Question and answer about religion (2)
Why is the birth date of Zarathushtra not clear?

Amordad correspondent:  From now onwards, on Sundays and Tuesdays parts of the question-and-answer book of Mobed Ardeshir Khorshidian will be quoted for our readers, in the hope of helping to increase knowledge and awareness.
Question:  In most books the birthday of Zarathushtra is not clear, in some the date even goes back to 6000 years.  How to prove the exact date of Zarathushtra’s birth and in which year was he chosen to be the messenger of the monotheism faith?
Answer:  No one knew that when the prophets and great men of the ancient times were born they would gain a spiritual status at a mature age and their birthday would become so important.  In addition, in those days there was no Shahnameh to record the exact date and so they were forced, later on, to guess the date of birth by words and guessing, from chest to chest.  Therefore, we see that the exact date of birth of most prophets is not known.
Many scholars have proved that the reasons the first days of the month of Dey (end of December) has been taken into view for the birthday of Jesus Christ was because the Mehr worshipers and follower of Mehr faith, which is an Aryan faith, believe that from the first days of Dey the days start becoming longer.  Mehr followers believed that day to be the birthday of the sun or Mehr and would celebrate it.  The Mehr religion had great influence in ancient Rome.  After prophecy of Jesus, Christians believed this day to be the birthday of Christ and beginning of the new year.  Of course, among various Christian groups there is a difference of 5 days for calculating the birthday of Christ, and therefore these 5 days have been named as Christmas, in order to keep unity among the groups.
The same applies to the birthday of Mohammad, the Moslem prophet.  There is a difference of 7 days between the Shiite and Sunni sects.  After Islamic revolution in Iran, these 7 days gap has been called the ‘unity week’ and is celebrated, in order to bring unity.
 
All over the world, there are many holy places in which the followers of the existing religions believe in and say that such a place is the mausoleum of the first human being, or the mausoleum of such a holy person or Imamzadeh, or such a historic even has happened in such a place, and so on.
Of course, many of these places have no historic or documentary base but only rooted in the beliefs of the people.
Many tourists, from all over the world, visit these holy places and they all see it their duty to respect the people’ beliefs.
Therefore, what is important is the belief of the followers of that faith or religion and nothing else.  It is written repeatedly in history and in Avesta in which all Avestologists believe, that the birthday of Zarathushtra is on Khordad day of Farvardin month, which is equal to the 6th day of Farvardin (26 March).  There is difference of opinion among world scholars about the birth date of Zarathushtra but among the followers of the Zoroastrian religion there is unity of opinion.  All Zoroastrians of the world believe Zarathushtra to be born on 6th Farvardin 1768 BC, and in our opinion and in the opinion of all followers of religions the belief of the followers of that religion is important and nothing else.
All other beliefs of  Zoroastrians and also followers of other religions has the same story.  The followers of all religions do not wait to see what the materialist scientists vote about our beliefs or what their decision is.
Religion means belief in matters that have been created according to the necessity of mankind.  Religions are formed to bring peace for man and build a mental support for him and guide him towards righteousness, truthfulness and humanity.
Many of the beliefs of the followers of religions, which they use in their lives, is not scientific or logic, but are mostly religious and traditional beliefs of various nations based on mental and emotional needs of societies.  These beliefs have their root in the heart and soul of man.
On the other hand, if we look at this question from the logical and scientific point of view, how much value can the birth place or birth date of a prophet have?  Isn’t it true that the message and words of the prophets and the influence of these messages on the people of the world and their destiny, is valuable.
Now, about our divine book:  the language in which Gathas has been written is of the same root as Sanskrit and very close to the language of Veda, and based on the research of scientists this language has a history 4 to 5 thousand years.  This means that no scientist or scholar has been able to bring the birth date of Zarathushtra lower than 1768 BC and many historians even believe his birth to have been more than 4 thousand year ago.  At this juncture, only Zionists insist that the birth of our prophet is after Moses so that they can prove that Moses is the first prophet in the world that introduced a divine book,  while all scientists have proved many of the beliefs of the Jewish religion to have been taken from Zoroastrianism and the opposite has never been seen (we suggest to have more debate on this matter.)

Translation by Rowshan Lohrasbpour