[the_old_crowd] Re: unicorns and religious references in HP (was checking out the library book

[ewe2]

On Sat, Jun 25, 2005 at 11:45:33PM -0000, Catlady (Rita Prince Winston) wrote:
> Neri wrote in 
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1891 :
> 
> << Granted, JKR has the sharp divide between Light and Dark which is
> indeed more a Christian concept than of any other religion/culture, >>
> 
> I am amazed that no one pointed out that the sharp divide and big
> battle between good and evil, called Light and Dark, was originated by
> the Zoroastrian religion (as reported by ewe2 in her post snipped
> below), whose adherents are called Parsees, which is a clue that it
> was the religion of the great Persian empire of Darius and Cyrus and
> Xerxes. 

I really thought the Zoroastrian angle was more obvious, glad you picked that
up. BTW, I should explain that I am in fact a _male_ penguin in disguise as a
sheep as part of my cover, and no offence taken :) Yes, Zoroastrianism is sort
of an ongoing Ragnark, last goodie standing so to speak. What theories like
MAGIC DISHWASHER are saying at a basic level is that DD thinks this is
a Bad Thing and DE's do not. To take the Manichaeist POV, God is DD and the
Devil is Voldy, it has the same appealing neatness, and the assumption that
the universe is broken by the Bad Guy and God is fixing it. 

> Stop me before I go on to explain Manichaeanism.

Ok, stop. Here's a good reference:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09591a.htm

Compare with:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism

> But Cyrus the Great, a sufficiently devout Zoroastrian (pace, Kneasy,
> that doesn't have to be *very* devout) to (pay for workmen to) carve
> huge stone inscriptions thanking Ahura Mazda for giving him all these
> victories and conqering an empire, was sufficiently tolerant of
> differences that he let all the ethnic groups conquered by the
> Babylonian empire go back to their homelands and rebuild their temples
> to their miscellaneous gods. The Jews wrote in their Bible (in the
> third part, the miscellaneous writings) that their God, the Lord, had
> sent Cyrus to free them from Babylonian captivity. 

Ye-es but I'm really talking about Desert Religion + Zoroastrianism. It seems
everyone before monotheism exhibited a relative tolerance to other religions.
Except the Hebrews. And the Christians. To say nothing of Islam. Many forget
the parts of the Old Testament where various Prophets of the Lord fought a
seemingly hopless battle with their own people to get them to stop worshipping
bulls, calves, the gods of other religions, etc and concentrate on the one
God. 

> Joseph Campbell, in THE MASKS OF GOD, IIRC volume 3, listed examples
> of other ([paleo-]pagan) nations who left inscriptions praising their
> own gods for sending Cyrus to free them from Babylon. 

I've been told that JC is a Bad Man and should not be listened to on any
account. I have the books, and I must say volume 4 is mostly wasted on Joyce.

-- 
sed awk grep cat dd ..Im a luser baby ,so why don't you killall -kill me.