Exploring religions: Hinduism's cousin

This series on minority religions began with glimpses of Buddhism and Hinduism. Today, a look at an older faith: Zoroastrianism.

This 3,000-year-old religion features an unusual aspect: No conversion is necessary.

Zoroastrians have a set of basic beliefs and practices like other religions, but they’re unusual in two respects.

First, they don’t advocate converting to their, or any, religion. Second, like Hinduism, Zoroastrianism is defined as much by cultural interpretation as by characteristic beliefs. Monotheists, polytheists, even agnostics are welcome in this religion. It encourages adherents to seek new knowledge, and to adapt as a result of that knowledge. There is no centralized religious authority. Taken together, these make Zoroastrianism hard to pin down.

Perhaps that’s the point.

The prophet Zarathushtra, whom the Greeks called Zoroaster, founded the religion in Persia (now Iran) around 1200 B.C. However, some of the religion’s underlying tenets culturally predated him. Scholars credit Zoroaster with influencing Pythagoras, and the development of astrology.

Zoroastrianism highly influenced the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. By the time Jesus was born, Zoroastrianism was the East’s dominant religion. Now it’s nearly the opposite, with numbers dwindling to fewer than 200,000 concentrated in Iran, the U.S. and India.

Zarathushtra called god “Ahura Mazda” (supremely wise creator). He taught that ethnic identity and religion should be synonymous, and that no one path exclusively leads to god, so conversion is unnecessary.

Like many minority religions, Zoroastrians suffered persecution as others became dominant. Thousands of followers fled Iran over the centuries, first settling in India.

Basic tenets of Zoroastrianism (for most) include one god in heaven, with hell a temporary condition (radical ideas in 1200 B.C.E.). Truth — or righteousness — is doing the right thing, at the right time, in the right place with the right means to achieve the right purpose. Moral dualism (good and evil) comes down to choice.

However, less popular, ethno-specific, and very old practices may be why its popularity declined: Marriage limited to other Zoroastrians, menstrual seclusion and other gender rules, only designated carriers may touch a corpse, and more specific rules modern man considers burdensome.

However, overall, Zarathushtra’s religion doesn’t provide a specific code of behavior. Instead it asks each succeeding generation to use their own minds and increased knowledge to determine how to live righteously.

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Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network. [email protected].