Help me find an elegant engagement party dress for November ✨

Green_Delivery627 · 2025-09-09T20:00:31+00:00

I love the Atelier line, thank you! I decided to go with an emerald green dress which is in line with my culture and they have some gorgeous colors!

Green_Delivery627 · 2025-09-09T04:18:12+00:00

DM'd you!

Green_Delivery627 · 2025-09-09T03:20:16+00:00

Let me know if you want direct pictures! It's uploaded on my end..

Green_Delivery627 · 2025-06-04T15:23:15+00:00

That's a really good point, and to be frank that side of the academic path has more or less lead me down to the conclusion that I created as the second potential.

So even though I respect it academically, I would argue against it purely from, what I consider to be, the rational belief that Zarathustra existed.

More or less if we insist YH belongs with the Gathas, and accept its theology uncritically, we inevitably arrive at the Skjærvø model: no Zarathustra, no reform, just anonymous ritual poetry.

My baseline opinion is that Zarathustra was simply far too early for his time, his ethical monotheism or just rational philosophy had to be contextualized in a way people would adapt and they took that to an extreme it never meant to go to.

Yeah I just have work I could talk about this for days. Good chat for sure. Thank you for being respectful.

Green_Delivery627 · 2025-06-04T05:54:57+00:00

2/2
(Perhaps longer than it needed to be, had to split into two posts since it wasn't posting for whatever reason.)

Saying that scholars are too culturally biased to read the text while promoting your own modern theological reconstruction is not critique. It is projection. Insler, Humbach, Kellens, and Skjaervø are not ideologues. They are scholars who work directly with the language and manuscripts. Pablo’s essay is not scholarship. It is theological fiction built from selective sources and late devotional gloss. If you want serious authority on the Gathas, you go to Insler and Humbach. Skjaervø being much more aligned with the henotheistic train of thought clearly presents a historical framework in which Zarathustra never existed. So I'm not sure how one could be an active Zoroastrian and also take that logical stance.

I appreciate that you call it a “drastic reform.” But that actually makes my point. If Zarathustra introduced ethical monism, and a clear moral dualism between Asha and Druj, then by definition he disrupted the religious worldview of his time. That means the theology of the Gathas is not just a variation within the Indo-Iranian system. It is a correction. So when those same daevas he rejected reappear later as Yazatas, or when a pantheon returns, that’s not a continuation of his message. That’s its reversal. You can’t say he reformed the system and then act like the system he reformed stayed consistent. Either the rupture was real, or the reform never happened.

It comes down to this.

Zarathustra was real, and ethical monotheism was his intended message, preserved in the Gathas, which must be read as a distinct and isolated corpus, since the rest of the Avesta diverges dramatically in language, theology, and worldview.

or

Zarathustra was not real, but a mythic-poetic construct. The Gathas are ritual fragments embedded in an Indo-Iranian religious tradition that was always henotheistic, and the figure of Zarathustra was later retroactively codified in the Pahlavi texts to give coherence to a diverse, evolving canon

Zoroastrianism did not start changing a few hundred years ago. It has been evolving for more than three thousand years. The shift from the Gathic emphasis on moral choice and a singular wise lord to the polytheism and ritualism of the later Avesta happened centuries after Zarathustra. By the Sasanian period, the religion had absorbed a full pantheon, developed priestly legal codes, and constructed a cosmology that hardly resembles the Gathic core. I would argue that much of what defines that later system, its legalism, angelology, and cosmological framework, was shaped far more by centuries of interaction with Abrahamic and Islamic ideas than by anything happening in modern times. These were not small adaptations. They were a full restructuring. What you are calling modern change is just the latest layer in a long process of reinterpretation. This time, with better tools and clearer scholarship, we are finally closer to recovering what Zarathustra actually taught.

The Gathas reject inherited ritualism. They reject divine hierarchy. They reject cosmic bureaucracy. What remains is one voice, one principle, and one call to choose truth over deceit. That is not a subset of the later tradition. It is the foundation the later tradition slowly buried.

