EgyptianAmerican
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@salman al farsi
Their only argument are
1. Fireworship: this is debunked easily, I explained you earlier with facts, the oldest firetemples are almost 1000 years after Zoroaster (and when practiced, it functioned as "qibla", praying towards the sun or fire, both lights and symbol of good)
2. Putting people on mountains after their death (dakhmeh): as if being eaten by worms and bugs under dark ground sounds so much better.
Exposure in open sounds bizare or scary, when someone is death then he/she is death. Exposure method was very advanced for its time (read below).
The zoroastrians had different methods: open graves/tombs or exposing the death body in a high place, or burying the body in a closed casket so that the body doesnt touch the earth. The last one is the less prefered method, but used when above mentiond methods were not practical. Zoroastrians nowadays use this method.
Google the grave of darius the great in mountains. Also Ferdowsi says that Zarathustra was put inside a tomb, in city of Balkh (todays afghanistan).
The wealthy who did not practice exposure, avoided the pollution of the holy creations of fire, water and earth by the first embalming the corpse and placing it in a solid coffin, and only then entombing it, often in a stone (rock-cut) sepulcher. The royal Achaemenid tombs were thus prepared as a result of wishing to obey in a practical way the ordinance of the Vendidad. Hence, they must be classified as special astōdāns (Shahbazi, op. cit., pp. 130ff.)
About exposure: putting corpses far away from communities might have prevented diseases. A vulture would decomposite the body much faster than the natural decomposition of the body (Within hours!!). It was a fast efficient way. Thus we read the following in avesta:
6.44-46: “"Where, O Ahura Mazdā, shall we carry the body of a dead man, where lay it down?" Then said Ahura Mazdā: "On the highest places, Spitāma Zaraθuštra, so that most readily (lit., “often”) corpse-eating dogs (sunō kərəfš.xvarō) or corpse-eating birds shall perceive it. There these Mazdā-worshipers shall fasten it down, this corpse, by its feet and hair, [with pegs] of metal or stone or horn. If they do not, corpse-eating dogs and corpse-eating birds will come to drag these bones on to water and plants."”
“In the Middle Ages,” Dr. Gulick said, “corpses of people who died of plague were used as biological weapons by catapulting them into walled cities.”
Plague isn't directly transmitted from contact with dead bodies, but the presence of fleas or lice that often accompanies those bodies can transmit sicknesses to the living—so keeping dead bodies close to the living helped the disease to spread rapidly. Arnold estimates that between a third and a half of London's residents died during this 18-month epidemic.
Dr Rudolf pock of austrian plague of austrian plague commision is quoted: I find that the Parsi system of the disposal of the death bodies is the best from a hygienic point"
Even nowadays exposing the death it's one of the most environment friendly "burial" methods.
3. Xwedodah, avestan xᵛaētuuadaθa, misinterpertation as incest (by corrupt writings/tafsir 1500 years after avesta/zoroastrianism) while the original meaning was something else:
- The meaning and function of the Avestan term is not clear.
- Cornelis Tiele, in the first comprehensive modern survey of Zoroastrianism (1898), pointed out that the term was not found in the Gāθās (gathas, holy book of zoroastrians), and that the practice was “neither Zoroastrian, nor Aryan” (II/1, p. 165). He explained away the union of Ārmaiti and Ahura Mazdā by stating that her original husband had been Gə̄uš Tašan, who later merged with Ahura Mazdā (II/1, p. 148 n. 1, cf. p. 13 n. 2).
- James Darmesteter : The theory (interpertation) of the incestuous xwēdōdah arose from that between cousins, and the pressure to maintain purity of the blood and unity of the religion and race eventually led to incest (1881, pp. 373-74). When a priest told someone to marry his sister, he simply meant he should marry within the family (1881, p. 375). In fact, the incest “was probably a creation by logicians, seeking the impossible ideal of the unity of the blood.” The practice, he suggested, must always have been the exclusive right of the high nobility or high clergy (1881, p. 374; idem, 1892, p. 134). He also adhered to the indigenous interpretation of Avestan xᵛaētuuadaθa (1892, p. 126 n. 1).
- Mazdak, who introduced himself as a reformist zoroastrian, was described by sassanid zoroastrians clerics of being evil for introducing following sins: Adultery, incest, theft, prohibited forms of marriage. He was executed by zoroastrian clerics during sassanid era.
- The Avesta does not provide any explicit details on the xᵛaētuuadaθa (xwedodah) and evaluating the Avestan evidence on the basis of the Pahlavi texts and the Sasanian tradition is problematic.
