Menu There is no god 4020.11
Q) There is no god. Ahura Mazda is created by my good thoughts, good words, and good deeds. I choose if the world is the vision of good or the vision of Ahriman and evil. I am the only source of the creation of good or evil. This is how I create my right and wrong. If you do not understand that you are the source of light or dark and not an outside source of this energy, then you understand nothing.

MZ) The term 'good deeds' only makes sense if you have something outside of you own mind against which to measure what is good or bad. Also 'deeds' is not a straightforward thing. There is what we seek to make happen and what actually happens. Also it is not just our own individual actions that matter, but other peoples' , and the interaction between everybody. So you need concepts such a Ahura Mazda that go beyond the individual person.

Q) Jesus was not a Zoroastrian. Borrowing ideas from Post Exilic Judaism, which in turn borrowed ideas from Zoroastrianism, does not suddenly make one a Zoroastrian.

MZ) Zoroaster put the focus on distinguishing between good and evil, not only in results, but in our character and our actions. This had not been the case before. In pagan thinking you take whatever actions are effective in creating good results for yourself.
Jesus set out to be a living example of the 'perfectly good person' inspired ultimately by Zoroaster's teaching. So in this sense Jesus is a Zoroastrian.

Q)

MZ) I think the Jesus we should be interested in is the Jesus that has become such a powerful symbol of goodness in Western culture.
It would be possible to have a Zoroastrian Christianity without Jesus - and I personally have flirted with this. However rejecting Jesus as a cultural symbol - and rejecting all those existing Christians who believe in Jesus - will make for a much weaker religious movement that will struggle to get much attention.
So I am feeling clearer that Zorochristians should recognise Jesus as the pre-eminent 'angel-saint of christ' - and thus even more important perhaps that Zoroaster.
Whereas Zoroaster taught about good and evil, Jesus became a living example of someone with a pure heart who had the character to do what is right and good as Zoroaster says we should.
Those people who have a big problem with the figure of Jesus, or who want a more polytheistic religion have an alternative. They needn't be Zorochristians, they can be Mithraists instead.

Q) To me they are opposites to Christianity, Islam and Judaism. The Bible supports rape, infanticide, mysogyny, genocide, etc. Yes, Christianity was influenced by Persian religion due to the Post Exilic era, but ultimately I cannot say that Christianity alignes with "good mind/deeds/thoughts".

MZ) I agree that abrahamic religion and the Old Testament doesn't align with 'good thought and deeds'. However I'd argue that this means it isn't Christianity.
Many of the earliest Christians rejected the Old Testament - so we are fully in our rights to do this today - and still call ourselves Christians. The distinctive aspect of Zorochristianity is to worship 'pure' Goodness - to have a God that is purely good. However this means that evil originates outside of our Good God , and that thus there is an 'outside of God' , and thus in some senses our God (Aramazda) is not all-powerful - for He is not the 'determiner of all that happens'. However in another sense he is all-powerful, because he can make any situation become better, if he is present there, the problem is that he is not universally present.

Q) I agree that the old and new testament are essentially opposite. As for who Jesus's god was, I can't help but wonder why, if it is Ahura Mazda, he would be born in Israel, and would be raised a Jew and teach the old testament in synagogues. Why wasn't he born in Persia instead? I'm not convinced that he is good, nor that he is Zoroastrian, and certainly not convinced that he is on our side. Anyone can masquarade as "good", but the substance of what he teaches (an eternal hell), the igborance of faith over substance, etc have led to more "bad thought" and harm than any of the supposed "good" he ever did. And if not for his teachings on eternal hell, Muslims (for example) wouldn't be believing in such a horrible punishment for temporary "crimes". If anything, Jesus introduced complacency (faith over action), thought-crime, etc. It's a hard sell for me.

MZ) I think Jesus was born where he was, because that is where he was most needed - that was where evil was at its strongest at that time.
The question of how Jewish was Jesus is a complex one - and I am not fully qualified to answer. However others have argued that e,g,:
1. Jewishness as we know it today didn't originate until after the time of Jesus, and that the word translated as Jew in the bible would be better translated as 'Judean' - an inhabitant of Judea . (Neverthless there was a proto-Jewishness - those who worshipped at the temple in Jerusalem)
2. That Jesus's mother Mary was not Jewish by any usual standard, though Joseph probably was.
3. The fact that Jesus's teachings were so at odds with the established religion and that he was crucified at the instigation of the religious authorities are surely a clear sign that he was not an orthodox Jew.
Nevertheless I am not really here to defend everything about conventional Christianity. I think there are problems with it - some of which you have mentioned.