Old Timey One Godism

About a thousand years before the wandering He and She Brews looked up from their golden cows and nekkid dancers, when Charleton "I am that I am" Heston aka Moses aka Mohsen aka The Once Lost But Now Found River Baby aka Wilderness Perambulator came down from the mountain with ten "ought nots" etched in clay tablets, telling a camp fire story about a burning bush that may have been the inspiration for Hugh Hefner, long before this and long before Abraham asked God, "Where do you want this killing done?" there was Zarathustra.

Now here we have a kinder, gentler prophet. No burning bushes. No cross to bear.

When Zarathustra received his message, the messenger was simply called "Good Thought" or "Have a Nice Day", depends upon which scholar of ancient Persian languages you ax.

So let me walk you through this. Zarathustra was mindin' his own bidness when the clouds parted and the Great Smiley Face appeared to him with a message from God. Not from one of the Gods, but God--a'member, Zarathustra is about to bring the word of monotheism for the first time to world east of Babylon. He didn't "invent" monotheism--but he did frame it in words which had a lick or two of sense and quite possibly these words put a bug into the ears of the He/Shebrews.

Monotheism is not exactly monotheism when there's a good and a bad--Zarathustra called the good "Truth" and the bad "The lie". The truth's domain was Paradise. The Lie's domain was Hell.


How do you like this version of the end times and the punishment awaiting sinners:
According to Zoroastrian End Times: Sinners will be punished for 3 days, but are then forgiven. The world will reach perfection as poverty, old age, disease, thirst, hunger and death are halted.

3 days! That's like detention. That's like a time out. That's not even going to bed without supper.

OK? Now, Zoroastrian concepts, we all should know, parallel greatly Jewish, Christian, and Islamic eschatological beliefs. Each is generally understood to be a derivation of Zoroastrian.

What I find curious is how the desert people had to take this Persian or possibly Afghani fellers jolly apocalyptic vision and tack on fire and brimstone riders (sort of like what Republicans do to kill Democratic universal health care packages in the US).

All sinners, three days detention, all are forgiven, all go to heaven. I like it.