Diegetics

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Cool video, thanks for posting.

What is a 'real' religion?

The Greeks (many others) didn't have "religion" but piety towards the family gods and fear (of spirits).

I'll give you this: The Persians in Herotodus hold a much more sensible answer to what started the enmity between the Hellenes and Persia than the Greeks did.

The Greek account invokes Zeus and gods and strange sexual escapades and bizarre happenstances...

The Persians blame the Palestinians (the more things change.... ) and basically tell the Greeks: Hey, you're women are ho's, once a ho always a ho, forget them, get new women.

And the Greeks go berserk.

Which, makes more sense of their story in this fashion: Eros needs little rationality and causes a lot of damage.

Zoroastrianism, like the Persian account, is nice and sensible but a little overrated.

Not speaking of the video here (didn't watch it) but an important point about Zoroastrianism generally is that it wasn't the unified "religion of the Persian empire," and there was actually a kind of struggle between Zoroastrians and traditional Magians during much of the Achemenid dynasty.

But clearly the influence of Zoroastrianism on the Abarahamic religions cannot be overstated. The transformations in Jewish religion and society alone following their contact with the Persians speaks to this influence, and later contact between a more standardized Sassanid Zoroastrianism and Christianity/Islam, combined with earlier Zoroastrian influence on Judaism and subsequent Jewish influence on Christianity/Islam, means that the Zoroastrian influence on those religions is even greater. Zoroastrianism has indelibly marked the religious and philosophical beliefs of half the world's population yet is largely obscure.

Difficult field to study, I wish I knew more about it. Really good academics in their field are harder to find that e.g. Christianity/Islam experts, and I was never able to study it seriously.

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good pints "steroids" and Ibrahim, will comment later

but now, this





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Very good thread Azari, very good. Thank you.

Where is fontinau.

More thoughts about Zoroaster today. I've read that he may likely have been an ethnic Chaldean, not a Persian or a Mede. Abraham is also described in the Bible as having been of Ur of the Chaldees. If so, it means that this relatively obscure tribe of people has produced and shaped all of the great monotheistic religions in history.

I guess this is an honor or a slander depending on your politics...

This little clip demonstrates well why The History Channel should rename itself AHistory Channel


It’s sad, really, because they frequently have beautiful photography of interesting archaeological sites, and then go spoil everything by giving most of their attention to “ancient astronaut theorists” and similar cranks.

Is the public really not ready for real history, or is there just more money in crackpot history than real history? I get more than a little distressed about stuff like this because I know how much work goes into real archaeology and writing a real history book, but there’s always someone who’s ready to promote their thesis that the moon is made of cheese and Chaldeans were really chilli peppers who became gods who befriended humankind to give us poor chimps a chance.


Anyway, thanks Azari. It's not like I have seen dozens of similar programs from them but after this I have vowed to never again waste my time watching a History Channel episode. Never.