The most important people in religion could be named Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Moses or the Buddha. But there is an important religious thinker from a very remote time who appears to have had a profound influence on the fundamental beliefs of both the major western religions. This is Zarathustra (Zoroaster to the Greeks). He was a mystic, poet, and revolutionary living in ancient Persia (modern Iran) between 1500-1000 BC. When he lived there was much chaos in the world, with many gods (polytheism), and many sacrifices made to these gods as well as by humans due to the fate of existence being controlled by the god of fate. The world being created and controlled by many gods and randomness was not what Zoroaster was talking about, and he came up with an incredibly different view of the world.
He was able to describe a single Supreme God who had created everything, and Zoroaster offered the existence of a cosmic war between good and evil. He also discussed a place for the good in heaven and the bad in hell. He spoke about a future time when all mankind would be judged and punished for their actions, a messiah would come to save mankind, and there would be a resurrection from the dead.
The ideas of Zoroaster had strong parallels to what were to become the core beliefs of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The staggering number of similarities, which can be found in the Gathas (Zoroastrian hymns) and those that developed in the Abrahamic religions, illustrate the emergence of universal spiritual truths throughout time and across cultures.
This week you will leave Greece and travel to Persia, the home of the most powerful religious thinker of all time, to discover his revolutionary ideas. His central idea (the absolute requirement of personal moral responsibility) is a very viable practical philosophy and will be examined in detail this week.
The Vision of the One and the Two
Prior to Zoroaster's time, the ancient Iranian religion was closely aligned with the Vedic religion found in India (that was discussed in Week 10). The ancient Iranian religion represented a world filled with gods (daevas), complex rituals, and a belief that the universe operated based solely on the forces of nature, rather than upon moral forces.
