Update on Adityaism

As many of you know, I’ve been trying to found my own religion for a while now. (We already have a song) I’ve always figured that having your own religion might be a very convenient thing to have, because if a religion allows you to do something, most people are agreeable to let you do it. The problem with most modern religions is that they deal with big picture stuff – You know, right vs wrong, peace vs war, karma etc…, but they’re not very good at providing guidance for everyday problems. For example, is it OK to bunk office so that you can watch the India vs Pakistan semi-final. Nothing in the Bible or the Bhagwat Gita about cricket (I checked). This is where I think my religion, Adityaism, will have a niche.

Every religion needs some basic tenets, which form the foundations of the principles of the religions. Based on this, the other stuff flows, mythology of the religion, the Gods (I’m thinking Angelina Jolie will be a uber-goddess) etc.. but I have to still figure this out. I do, however, have a draft of the 5 major tenets of Adityaism.

1. Rotating Gods and Goddesses
I’m thinking it is really important to have attractive Gods and Goddesses, since they must justify being worshiped. For example, I think Angelina Jolie will make a great Goddess, because she is just so easy on the eyes. However, if the Gods and Goddesses are given permanent status, then they might slack off, do some stupid things or just stop caring about themselves (case in point: Britney Spears), and then we’ll be in this embarrassing position of having a Goddess who’s in Jail or in Rehab.

To get around this, I think Gods and Goddesses will be initially appointed for a 2-year term, and their status will be subject to review and renewal at the end of the period. This should keep everyone on their toes and ensure that we don’t have any slacker Gods or Goddesses.

2. Flexible Vegetarianism
Most religions have a strong view of food – what is acceptable and not acceptable. Jains for example, are not allowed to eat roots, Hindus beef etc… I think this is too stringent, since it limits choice, but capitalism has comprehensively proven that more choice is always better. I mean just look at how many options we have for cell phone providers.

Dietary restrictions in Adityaism will follow a similar approach. Everyone will be required to be vegetarian, except when they feel like eating non-veg food. Acceptable reasons for someone to feel like eating non-veg food include (but not limited to): “It smells good“, “My friends are eating it“, “The restaurant is close by” and “I haven’t eaten non-veg all day“.

3. Dynamic Holidays
Religious holidays are awesome (actually all kinds of holidays are awesome), but they suffer from a fatal flaw. They’re based on I-don’t-know-what-calendar, which means several of them are wasted on weekends, overlapping holidays and random distribution across the year etc… Wouldn’t it be great if there was an all-religion-holiday-rationalization summit where everyone agreed to move around religious holidays so that we could get 4 continuous weeks off during the summer? However, since the big religions are not going to do that, Adityaism will solve the problem by creating dynamic holidays.

All holidays are required to be either on Mondays or Fridays to facilitate long weekends. No two holidays can overlap, and they must be distributed throughout the year such that any 4-week period has at least 1 holiday. Plus, followers of Adityaism will be able to declare holidays on-demand as per their convenience to overlap with certain sporting events (Hint! Hint!)