PSYC 403 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Ahura Mazda, Zoroastrianism, Polytheism

• School: McGill University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 403
• Professor: Stephen Saideman

Document Summary

Polytheism vs monotheism: there"s one exception to this. the pharaoh attempted to persuade his people to focus on one god (amenhotep iv), the sun god, in about. Changed his name to akhenaton, meaning lord of light. After his death, everything that he did was destroyed. In ancient times, there were only three known monotheic religions; abraham in about 2000 bc, then there was akhenaton, and then there was a final instance in ancient persia (which is now iran) The empire existed for a long time until the greeks resisted the frequent invasions. Persepolis: zarathustra was a prophet, and the sacred book was avesta. This suggested that there was only one god, ahura-mazda and a demon opposition, angro-mainyua. People were allowed to choose who they wanted to follow. this was their right to free will. they could choose the creator or his opponent.