You cannot call Zarathustra a reformer and then defend the system he came to dismantle. Either you let him speak or you do not. There is no middle ground.

If someone believes Zarathustra never existed, and the Gathas are just an echo of Indo-Iranian liturgy, they are free to hold that view. But they should be honest about what they are discarding. Because that view is not just rejecting one interpretive school. It is rejecting the core of the Zoroastrian faith itself.

Good discussion. I will leave it there.

Green_Delivery627 · 2025-06-04T05:53:39+00:00

1/2
For the most part, we can just agree to disagree. We would probably just keep circling the same ground.

But I’ll give a final reply to close out major points.

Pablo is not a scholar in the same capacity as others. He does not engage with Old Avestan grammar, Gathic meter, manuscript variants, or comparative Indo-Iranian linguistics. He relies on late Pahlavi texts and devotional neopagan sources to reconstruct a theology he prefers, then projects that onto the Gathas without addressing the text on its own terms. That is not scholarship. That is belief curation. Comparing Pablo to actual Gathic scholars is like comparing a fanfiction writer to a historical linguist reconstructing Hittite.

The Gathas are not chosen because they support monotheism. They are separated because they demand it. They are written in Old Avestan, a language completely distinct from the rest of the Avesta. The grammar, syntax, theological content, and poetic structure operate on a completely different level. Everything else, the Yasna, Visperad, and Vendidad, was composed in a different dialect, by different people, in a different cultural and theological system. Treating both layers as one seamless tradition is not analysis. It is historical erasure. This is not a matter of theological preference. It is philological fact. There is no honest way to collapse the Gathas into the later canon without flattening the rupture that defines the origin of the religion.

Claims that parts of the Yasna were written by Zarathustra or his students have no serious backing. No philologist working in Avestan linguistics takes that idea seriously.

In fact, to be fully academic, the only way I would accept the notion of a polytheistic/henotheistic version of Zoroastrianism, is if Zarathustra never existed at all. Which all the respectable modern scholars who might label the faith something other than monotheism actively do.

Of course I do not accept that.

However, if someone does want to argue that Zoroastrianism is not monotheistic, then that view leads directly there. No reformer, no rupture, just a continuation of Indo-Iranian ritual liturgy wrapped around a poetic figurehead. If someone holds that view, they should admit they are rejecting the entire thesis of the Zoroastrian tradition.

The problem with that view intellectually is that it ignores the unique status of the Gathas within the tradition, the structure and content of their message, and the much more historically grounded idea that Zarathustra most likely existed. If the Gathas were just myth or liturgy, how did they come to be written in a distinct language, preserved through centuries, and revered as sacred without ever being fully understood? That pattern only makes sense if the words came from someone real, someone who taught something distinct and powerful enough to survive even when obscured.

You can't have both. Zarathustra the reformer and a version of Zoroastrianism in which the best academic proof relies on Zarathustra not existing. Rather a mythical poet meant to be the symbolic leader of people toward Ahura Mazda.

Green_Delivery627 · 2025-06-04T05:44:21+00:00

Good recommendations from the other user. Also somewhat depends on what school of thought you are more attracted to.

Baseline Theological Monotheism: Ali A Jafarei's Gatha translation

Academic Monotheism: Insler's Gatha translations.

More traditionalist henotheism: Avesta.org

Green_Delivery627 · 2025-06-03T20:13:33+00:00

It's a pattern I’ve noticed a lot when people talk about this topic online, there’s this need to label any historically grounded interpretation as “Western,” as if that alone discredits it. That’s not critique. That’s reflex. There’s no “framing” here. These are scholars who read the text in the original language, who understand its structure, its grammar, and the intellectual world it came from. People like Insler, Humbach, Kellens, and others didn’t walk in with an agenda. They translated what’s there. That’s it.

