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Notes -
I'm very tempted to say that regarding the state of modern theology, a Zoroastrian at least believes in the principles of good and evil as being opposing divinities, and indeed in divinity. That would at least be closer to traditional Catholicism! So yeah, I'd take a theologian who believes in good and evil and gods and demons than someone who is all "it's all us, we're the most important beings".
I mostly picked them for "they are a small sect which has not been terrible successful as a meme; a far-group not an outgroup;"
If they picked an Agnostic, Muslim, Evangelical, Old Catholic, or worshipper of Santa Muerte, that would be giving aid and comfort to an outgroup instead.
(Naturally, theologians might select on different criteria than just outcomes -- perhaps a minor heresy is preferable to atheism, or perhaps it is the other way round.)
Zoroastrianism was the official religion of multiple dominant empires spanning over a millennium. Its influence didn’t wane because it was “an unsuccessful meme”; the final Zoroastrian Persian empire was militarily defeated by Muslims, who then ruthlessly persecuted the Zoroastrian holdouts, forcing them to flee to the Indian subcontinent, where, even as a minority religion vastly outnumbered by the populations around them, they managed to maintain their religion over a thousand years later. I don’t think it makes sense to treat it as some obscure sect that “lost out on the marketplace of ideas.”
Okay, I did not know this and I stand corrected.
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