LOL, Religion

There are religious shrines to Elvis in India.

His picture hangs beside Hindu gods, where locals pray to him. They believe he’s God, like Krishna the chariot driver (their six-armed version of Jesus) or Kali the metaphor for divorce (a death goddess standing on a male carcass, holding men’s severed heads).

Kali is every psycho girlfriend you've had. Seen here on a whole lot of acid.

Heavy metal music will become England’s next census religion this year, with over 17,000 fans on the Facebook page “Heavy Metal for the 2011 Census.’ Previous movements made ‘Jedi’ and ‘Pastafarian’ official religions. Pastafarianism was founded by an American atheist professor who wrote a logical argument for the universe being created by a flying spaghetti monster, and demanded his new faith be taught and respected, when his university ruled that teaching evolution was offending Christians.

The media is broiling in Righteous Anger after Tony Abbot’s recent call for chastity was taken out of context. It’s time for another religion article, a reminder that there’s always something crazier than what we complain about.

Like most writers, I believe. Science keeps finding more evidence that repeats what shamans and Asian monks have been preaching for millennia – the universe is one giant entity, which must have a single mind behind it, as Nobel laureate and discoverer of quantum physics Max Planck suggested. One way or another, every religion believes this mind is God.

Max Planck in his favourite pastime, staring down Atheism with rotten hatred

I’m from a family of clairvoyants, even found myself doing it professionally. Yes, I’m one of Them. So I’m biased – I’ll write no more about what might wait after death.

Most spiritual debates drag us away from finding answers, when militant atheists spit venom at religion and the misery it’s caused, and the religious take offence. They rarely truly argue over God, but always over ego.

The wisest ones in this issue haven’t taken sides – I often join the debate. I had lunch with a Hare Krishna for this reason. We ended up discussing Fight Club and human lust. A venerable Buddhist monk invited me to eat with him, and talked about forests and mountains. The only real answer came from a former monk with a country bloke accent, wearing a shirt asking me ‘Who’s your daddy?’ His solution:

“If no one was worried about being right, there would be no war.”