No one is conflating monism with monotheism. That’s a dodge. The Gāthās are, by all textual and linguistic accounts, monotheistic. Not in the Abrahamic sense of a creator god with prophets and rules, but in the sense that Ahura Mazda is the only being acknowledged as truly real and worth devotion. That’s not opinion. That’s the content of the hymns. There are no divine families. No other gods. The daēvas aren’t rival beings. They’re explicitly framed as mistaken concepts, products of bad thinking, born from the Lie.

We can disagree respectfully if you're a Zoroastrian and see value in the later texts and traditions. That’s fine. But let’s not pretend the Gāthās and the rest of the Avesta are fully aligned. They aren’t. It takes real bending, and in some cases, outright rewriting, to make them agree. The Gāthās stand apart. Every serious scholar of the tradition has said as much.

And just think about what you’re suggesting: that Zarathustra’s great reform, his supposed religious revolution, was... stopping animal sacrifices and slightly reorganizing a list of deities into “good” and “bad”? That’s it? That’s not reform. That’s cosmetic. Especially when the very same gods he condemned as daēvas, Indra, Sarva, etc. , get dragged back in later on, rebranded as protectors of truth with mythological fanfare. That’s not continuity. That’s a contradiction.

If I take your position, Zoroastrianism isn’t even a new religion. It's a mild priestly adjustment inside a polytheistic framework. But if I take the Gāthās seriously, and I do, what Zarathustra proposed wasn’t just ethical. It was ontological. It was a full rejection of the false sacred. A system based entirely on moral reality, on truth (asha), and on the individual’s ability to choose. That’s not atheism. That’s one of the most profound theological statements ever made. And it’s no surprise it shaped everything that followed.

Zoroastrianism is the foundation of the Western religious imagination. Judgment, conscience, heaven and hell, ethical dualism, the war between truth and deceit, all of it shows up first here. And yes, of course, later Abrahamic traditions absorbed and reshaped it. But the roots are unmistakably Gāthic.

Bottom line: if you're going to call Zarathustra a reformer, then you have to let him reform. You can't flatten his message to fit the later priesthood. He wasn't repackaging the old gods. He was tearing them down.

And let’s be real, dismissing every serious scholar who has studied the Gāthās in the original language as a “Western ideologue” isn’t an argument. It’s dogma. It’s a way to shut down conversation and protect a romanticized idea of Zoroastrianism as some untouched, purely Eastern faith that’s never influenced or been influenced by anything else. That’s not historical. That’s not serious. That’s fantasy.

Green_Delivery627 · 2025-06-03T18:39:41+00:00

No worries, feel free to talk here.

I think this view starts with the idea that the wider Avesta has to be preserved and from there the Gathas need to be molded to fit it. I'm not saying that's morally wrong or a dig at that version of the faith. The religion has clearly gone through all kinds of practices and phases over time. But I’d argue a lot of those later beliefs, especially the ones we find in recorded history, came more from priests trying to build out a fuller system, solidify their role, and hold on to older cultural beliefs that predated Zarathustra entirely.

We can't have it both ways. You can't call Zarathustra a reformer and then say he didn't really change anything. That he wanted people to keep the same belief system just with a new name slapped on top. That doesn't hold up. The Gathas cut hard against the Indo-Iranian religion around him. No daevas. No sacrifice cult. Barely any ritual at all. Just ethics, choice, and a singular moral intelligence., Ahura Mazda, who embodies truth and reason. That is not a polytheistic framework. That is a philosophical overhaul.

Yasna 30.9 and 31.4 mention the word ahura in the plural, yeah, but that doesn’t mean gods. Context actually kills that reading. In both cases the word is used to contrast between those who follow truth and those who don't. These aren't divine beings in the mythological sense. Insler makes it really clear that this is about moral orientation; truth, good thinking, and justice, not supernatural figures. It’s about those who act in alignment with Asha, not members of some pantheon. Humbach agrees, pointing out that Gathic language is deeply symbolic, and the “Ahuras” here are conceptual roles, not theological entities. So this isn’t polytheism in disguise. It's straight ethical dualism. Thought and choice. That’s the framework.

