- LITERALLY A BIRD
- Sep 27, 2008
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I knew you were trouble
when you flew in
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The rather poorly written Wikipedia article on Zoroastrianism has some interesting notes on its specific manifestation of monotheism.
quote:
Zoroaster's religious philosophy divided the early Iranian gods of Proto-Indo-Iranian paganism into emanations of the natural world, known as ahuras and daevas, the latter of which were not considered to be worthy of worship. Zoroaster proclaimed that Ahura Mazda was the supreme creator; the creative and sustaining force of the universe, and that human beings are given a choice between supporting Ahura Mazda or not, making them ultimately responsible for their fate. Though Ahura Mazda has no equal contesting force, Angra Mainyu, whose negative forces are born from Aka Manah (evil thought), is considered to be every Zoroastrian's main adversarial force, standing against "Spenta Mainyu" (creative spirit/mentality). Angra Mainyu was further developed by Middle Persian literature into Ahriman (𐭠𐭧𐭫𐭬𐭭𐭩), advancing him to be Ahura Mazda's direct adversary.
[...]
Scholars and theologians have long debated how best to characterise Zoroastrianism theism; dualism and monotheism have historically been the most frequently used terms for the religion.[21][22][23][24][25] Many consider Zoroastrianism to be the world's oldest monotheistic religion. Despite the fact that Zoroastrianism has dualistic undertones, the Zoroastrian faith is certainly a monotheistic religion. There are two main reasons why Zoroastrianism is not and should not be considered a dualistic religion. The first is that Zoroastrians do not consider themselves to be dualistic. In their minds, they worship one god, namely Ahura Mazda. Second, the definition of dualism lends credence to the monotheism of the Zoroastrian faith. A basic definition of dualism is “a doctrine that the universe is under the dominion of two opposing principles one of which is good and the other evil.” But Zoroastrians believe in the supremacy of Ahura Mazda.[1] In addition to this, other than dualism, the other issue that have long made it problematic to identify Zoroastrianism as true monotheism, is the presence of lesser deities. But before hastening to conclude that the Amesha Spentas and the other yazatas compromise the purity of monotheism, we should consider that the other historical monotheisms too made room for other figures endowed with supernatural powers to bridge the gulf between the exalted, remote Creator God and the human world: the angels in all of them (whose conception in post-exilic Judaism was apparently developed after the pattern of the Amesha Spentas; Boyce and Grenet, 1991, 404–405), the saints and the Virgin Mary in several Christian churches, and the other persons of the Trinity in all of Christianity. Despite the vast differences with Zoroastrian theology, the common thread is that all these beings are subordinate to the Godhead as helpers or (in the case of the persons of the Trinity) co-equals, hence they do not pursue different interests and are worshiped jointly with the Godhead, not separately; therefore the supplicant's dilemma does not arise.[26]
Some scholars believe Zoroastrianism started as an Indo-Iranian polytheistic religion, But later transitioned into a Monotheistic faith.[1] Some say that "like the rest of the Zoroastrian texts, the Old Avesta does not teach monotheism".[27] According to Encyclopædia Britannica, "Zoroastrianism Contains Both Monotheistic and Dualistic Features," but "Though Zoroastrianism was never, even in the thinking of its founder, as insistently monotheistic as, for instance, Judaism or Islam, it does represent an original attempt at unifying under the worship of one supreme god a polytheistic religion comparable to those of the ancient Greeks, Latins, Indians, and other early peoples."[28]
In the 19th century, through contact with Western academics and missionaries, Zoroastrianism experienced a massive theological change that still affects it today. The Rev. John Wilson led various missionary campaigns in India against the Parsi community, disparaging the Parsis for their "dualism" and "polytheism" and as having unnecessary rituals while declaring the Avesta to not be "divinely inspired". This caused mass dismay in the relatively uneducated Parsi community, which blamed its priests and led to some conversions towards Christianity.
The arrival of the German orientalist and philologist Martin Haug led to a rallied defense of the faith through Haug's reinterpretation of the Avesta through Christianized and European orientalist lens. Haug postulated that Zoroastrianism was solely monotheistic with all other divinities reduced to the status of angels while Ahura Mazda became both omnipotent and the source of evil as well as good. Haug's thinking was subsequently disseminated as a Parsi interpretation, thus corroborating Haug's theory, and the idea became so popular that it is now almost universally accepted as doctrine (though being reevaluated in modern Zoroastrianism and academia).[24] It has been argued by Dr Almut Hintze that this designation of monotheism is not wholly perfect and that Zoroastrianism instead has its "own form of monotheism" which combines elements of dualism and polytheism.[29] It has otherwise been opined that Zoroastrianism is totally monotheistic with only dualistic elements.[30]
Some scholars assert that Zoroastrianism's concept of divinity covers both being and mind as immanent entities, describing Zoroastrianism as having a belief in an immanent self-creating universe with consciousness as its special attribute, thereby putting Zoroastrianism in the pantheistic fold sharing its origin with Indian Hinduism.[31][32]
This is probably the kind of thing that Stanford paper was meaning to point out by alluding to polytheist religions restructuring into monotheist ones -- the demotion of "lesser divinities" to angels or spirits rather than Gods proper in order to call a faith monotheistic. Interesting that it sounds like identification with monotheism really took hold after Christian missionaries showed up though
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Mar 19, 2024 23:25
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- LITERALLY A BIRD
- Sep 27, 2008
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I knew you were trouble
when you flew in
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know who believes in an ultimate source of all reality??? a whole buncha peoples!!! a lot of them have names for it and impute some character, or at least moral preference, to it!!!! and everything else in reality, including many supernatural entities, is/are existentially downstream from that ultimate reality.
As you were typing this I was actually appreciating another part of that Zoroastrianism article
quote:Additionally, the life force that originates from Ahura Mazda, known as Asha (truth, cosmic order), stands in opposition to Druj (falsehood, deceit).
by way of thinking to myself Ah, ma'at and isfet. I feel like the theism parts of a given religion get conflated with or overshadow the ontology parts quite a bit despite them being important individual components. Like, all "monotheism" vs "polytheism" really tells you is how many things you're allowed to call "God." The actual structure of a religion, its cosmology and metaphysics, are an entirely different category.
LITERALLY A BIRD fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Mar 20, 2024
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