i’m on my way to a funeral now and i’ve spent the last couple of days in a funeral home so my post for today is going to have to wait until i get home later on today

zoroastrianism

There’s so much information to become familiar with and I have no idea what to write about in my blogs. It’s an information overload. Everyone has their own religious background and with that comes hundreds of years worth of history. With this, I get to see the differences between these Eastern religions from the Western ones but I’m also finding many similarities. There are definitely similarities with Christianity here: the one creator, no evil originates from him, ,a battle between good vs. evil etc.  The Avesta is even kind of like the bible. The Yasna is liturgical with parts thought to be written by the creator himself, there are hymns found in the Yashts, ways to abstain from evil in the Vendidad and other prayers found throughout. It’s really interesting to see how much of an influence religions have had on each other and how even though many claim to be entirely different they are essentially very much alike.

 

Sodigana

What’s interesting to me about the Sogdians is their religious life.  Being in a place where people from all different parts of the world traveled to really had an impact on their way of life and their beliefs.  Seeing that Buddhism, Christianity and Manichaeanism can all be found there, along with other religions, indicates that there has always been differing religious groups in a particular area. Also, that each religion had an impact on one another makes me think that maybe people got along a little better in terms of their religions and it maybe wasn’t always a battle of whose beliefs were the best. You see that religion was more of an individual or familial practice and it wasn’t necessarily involved with the state which is probably better than how things are now. People followed their own beliefs and lived accordingly.

the beginning

The more I read about history and religion, the more I come to realize that people have always been crazy. Sure silk is beautiful, but crossing the desert for months in order to trade it? It’s absolutely absurd. These people put themselves through such horrible physical and mental pain. It’s something that I cannot bring myself to comprehend just as I am sure that there are many others who feel the same. Everybody complains about their jobs and most of them probably are not as demanding as those that were associated with the Silk Road. It wasn’t only the people who traveled to do the trading that had it rough; the lives of the people who farmed the silk worms were consumed with catering to the needs of the worms. It just seems like a lot of work for some material, but I guess I will have to wait until I read further on to fully understand what it was all about.

I mean, I’ve seen desert and it isn’t a place that I’d like to be traveling through for months on end with no water and a limited supply of food.

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