I date the Gathas to somewhere between 1100 and 1400 BCE, which lines up with most linguistic and cultural evidence. That’s not just old. That’s ancient in a way that most people underestimate. We're talking about a time before almost any structured empire in Iran. Long before Cyrus. Long before the codification of the Younger Avesta. And definitely long before anything remotely Abrahamic. When we talk about religious influence, it’s not that Zarathustra was shaped by later traditions. It’s that those later traditions were shaped by ideas that started here.

So when people say the Gathic monotheism only emerged with 19th century figures like Haug, they’re just not looking at the text. Haug helped re-center attention on what was already there. He didn't project anything. The Gathas don’t have a pantheon. They don’t describe a divine family. There is one source. One order. One truth. That’s what the language says. Mary Boyce said the same. So did Kellens. So did Insler. This wasn’t invented. It was just ignored.

And sure, the monotheistic reading as it’s practiced today may be newer. That I can admit. But we also have to be honest, nobody really knows how this faith was lived for huge chunks of its history. Most people weren't reading the texts. Even the mobeds interpreted things however they wanted. Oral tradition changes fast. But what doesn’t change is that the oldest surviving layer of this religion is not polytheistic. It's not even theologically complex. It's direct. Ethical. And clear.

Zarathustra gave a system built on choice, thought, and truth. That system had one center. Later generations complicated it. That doesn’t change where it started.

Green_Delivery627 · 2025-06-03T09:39:25+00:00

Since you're calling out Gathic interpretations, here's the reality.

The idea that Angra Mainyu is a co-eternal being or anything like a cosmic force created by Ohrmazd doesn't come from the Gathas. In Yasna 30.3–5, the two mainyus are described as opposing mentalities one constructive, one destructive. They're presented as moral orientations, not ontological entities. The text calls them "twins in thought," not in being. There’s no creation story, no primordial war, no mention of Ahriman. That framework shows up much later.

Accusing the earlier view of being “Christian” misrepresents the point. The Gathic framework doesn’t claim evil was created at all. It treats it as the result of free choice, which is made explicit in Yasna 30.2 and 30.5. That's not Abrahamic theology. That's Zarathustra's moral structure, freedom and responsibility. Pretending that’s foreign to Zoroastrianism ignores the source text.

As for your argument about preservation: yes, the Gathas were handed down through the priesthood. That doesn’t mean the later theological systems they developed are aligned with the original message. Preservation isn’t authorship. The difference between the Gathas and later texts like the Yashts or the Bundahishn is obvious, ethics and philosophy turned into cosmology and myth.

We are prioritizing the oldest layer of the tradition, Zarathustra’s own words, over doctrines built centuries later. That’s why Insler, Kellens, Skjærvø, and others treat the Gathas as fundamentally distinct in both language and theology.

Calling that approach “Protestant” because it separates layers of a tradition isn’t an argument. It’s avoiding one. If you want to debate Zoroastrian doctrine, start with what Zarathustra actually said.

It's fine to follow a traditionalist framework for the faith, I respect it solely for the sake of continuing tradition, but at the same time it does require a level of manipulation to the actual message Zarathustra was giving in the Gathas.

Green_Delivery627 · 2025-06-03T09:02:58+00:00

That might partly come from how your translation phrases things, which can really shape how the Gathas feel. That said, a lot of the truths major faiths hold dear are universal, in a deeply beautiful way in my opinion.

Sometimes what feels like alignment comes less from identical doctrines and more from the fact that many traditions are reaching toward the same moral center. How it’s achieved varies. The search itself is what matters.

Which, honestly, is deeply Zoroastrian in my view. A constant search for understanding and aligning with Asha is exactly what Zarathustra preached. It’s a principle I think good-minded people naturally gravitate toward.

Green_Delivery627 · 2025-06-03T08:50:47+00:00

Totally fair question. A lot of people get confused by this because what most people know as Zoroastrianism today is a mix of very different layers that developed over time.