- The models for these unions were found in the Zoroastrian cosmogony (myths about creation of universe, earth, first 2 humans)were possibly literally performed by some ignorants
- In the post-Sasanian Zoroastrian literature, xwēdōdah is said to refer to marriages between cousins, which have always been relatively common
- In a post-Avestan Zoroastrian text, the Dēnkard, Aži Dahāka is possessed of all possible sins and evil counsels, the opposite of the good king Jam. The name Dahāg (Dahāka) is punningly interpreted as meaning "having ten (dah) sins." His mother is Wadag (or Ōdag), herself described as a great sinner, who committed incest with her son. If incest was good, why would zahak, one of the most evil figures be called sinner and be mentioned as committing incest with his own mother?
- Adolf Rapp, suggested that, while consanguineous marriages were common among Persians, Medes, Bactrians, and Sogdians, and therefore an ancient Iranian custom, the claim that incest was permitted among Persians and Medes was an exaggeration.
- Edward west pointed out that the term is not in the Gathas and is mentioned in the Young Avesta only as a meritorious act, which means there is no evidence for next-of-kin marriages for the oldest period other than the foreign sources (p. 427). The Pahlavi texts (written almost 1500-2000 years later), however, he pointed out, contain numerous reference to this practice, which could only be rejected by disowning the Pahlavi literature (p. 428).
- In 1887, Darab Dastur Peshotan Sanjana gave his response to West in a speech to the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, in which he criticized West’s description and interpretation of xwēdōdah. In a note to his English translation (1885-86, p. 66 n. 2) of Geiger (1882, p. 245), Sanjana had already contested the current understanding of Yasna 12.9, which he claimed referred to a relationship between God and man, and, in the monograph (1888), he discussed the issue in detail. He began by pointing out the vagueness of the terms “sister, daughter, mother,” which in some Oriental languages do not necessarily have the same meaning as in English, but often refer to more remote relatives. It was therefore possible, he argued, that the ancient authors might simply have misunderstood
- Next, Sanjana argued for the correctness of the traditional etymology of the word as “a gift of/to/from oneself,” “gift of alliance,” “self-dedication,” etc., citing Darmesteter (1883, II, p. 37, against Geldner, 1877, see above); moreover, the notion of “conveying a bride to the house of the bridgroom” contradicts the notion of marriage within the family (p. 91). He further refined the meaning of xᵛaētu as “communion with the Almighty,” concluding that xᵛaētuua-daθa means “the gift of communion” (pp. 50-56; 1899 ed., pp. 229-33). As for the Pahlavi passages cited by West, he stressed that several of them are about mythological situations or are inconclusive as to what kind of relationships the term refers to (pp. 60-89). Moreover, the spiritual value assigned to xwēdōdah (see above) shows that “it is a gift or power that must be by far higher and nobler than any abominable idea of marriage between the next-of-kin” (p. 68). As for the passages in which the relationship is defined, Sanjana opted for translations that differed from those of West to show that they belong in the previous categories or mean more or less the opposite of what West thought; he also suggested that some of the statements in Dēnkard 3.80 should properly be ascribed to the Jewish interlocutor (pp. 75-87; cf. Casartelli, 1884). Other passages, he thought, refer to marriage between first cousins (pp. 77-78, citing West, pp. 404, 410 [these passages from Dēnkard 3.80 are not very clear; besides, West says that marriages “between first cousins appear to be also referred to”]). Finally, Dēnkard 7.7.22-24 shows clearly that, at the time of Mazdak, intercourse with one’s mother was abhorred
- Ferdinand Justi, in his article on the government of the Persian Empire in Grundriss, also accepted Sanjana’s argument that the term referred to a spiritual relationship and interaction between married people (p. 434); he recognized that this “to us disgusting” practice, probably existed, but that it, perhaps, had been adopted from the Pharaohs and was not as common as the sources might suggest
- Early on, therefore, as with other features of Mazdaism that modern Western scholars have felt were not compatible with their image of the historical Zarathustra and his lofty ethical teachings, the xwēdōdah was ascribed to post-Zarathustrian (post-Gathic) developments. Thus, West tried to soften the implications of the cosmogonic myth of Ohrmazd and Spandarmad’s union by suggesting that, since the earth is “metaphorically” the mother of man and Ohrmazd his father, in “later superstition,” this was taken literally and cited to justify marriage between father and daughter (West, 1882, p. 393 n. 2). In a similar vein, Western scholars, taking the scarce mythological/legendary Zarathustra vita as historical truth and interpreting it to suit their individual notions of what he may have considered to be proper, have rejected the notion that (the historical) Zarathustra might have married his daughter (West, 1892, p. 299 n. 3, calls it “unlikely”; see further, e.g., Bartholomae, 1905, pp. 115-20; see also Boyce, 1975, pp. 188, 265), and modern translators and commentators have taken it for granted that “to her father and master = husband (fəδrōi ... paiθiiaēcā)” of Yasna 53.4 refers to two different persons, as claimed by a part of the indigenous tradition (see above).
