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Zoroastrian: Zoroastrian Religion
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Whether Cyrus II was a Zoroastrian is subject to debate. It did ... influence him to the extent that it became the non-imposing religion of his empire, and its beliefs would later allow Cyrus to free the Jews from captivity (and allow them to return to Judea) when the emperor took Babylon in 539 BCE. Whether Darius I, though certainly a devotee of Ahura Mazda (as attested to several times in the Behistun inscription), was a follower of Zoroaster has not been conclusively established, since a devotion to Ahura Mazda was (at the time) not necessarily an indication of an adherence to Zoroaster's teaching.
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In the Zoroastrian religion, the value of human status is considered to be equal with Ahura Mazda's rank, provided men and women promote righteousness, goodness and betterment of life. In this belief system, the world is a sacred place and life is a gift of God. Therefore, it is absolutely worthy of protection and preservation to keep life intact and in good faith.
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In such circumstances the eschatological promises enshrined in Zoroastrian teaching must have taken on a new urgency. Faced with the horrors of the Antiochan tyranny, when for the first time they were persecuted for fidelity to their religion, and again when they were faced with the brutalities of Roman rule, some Jews could find in that teaching an assurance that evil came not from God but from a great adversary of God, working through human agents. They could ... find there assurance that evil would not go unpunished. So great was the wickedness of the foreign rulers, so overwhelming the power of the forces of chaos, that cosmos was impaired - but not for long: God, acting through his angels and his Messiah, was about to put all things to rights.
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The Zoroastrian Religion, which represents the ethical aspect of the culture, is based solely on the hymns of Zarathushtra, which reflects his wisdom and thinking. These hymns are preserved in the book of the GATHAS (poems and songs in Persian). The Gathas reveal the way to a good life for all humans and how to make this world a better place to live for everyone.
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Dietary laws and food proscriptions are not part of original Zoroastrian teachings. Nevertheless certain ritual and symbolic uses of food have evolved over time, based on later Zoroastrian writings and as a consequence of interaction with other cultures and religions. For example, Zoroaster abolished the tribal custom of animal sacrifice, though it quickly reemerged and became incorporated in Zoroastrian rituals. Today it survives only amongst Iranian Zoroastrians during the festival of Mehregan, when meat and bread are distributed. Generally all foods are permitted and are consumed according to personal preference and local custom. For example, Zoroastrians often forgo pork and beef in deference to their Hindu and Moslem neighbors, or are vegetarian by choice.
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When the Sassanid dynasty came into power in Persia in 228 CE, they aggressively promoted their Zoroastrian religion and in some cases persecuted Christians and Manichaeans. When the Sassanids captured territory from the Romans, they often built fire temples there to promote their religion. The Sassanids were suspicious of Christians not least because of their perceived ties to the Christian Roman Empire; ... those Persian Christians loyal to the Patriarchate of Babylon, which had broken with Roman Christianity when the latter condemned Nestorianism, were tolerated and even sometimes favored by the Sassanids. Nestorians lived in large numbers in Mesopotamia and Khuzestan during this period.
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Zoroastrian Religion