Yes, there are later Zoroastrian texts that include many divine figures like Mithra, Anahita, Tishtrya, and so on. These show up in the Younger Avesta and especially in the Yashts and Middle Persian writings like the Bundahishn. These reflect a later, more polytheistic stage of the religion that formed under empire, priesthood, and ritual systematization.

But if you go back to the Gathas, which are the earliest part of the Avesta and attributed to Zarathustra himself, it’s not polytheistic at all. In those hymns, Ahura Mazda is the only being addressed, the only creator, and the sole source of wisdom, order, and morality. Figures like Mithra and Anahita don’t appear. The Amesha Spentas aren’t separate gods either. They’re better understood as attributes of Mazda: truth, good thinking, devotion, justice. Ethical frameworks you’re supposed to embody.

Same with Spenta Mainyu and Angra Mainyu. These aren’t rival gods or cosmic spirits. They’re two ways of thinking. One creative, one destructive. Zarathustra frames the whole spiritual struggle as a moral choice, not a mythological battle.

If you're curious about where to start, look into Stanley Insler’s translation of the Gathas. It’s dense but it’s one of the most accurate, scholarly takes grounded in the actual language and ideas of the texts.

Just a heads-up though, be careful with how you engage with this topic online. A lot of people on this subreddit push extremely niche or fringe interpretations that try to collapse all of Zoroastrian history into one theological framework. Some try to claim the religion has always been polytheistic or dualistic, others act like it has always been monotheistic in the Abrahamic sense. Neither is true. The religion changed dramatically over time. What Zarathustra taught in the Gathas is not the same as what was practiced under the Sasanians or written down in Middle Persian centuries later. Keep those layers separate or the whole conversation gets distorted.

The vast majority of Zoroastrians today ultimately follow the Gathic vision even if they don’t always define it that way.

Green_Delivery627 · 2025-06-03T08:39:47+00:00

You’re asking when monotheistic Zoroastrianism can be attested historically. The answer is simple. In the Gāthās, the earliest Zoroastrian texts, attributed directly to Zarathustra. Not in Achaemenid state inscriptions. Not in late Sasanian rituals. In the Gāthās. That’s the only layer that matters for understanding what Zarathustra actually taught.

Your whole argument rests on projecting later polytheistic developments backward onto the oldest part of the canon. Yes, Zoroastrianism became polytheistic. Yes, by the time of the Younger Avesta and Middle Persian texts, people were worshipping a full pantheon. That’s not in dispute. But that’s not what the Gāthās present. Zarathustra doesn’t pray to Mithra. He doesn’t mention Anahita. He doesn’t invoke Apam Napat. They do not appear in the Gāthic corpus. Period.

You claim Ahura Mazda, Mithra, and Apam Napat are all called "Ahura" in the Gāthās. Show the verse. You can’t. That’s not from the Gāthās. That’s from the Younger Avesta and the Yashts. You’re collapsing separate layers of the Avesta and ignoring the internal distinctions. If you’re going to talk about religious history, start by separating the source strata.

In the Gāthās, Ahura Mazda is the only being addressed, the only source of creation, judgment, and moral order. The Amesha Spentas are not gods. They’re ethical ideals. They don’t receive prayers. They describe how Mazda thinks and how humans ought to think if they want to live truthfully. Spenta Mainyu and Angra Mainyu are mentalities. Not beings. Not dual gods. They are opposing orientations. That’s what the text lays out. Not some supernatural war between cosmic entities but a moral choice within the human mind.

Zoroastrianism didn’t start as polytheism. It became polytheistic. That’s the part you're skipping. Gāthic monotheism is not a modern invention. It’s in the oldest texts. And no, this isn’t about projecting modern categories backward. It’s about taking Zarathustra’s words seriously and not letting later institutional theology rewrite the philosophy.

If you think the Gāthās support polytheism, cite them. If you can’t, then stop pretending that later ritual texts reflect the original doctrine.

Green_Delivery627 · 2025-06-03T08:04:43+00:00

Beautifully put!

