Which religion influenced the beliefs of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism?
Monotheism started with its founder long before Abraham. The idea of heaven and hell originated with it, as did the idea of good and evil.
Not only did its ideas influence the Abrahamic religions, they also influenced culture.
Richard Strauss' "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" can be seen in the score of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Freddy Mercury, lead signer of Queen, got inspiration from the religion's founder and the Mazda car maker takes its name from the founder.
Zoroastrianism started in Iran and grew with the three great Iranian empires which included that of Cyrus the Great, but began to weaken after the invasion of Alexander the Great and the later development of Islam. Many Zoroastrians fled and migrated to India where they became known as Parsis.
In a terrific essay for BBC Culture, called "The Obscure Religion that Shaped the West," Joobin Bekhrad examines the influence of Zarathustra's beliefs on western culture.
You can find out more about Zoroastrianism from BBC Religion.
And here is an interesting article about the vanishing population of India's Parsi community.
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