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From: nino
email: theshadow36@hotmail.com
Category: Social
Date: 28 Jan 1999
Time: 06:45:47
I was going over all the comments made by different people regarding CONVERSION. I would like to address these comments and thoughts with some of my own. Let me go step by step and try to address this issue. First of all, why is a person not allowed to enter a Fire Temple? The reason is that the fire temple is not an object, it is a place of worship where a sacred fire is kept. It is said that each and every person has a fire within himself and as he goes on purifying that fire, he attains peace. The fire kept in the Fire Temple is at such a high level(after many prayers offered by the dastoors) that to go near that fire you need to be pure. The path to attaining this purity is by doing kusti outside the Fire Temple(even a zoroastrian has to follow this ritual). Since non-zarthusti's do not wear this kusti, obviously their entrance is restricted. Secondly, Why is conversion not allowed? When we(zarthusti's) came from Iran, we had to somehow have some ethics which would let our religion stay alive. The ethic was that one could be a zoroastrian only by birth. Imagine that conversion was allowed. Wouldn't it then be the case that many people would convert and the whole essence of the religion for which we live be diluted. This would happen(as history proves it again and again), because a time would come when there would be people who would be called zoroastrians but would have other beliefs and gradually this would lead to the demise of all the goodness that zoroastrianism stands for. Have you ever tried to think as to why all the other great religions have lost their inner essence. I mean no offence to these religions, but how would you explain the gradual decline in the moral-values of people following these religions (or rather to say they are influenced too much by people in power, with the exception of a few) . All religions which started off were excellent and the best spiritual food for those times. But, as time went by, they were so much influenced by other religions that they lost their identities (atleast spiritually). We as zoroastrians would like to preserve our traditions and would obviously not like our religion to be diluted or stray away from its essence. The best way to ensure that is through non-conversion and so the issue rages on.....