as late a date as possible, so as to avoid the conclusion that much of the theology and morality of the non-Torah parts of the Old Testament derive from Zoroastrianism, the ideas having flowed into Judaism during the Babylonian captivity which happened shortly after 600 BC."). The Evangelical Dictionary and Jewish Encyclopedia presumably represent the views of 'traditional Jews and Christians' who have a vested interest in this dating. They do not represent all scholarly opinion, nor do they contradict the dating statement as given in the current article, unless you think that rough end date of 600BC is 'contradicted' by the 570-500 position. However, I accept, as does the current article, that this late date is a legitimate possibility. Paul B 14:04, 10 June 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. Again, this is a sourcing issue (who stated 6000BC? Why, Plato). Yes, this should probably be updated. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:00, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: P.S. "The Evangelical Dictionary and Jewish Encyclopedia presumably represent the views of 'traditional Jews and Christians' who have a vested interest in this dating. They do not represent all scholarly opinion" I never said they did. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:01, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: btw, the original version of this passage (added by user 138.88.151.133) was, imo, POV, which is why I altered it from its original form. Paul B 13:14, 10 June 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: And? I never mentioned your own good self. I was looking at the content of the passage, not implying anything about you. To be honest, I really couldn't care who added it, I just know that it needs to be fixed. - Ta bu shi da yu 01:57, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  More information that needs updating