Reza Aslan: prediction

Transcript context

…How much do you think one can still feel the influence of Zoroastrianism in contemporary Iran? Or is that just done and gone? No, I love that question. While it is true that Zoroastrianism, as a religion, is dying, and there’s every reason to think that, maybe a century from now, there probably won’t be any Zoroastrians left. I think currently right now, if you’re talking about the entire globe, there are probably about 200,000 Zoroastrians left in the world, which is horrifying because this is one of the primal religions. There would be no Christianity if it wasn’t for Zoroastrianism. But Zoroastrianism is so deeply embedded in Persian culture that the vast majority of Iranians probably don’t even know that the things they’re doing are Zoroastrian. It’s like Americans, when you celebrate Christmas and you don’t realize that you’re doing these pagan Germanic rituals. It’s the same thing — our New Year’s ceremonies, the various holidays that we have in Iran. Then, just the way the Iranian consciousness is still deeply affected almost at the gene level by Zoroastrianism. How did Iranian Judaism turn out special and different?…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.