Ancient religion may face extinction

[Ian David]

As screaming children raced around the hall in joyous play, adult workers readied food in the kitchen, while others set up chairs and tables. The holiday dinner of the Zoroastrian Association of the Greater Boston Area, held in a borrowed church basement in Arlington last month, mingled fellowship and family.

A new year naturally turns the mind to the future, especially for those looking back on a long and storied past, and Zoroastrians are peering at a horizon that they may never reach. A practice of not accepting converts has helped whittle the ranks of this ancient religion to fewer than 200,000 worldwide. Assimilation further robs the community of its distinctiveness, a fact in plain view at the dinner, where partygoers whose faith predated Jesus by a millennium nonetheless decorated an artificial Christmas tree.

"Both my boys are married outside non-Zoroastrians," said Sarosh Sukhia , a Pakistan-born Virginian who attended the party during a family visit to Boston. "They'll keep an adherence to the name, and I'll try to teach them the prayers."

But they're following the faith "in a very casual way -- you might say the very American sort of way," he said.

Extinction of the religion, which some adherents speak of openly, would mean the end of a foundational faith. Zoroastrianism, following the teachings of its founding prophet, Zarathustra, pioneered, with Judaism, both monotheism and the idea of religiously based ethics. The cradle of the faith was Persia (modern Iran), where it was the state religion of the powerful empire until Zoroastrians were chased out in the sixth century by Muslim persecution and evangelization. They retreated to India, where most of their descendants, called Parsis, still live today.

More:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/01/06/ancient_religion_may_face_extinction/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+City%2FRegion+News

Don't they advertise in Popular Mechanics anymore?

[crikkett]

1. not accepting converts = accepting obsolescence

however that's spelled.

[etherealtruth]

2. There's nothing to say after that

[madrchsod]

3. the foundation of the the middle eastern religions

erodes away. not everything is written in stone

[CJCRANE]

4. A microcosm of religion

which illustrates how so much organized religion is based on tribe and tradition not the actual spiritual teachings.

However, by the sound of it, the no conversion rule is what allowed the religion to survive for this long...so it's a catch 22.

[kwassa]

5. Makes me think of what happened to the Shakers

though that was a no-sex thing.

Left us with nothing but beautiful furniture, buildings and hymns.

On the other hand, Unitarians have never numbered more than about 200,000, and they don't require any belief at all. Much less conversion.

[Silent3]

6. This is one rate of extinction...

I'd happily see increase. No one should be condemned to live in a cultural museum simply because others think it's somehow sad "for the old ways to be lost". And the more we grow away from all religion, not just simply move on to newer religions, the better.

[Ian David]

7. I will happily yeild to our new masters, The Otters! n/t

[struggle4progress]

8. Traditional Zoroastrianism: Tenets of the Religion

http://tenets.zoroastrianism.com/