Religions As Businesses * Whilst being accosted by a certain aggressive Fundamentalist sect the other day it dawned on me that the major world's religions have fundamental mindsets, styles, and procedures not unlike those of popularly-known businesses. For example, consider the world's major religions: % HINDUISM: Much like an import market -- a wide variety of curios, trinkets, bizarre weapons, and grotesque statuary; colorful, gaudy, elaborate, and of questionable taste. The building has several floors but there are no stairs between them. % BUDDHISM: An arts shop with a range of elegant and sophisticated curios pleasing to the eye and harmonious to the mind, though not necessarily of much practical use. However, you must buy one of everything ... but if you just want to browse, that's OK too. % JUDAISM: A large banking concern that's been in the family for generations. Plush carpet, nice leather chairs, memorabilia of the past arranged on the walls; generally they prefer to deal with insiders but if your money's good they'll talk a deal. % ISLAM: A going concern but it's hard to say precisely in what business. Active in oil trading but the front door usually has a CLOSED -- GET LOST sign on it. Those who venture in the front door anyway may not be seen again for several years except in fuzzy videotapes and mumbling that they are still in good health. Since we in the West are familiar with a wide variety of different Christian sects, it is appropriate to take a more specific focus (as we would not, say, on Sunni versus Shiite Islam, despite the glaring differences between these two often-hostile factions): % CATHOLICISM: Less a single business than an entire shopping mall governed by centralized management and providing a range of services from educational tools to some *extremely* high-class antique shops. Note, however, that when you go in the entrance the sign says: THE MANAGEMENT IS ALWAYS RIGHT -- and they *mean* it. % MORMONISM: A large Western-Wear Feed-and-Grain store with a large stock of plain goods at reasonable prices, and an aggressive international door-to-door and mail-order program. Very much a family concern but governed by an ideological background capable of reducing an innocent passerby to a state of catatonia in matter of seconds. % BAPTISM: A southern barbecue pit -- but no music, no dancing, and the bar is always closed. If you seem to be enjoying yourself, you will be asked to leave. % JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES: The Franklin Mint of religions ... roughly aimed at the same economic and intellectual level and producing goods of similar style and taste. % UNITARIANISM: A book-of-the-month club that refuses to actually state what their policy is but in reality deals in large, heavy, dull books with obscure titles, tiny print, massive numbers of footnotes, and no pictures. Going slowly out of business. And last but not least: % $CIENTOLOGY: Comparing $cientology to a business is redundant.
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