I am the honorable flamingo. What you read here might make you smile, make you think, or make you wonder. This is the world as I see it, from the view of a pink, long legged, slightly awkward bird.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

1-800-GO-PAGAN

Feeling like your religion could use a tune up? Tired of being made fun of on Youtube by atheists who never leave their house except to buy more webcam accessories? If this sounds like you then you're a perfect candidate for a conversion to paganism.

But in a time when the world is so uncertain, and religious tensions ever present, not just any old heretical religion will do. No, now is the time for us to go Jain.

Yes, you heard me correctly, Jainism. If you've never heard of it you probably aren't alone, and that's OK, because they are probably going to hell anyways. But perhaps if we could get more people behind this thing, since it is one of the oldest religions, maybe God would change his mind and make it the true religion after all. Alright, so Jains don't believe in God...but karma will certainly look well on us once we are the majority. What are some other beliefs of Jainism? I thought you'd never ask.

1.) Equality of all life and non-violence.
That's right, Jains don't kill anything. This one might take a little getting used to, but think of how great it would be when there are no wars, no domestic violence, and no Charlton Heston. Did I say that out loud? Anyway, doesn't sound like such a bad world to me.

2.) Truth
Jains place much importance on telling the truth, so for this one we may have to make a few changes. First of all I suppose we could cancel Fox News...and maybe MSNBC, but I'm not sure anyone watches them anyway. Cut out the tabloids, half of the internet, and we are well on our way to a Dharmic lifestyle.

3.) Chastity
This one might be a little tricky. Sort of like Catholics, only Monks in the Jain religion are actually completely chaste, everyone else simply keeps sex within marriage, and remains faithful to their partner...I'm not sure which would be harder. The really tough part, however, is that the Jains believe that any impure thoughts are also a violation of chastity. This will be hard to do for some people, but to start I would recommend canceling the Tyra Show and replacing it with reruns of the View.

The Jains also, among other things, seek to eradicate hate, anger, and malice from the world. This means that we might actually have to love our neighbors, but if you think about it, after a while, it would probably become second nature. Not to mention, I think the value of world peace outweighs the little bit of annoyance it might be to not hate people. All in all I hope that the entire world will follow my lead, because Jain is the religion of the future!

Wait a second, I'd have to be a vegetarian! Screw that, the Jains are all going to hell anyway.

8 comments:

Dev said...

t is an excellent case in favour of Jainism. But you spoiled it by your negative view on vegetarianism. One can always make a beginning in Jainism. Buddhism was primarily invented as an intermediete with relaxation on vegetarianism. I believe, it has not succeeded as the history shows it. Jainism revolves around Self. Self-belief i.e the ardent belief that you are an independent being called Self is a prerequsite. The second criterion is you have no business of colored judgement of you and the world. The polarisation of knowledge into good and bad and like and dislike is the root cause of misery and mundaneness. The likes and dislikes are the seeds of disharmony and violence. As a self you dont need to "do" anything other than bleaching the colour of your view. There lies the realm of Jainism

The Flamingo said...

The article was meant as a sort of satire. The point being that it seems many of the major religions, especially Christianity and Islam, seem to be willing to fight so bitterly over which of them have the monopoly on truth.

On the other hand, Jainism seems to promote many good things including, as you mentioned, belief in oneself, love for all life, non-violence, self-control and so forth. Yet even with all this people are willing to condemn them to hell offhand just because they don't see it exactly as they do (of course Jains don't believe in the Christian or Islamic view of hell).

The vegetarian comment was meant to be tongue-in-cheek as well. It was written as sort of a jab at people who seem to take their religion so seriously, and yet are unwilling to follow it when it becomes inconvenient.

Personally, I think the world would probably be a better place if everyone were to convert to Jainism tomorrow. Hey, I think it would be neat to be reincarnated.

Thanks for reading, and I appreciate your opinion, which I must admit, seems to be more informed than mine when it comes to this topic.

Anonymous said...

I love this post and I love Jainism. Go Jains!! Ahimsa rules!! (But does not kick butt :)

BTW I was also groovin' on the satire. That was some mean, lean satire and justifiably pointy poke at mainstream religious hypocrisy.

I'm supposing Jainism is still a minority religion because it's just too darn reverent of the earth and all life forms, even the ones that don't look or think like us. Unbigoted, unbiased reverence just hasn't seem to caught on yet as a big seller as religions go.

I don't know if Dr. C. is a native English speaker or not because his link isn't to an active profile, but it can be hard to identify satire in someone else's tongue. Hmmm...that sounds rather raunchy and kinky, but you know what I mean. :)

PS I put smilies everywhere as I fear that otherwise people will not understand my wit. :)

Anonymous said...

I read your post and at first I was pretty excited that a non-Jain was giving the religion some support. Now I'm just sadly disappointed by your post. There could be some bias as I am Jain. As satirical as you were trying to be, it's not cool for you to make comments that Jains are going to "hell". To be a vegetarian is no easy task, so don't even think about mentioning that in a light context. People who eat meat, are the ones filled with the most hate.

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