- Tahmuras Dinshah Anklesaria (1840-1903) suggested that the term refers to relationships, especially that of marriage, but also marriage within one’s own, rather than an alien, community. Yasna 12.9 refers to peaceful coexistence and the religion’s preference for married rather than unmarried life, while Videvdad 8.13 refers to cattle (pp. 48-50, see Katrak, p. 34).
- Sohrab Jamshedji Bulsara (1877-1945), in his edition of the Hērbedestān and Nīrangestān, also stated that the term refers to divine kinship and the relationship between God and men and added that, if the term in the Pahlavi texts implied incest, it was to “be attributed to such communistic philosophers of the time of Mazdak” (p. 10 n. 5; cf. Sunjana, pp. 42-44; see also above and Shaked, pp. 124-31).
- Sheriarji Dadabhai Bharucha (b. 1843) agreed with Sanjana’s definitions, but also adduced linguistic arguments to prove that the term refers to marriage among cousins: xᵛaētu, he argued, did not apply to next-of-kin relatives, who were taoxma, but to members of the larger family. Thus, if marriage with next-of-kin relatives had been intended, the term would have been *taoxma-vadaθa, which it is not (pp. 49-57, cited in Katrak, pp. 66-68). In his book on Zoroastrian religion (1893), he stressed that the term referred to “marriage among relations,” not to next-of-kin marriages, a “vile” but unfounded charge (1979, pp. 72-73).
- Jamshid cawasji points out that the Avestan passages in which the term is used do not refer specifically to next-of-kin marriages, as also stressed by Sanjana and others. He discusses in some detail the passages assembled by West, pointing out that they do not specifically refer to next-of-kin marriages, but to mythical situations or to women’s respect for their fathers or husbands (pp. 60-64). As for the Pahlavi Rivāyat chapter 8, he cites Dhabhar’s opinion (above) and stresses that Dēnkard 3.80 speaks of mythological unions and spiritual relationships with God and shows how the original meaning of “gift of communion” with God came to mean “the gift of moral unions between the human sexes or among mankind generally” (pp. 74-75).
- James Darmesteter regarded the Pahlavi commentary on Yasna 45.4 (see above) as the jeu d’esprit of a casuist looking for scriptural proof (1881, p. 369), and suggested the mythical incest was eventually imitated in practice in the general population as a religious duty (1877, p. 106 n. 2). The truth, he contended, is to be found in one of the “Mesrobian manuscripts,” where it says that the Magus who wants to learn the secrets of the Fire, must first unite himself “to the Earth, his mother, to Humanity, his sister, and to Science, his daughter,” something which he, presumably, thought the Classical authors had misunderstood (pp. 308-9). Olcott’s interpretation of the “Persian incest” was cited as recently as 1977 (June/July) by Eloise Hart in the theosophical Sunrise Magazine in a series of articles on Zoroastrianism to explain the statement about Ardā Wirāz and his seven sisters.
- In 1882, the American-born Henry Steel Olcott (1832-1907), a cofounder of The Theosophical Society (1875), gave an invited lecture on “the Spirit of the Zoroastrian Religion” at the Town Hall, Bombay.
I like how you mention a doctor during the plague despite the fact that many plague/regular doctors during the plague used to believe this
"Renewed religious fervour and fanaticism bloomed in the wake of the Black Death. Some Europeans targeted "various groups such as Jews, friars, foreigners, beggars, pilgrims", lepers, and Romani, thinking that they were to blame for the crisis. Lepers, and other individuals with skin diseases such as acne or psoriasis, were singled out and exterminated throughout Europe.
Because healers were at a loss to explain the cause, Europeans turned to astrological forces, earthquakes, and the poisoning of wells by Jews as possible reasons for the plague's emergence. The governments of Europe had no apparent response to the crisis because no one knew its cause or how it spread. The mechanism of infection and transmission of diseases was little understood in the 14th century; many people believed only God's anger could produce such horrific displays."
Then you proceed to defend Nuclear family incest... Ok I am done with you lot.
Also can you stop bolding so much? 80% of the stuff you bolded was completely unneeded.
