In the Strip Mall of Souls

If I was to purchase a religious identity--research and compare specs as i would, say, with my electronics--i would not have chosen Hinduism.

Hinduism is both incredibly sloppy (it isn't even really one religion; people proclaimed some central texts, but only after colonizers came along and lumped together a myriad theologies and tribal cults, under a mispronunciation of the Indus river), and yet also one of the most OCD religions in the world. For this latter title it is closely rivaled by Judaism and Catholocism in its fixation with the mysticism of numbers, repetition, and ornate rituals.

Books and books and books of instructions, from how many times to circle the fire in the morning, how to progress in life cycles from cockroach to enlightenment, the precise way to bathe, even the way to fuck (See: kama sutra). It has an incredibly detailed opinion on everything.

The intellectual strand of hinduism has been long dominated by Brahmins--the people who took insular snobbery to its unrivaled heights, the name by which insular elitism is defined. A lot of pish posh dogmatism, self protection, and terrible metaphysics. Not to mention an adamantly Victorian code of morality more furious than when introduced by the British, with throttled genitals, soppy sentimentality for the poor and stern classism.

The mystic strand of Hinduism...a lot of self righteous gurus self-flagellating and ruling it over the heads of others. India is a religious country. There is a lot of status in being holier-than-thou. Self deprivation in an orange robe is a lot easier than trying to make it big in Bollywood. It is also likely that you will have a lot of middle class middle aged fanatics who will follow you around swooning. If i you do it really* well, you can have a lot of middle class middle aged fanatics in europe and Los Angeles too, and then you're fuckin set.

The festival strand of Hinduism--that is harder to argue. Festivals involve throwing colored dirt in the air, decorating confused white cows with flowers, wearing endless yards of bright silk and pounds of gold, setting lit candles down rivers, dancing, clapping, singing, gonging bells, making noise, crowding thickly and patiently in tropical humdity, praying into frenzy until dawn. I like that part--the excess, the fat bellies of priests, over their silken loin cloths, pouring gallons of milk and honey over granite and marble statues while masses starve outside.

I would not choose Protestantism either. Yes, the Great American Way for which I am grateful: rationality, pragmatism, the perfecters of logic, manufacturing, and log cabin construction. But clearly the sex life can't be all that great. All that individualism. There is less room for absurdity. Although to its credit, only with such stifling, bare and elegant theology can flourish the most subtle and richest ironies.

Atheism? Boring.

Agnosticism? Cowards.

Buddhism? over done. anyhow, i disagree with fundamental tenets i shall complain about some other time (e.g. clinging to suffering--not all that bad, is it now?)

Catholicism, Judaism, and Islam. Judaism like Buddhism--too done. Not to mention all the Jew-Boos out there. Too trendy. Islam is up and coming though. Nice intellectual history. Questionable political history. Although when next to the Catholics--Scylla and Charybdis. Can't read Arabic though. I like the intellectual spirit and collectivity of Catholicism coupled with its equally excessively elaborate rituals. I like its centralized state structure. However its strand of mysticism (Theresa of Avila, say) pays for all that sexual repression. Or not pays, i should say...it gets diverted excessively compared to the balance of other faculties. Islamic mysticism in Rumi and his dervishes...Poetry, Wine, and melancholy young men spinning in circles. Very nice.

Jesuits or the Dervishes, iPhone or a Blackberry. Well designed, hip, functional. I'll sleep on it.






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