Alexander Bard - Religious Activism

Religious Activism

Bard began to study Zoroastrianism in 1983, and was inducted to the faith in Gothenburg in 1997 where he had his navjote performed by a priest (mobed) named Kamran Jamshidi. His close friend Trita Parsi, who later went on to become the founder and President of the National Iranian American Council, was inducted in the same ceremony. In 2012, Bard was announced as one of the co-founders of an international initiative called the The Syntheist Movement. While originally an idea authored by the French surrealist philosopher Georges Bataille in the 1950s, the 2012 church launch was inspired by the simultaneous release of the book Religion for Atheists by Swiss philosopher Alain de Botton. Bard has declared his involvement in the new religious movement as a logical consequence of the fact that he regards Zarathushtra, the founder of the Zoroastrian faith, as the original syntheist, thereby categorizing The Syntheist Movement as an attempt to package Zarathushtra's ideas for a contemporary, global audience.