Comment by saiya-jin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by saiya-jin | Hacker News Reader

Interesting religion this Zoroastrianism, arguably the first monotheistic religion. Been to Iran, even to Yazd few years back, which is still world centre for this religion having their holy fire burning for centuries (millenia?) in their temple. Freddie Mercury was one, albeit born in Zanzibar. Back then he was not very proud of it, I presume in layman's view it must have been akin to some witchcraft in UK.

Just behind the city of Yazd there are towers of silence - where they chopped their dead and left them to vultures - still used in '70s. I guess their cultural revolution stopped these practices, so now they just bury their dead in big concrete slab (not spoiling the elements like earth, water or air) behind the city.

Truly remarkable places to visit, before mass tourism will come (or US bombs the place for some obscure reason completely unrelated to oil and local power games). Cannot recommend enough! Just bear in mind you won't be able to go to US afterwards but... as non-US, I would always choose such a wonderful and welcoming country and great people over police state of US these days (as much as I like regular US folks, the system you guys live in leaves much to be desired)

> as non-US, I would always choose such a wonderful and welcoming country and great people over police state of US these days

The US certainly has many issues, but I find calling it a "Police State", while praising the Islamic Republic of Iran in the same sentence quite ironic.

Heavily militarized SWAT vs mongrel basijis. Sadly few are truly free from the heavy hand of authoritarianism.

Then educate thyself. Besides all the anedotal evidence of police militirazation, violence, the USA has THE largest prison population in the world and almost the highest % of population in prison, #2 (after seychelles) with 693 per 100k. Iran is way down list at #37 with 287.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera...

Also, the way Iran is today (i.e. not the progressive democratic country it was) is due to the UK/USA replacing elected government with a religious autocrat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

I suppose if the US simply executed criminals at the rate Iran does, we would have a lower population as well.

We could also lower the number of people incarnated if we had public lashings instead, as Iran does.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Iran

> We could also lower the number of people incarnated if we had public lashings instead, as Iran does.

And hanging people from cranes in public squares...

> The US certainly has many issues, but I find calling it a "Police State", while praising the Islamic Republic of Iran in the same sentence quite ironic.

you mean, praising it as a tourist destination? How's that even controversial? Iran is an absolutely enchanting place to visit.

Now, agreed that calling the US a "police state .. these days" is still quite an exaggeration, but notice the context - the absolutely shocking, police-state-like US visa policy, mentioned in the prior sentence!

You only have to weaken the premise a bit to make it a perfectly sensible claim (and perhaps a bit of rethorical hyperbole is excusable?) : If the authoritarian behavior of the US government forces one to chose between visiting a place as beautiful as Iran, and visiting the US, surely that's an easy choice!

There's also a substantial Zoroastrian presence in India, for people not willing or able to travel to Iran. There are towers of silence there too, and are in active use. It may be a better place to visit if you wish to see the religion actively practiced.

> Just bear in mind you won't be able to go to US afterwards

It's worth clarifying that this isn't strictly true, at least for everyone. I've been in the US twice since visiting Iran for a few weeks in 2011, admittedly I got a bit of a grilling the first time, but second time around it didn't seem to cause any issues. However things have changed now that if you've visited Iran you're no longer eligible for the visa-waiver (if you're from a country that had that to begin with) so it does require a trip to the embassy for a visa before going to the US. I've yet to go through that process, so perhaps I'm being naive in assuming a visa will be forthcoming (at least for this pasty-faced Irishman).

Around 1344 BCE the 18th dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten proclaimed [0] that the solar disk (the Aten) was the only god.

Sure, it didn't last very long but he was the first monotheist in history.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hymn_to_the_Aten#Excerpt...

It should be noted this should be taken with a grain of salt. The exact dates of the founding of Judaism and Zoroastrianism are not precisely known, and our best guesses vary by centuries. Atenism is probably the oldest monotheistic religion, but it's not certain.

Great reply, until you turned it into an anti-US rant.

What about the part where men and women are forbidden from even shaken hands in public?

This is not true, not sure where you got this from? Source: I'm Iranian and have shaken many women's hands in Iran publicly. No lashings so far :)

it is absolutely true. "Aberoo Dari" is not a good enough reason to fool ourselves any other way.

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