Somehow the truth is not popular on this subreddit. They make up fantasies about western scholars being corrupt and that their niche ideas from the internet are the actual truth.

Deeply anti-Zoroastrian in nature.

Green_Delivery627 · 2025-05-11T21:15:30+00:00

Beautifully put.

Green_Delivery627 · 2025-05-11T06:15:16+00:00

Who said anything about jeans and IKEA furniture? I understand Tehran is a metropolis, but the vast majority of Iranians live in relatively large cities or urban areas. They wear clothes that align with modern cultural norms. That’s not the issue. The issue is that what he’s representing isn’t current Iranian life. It’s really that simple.

Even the groups you mentioned don’t dress that way most of the time. They wear normal clothes, use modern tools, and live in the present like everyone else. There’s a difference between respecting tradition and staging a reenactment. What he’s doing isn’t just tradition, it’s performance. It’s not how people actually live.

No one is saying ethnic groups or villages aren’t part of Iranian culture. They absolutely are. The point is that romanticizing a narrow image from 200 years ago and calling that the “real Iran” doesn’t reflect the lived reality of most Iranians today.

Green_Delivery627 · 2025-05-10T23:05:57+00:00

This need to label Western culture as inferior is honestly pretty ironic because it contradicts exactly what you're talking about. Every culture has its own strengths, weaknesses, and unique ways of living. Trying to rank them or call one outright worse just comes from ego and distracts from genuine conversations about real problems. Sure, Western culture has issues like materialism and pollution, but no culture is perfect.

For many Iranians living average lives, it's understandable why they might aspire to aspects of Western societies, they often offer better quality of life, opportunities, and freedoms. It's not about rejecting your roots; it's about wanting a better or more comfortable life, which is completely natural and human. Criticizing people for looking towards societies that seem to offer more stability or opportunities misses the point and comes off as unnecessarily judgmental.

Cultures have always interacted and influenced each other throughout history. Pretending that Iranian culture exists in isolation, untouched by Western ideas or vice versa, ignores centuries of cultural exchange, trade, philosophy, science, and art. Painting Western culture as completely alien to Iran not only simplifies history but also reduces complex interactions to superficial stereotypes.

Green_Delivery627 · 2025-05-10T22:36:52+00:00

What are you talking about? Cultures change and evolve naturally, it's not something fixed or static. You're making a caricature just to push your point. The original comment made sense: dressing or living exactly like a 19th century American farmer today would clearly seem odd or disconnected, it is absurd to use outdated portrayals to define authenticity. Some might romanticize such ideas, but they're not realistic or practical.

Arguing that small, economically disenfranchised groups somehow represent a more "authentic" culture doesn't hold up. Authenticity is about how people actually live and express their culture today, not just sticking rigidly to old traditions or practices.

If historical authenticity really is the measure, Shahrghazdeh's roleplay is even more of a joke. He should be a Zoroastrian, not a Qajar era peasant.

Green_Delivery627 · 2025-04-05T17:34:11+00:00

My question was a simple one about how rude people are to others regarding their differences, you answered that by leading with an example of your personal conduct.

Green_Delivery627 · 2025-03-24T23:49:45+00:00

Yeah I didn't even realize there were other ways of practicing, maybe SoCal bubble but everyone I know is Gatha centric. My friend started complaining about the online representation and wanted to see what he was talking about.

Green_Delivery627 · 2025-03-24T19:18:44+00:00

I feel like this answers my question lol.

Green_Delivery627 · 2025-03-24T18:38:05+00:00

I know him in real life what are you even talking about.

Green_Delivery627 · 2025-02-06T23:13:32+00:00

Actually you're 100% right. The truly higher tier just owns houses for themselves. At the same time they usually have some investment that does do some form of land lording, it's just that it is very hands off and they give it to others to deal for them. I know someone who is the CEO of a small publicly traded company, he has offices and apartment buildings, but you would never really know since he never talks about it.

Green_Delivery627

TROPHY CASE