
/4elements-569ff3693df78cafda9f410f.jpg)
Mankind is no different than any other animal. We must nurture it and be nurtured by it.

Generally, pantheism is the principle that god is everything, and everything is god. Pantheistic beliefs are also finding resurgence among various New Age movements. The belief that the universe itself was divine was typified in the Animism beliefs of the African and American Indian cultures, the later Egyptian religion under the Pharoahs, and Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism in the cultures of the Far East. The origin of religions and pantheistic systems: Pantheism (a belief that all is God) prevailed in numerous ancient cultures. The Greeks and Romans developed polytheism to a highly structured pantheon of gods and goddesses. Baal controlled the rain and the harvest, while Ashteroth controlled fertility and reproduction. For instance, the Canaanites sacrificed to the male god, Baal, and his female counterpart, Ashteroth. Generally, polytheistic cultures believed in sacrifices to appease their gods.

The ancient polytheistic belief systems viewed gods as being in control of all natural events such as rainfall, harvests and fertility. Polytheism was also the religion of many other ancient cultures, including Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt, Greece and Rome. Hindu beliefs were recorded in the Bhagavad Gita, which revealed that many gods were subject to a supreme Brahman god. The origin of religion and polytheistic systems: Polytheism (a belief in many gods) is thought to have originated with Hinduism in about 2500 BC. Atheism is really a modern belief that resulted from the "Enlightenment" period of the 18th century. The company hoped that an association with the “God of Light” would “brighten the image” of their first vehicles.The origin of religion can generally be traced to the ancient Near East and classified in three basic categories: polytheistic, pantheistic and monotheistic. Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda served as the namesake for Japanese automaker Mazda Motor Corporation. Mercury died of complications from AIDS in 1991, and his London funeral was performed by a Zoroastrian priest. Mercury, born Farrokh Bulsara, practiced Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism in Western Cultureīritish musician Freddie Mercury, lead singer for the rock band Queen, was of Parsi descent. Some have called the work “ironic,” since Nietzsche was an avowed atheist. In it, Nietzsche follows the prophet Zarathustra on his travels. Many Europeans became familiar with Zoroastrian founder Zarathustra through the nineteenth century novel Thus Spoke Zarathustra by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. A dakhma remains in operation near Mumbai, India, for example. Many Zoroastrians today bury their dead beneath concrete slabs, though some Parsi in India still practice sky burials. Then they were collected and placed in lime pits called ossuaries.ĭakhmas have been illegal in Iran since the 1970s. There corpses were exposed to the elements-and local vultures-until the bones were picked clean and bleached. Zoroastrians gave their dead “sky burials.” They built circular, flat-topped towers called dakhmas, or towers of silence. He ruled by the Zoroastrian law of asha (truth and righteousness) but didn’t impose Zoroastrianism on the people of Persia’s conquered territories. By most accounts, Cyrus was a tolerant ruler who allowed his non-Iranian subjects to practice their own religions. It was the state religion of three major Persian dynasties.Ĭyrus the Great, founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, was a devout Zoroastrian. Zoroastrianism shaped one of the ancient world’s largest empires-the mighty Persia Empire. The temple dates to the second millennium B.C., making it the earliest known site associated with Zoroastrianism. In the 1990s, Russian archaeologists at Gonur Tepe, a Bronze Age site in Turkmenistan, discovered the remains of what they believed to be an early Zoroastrian fire temple. Zoroaster began teaching followers to worship a single god called Ahura Mazda. According to Zoroastrian tradition, Zoroaster had a divine vision of a supreme being while partaking in a pagan purification rite at age 30.
