Intelligent Design

Comparing the world's major religions strictly based on visual appeal - and given my lack of knowledge on any other level, this is probably what I'd do if forced to pick one - Christianity would rate way down on my list. I'm sitting in a temple of Tibetan Buddhism in Beijing, and it's striking how imaginative and charismatic all the statues and paintings are. Witness, on the one hand:



Here are some of the words that come to mind which I look at this painting: Wan. Flaccid. Simpering.

Now take this Buddhist heavenly king on the other hand:



To borrow a word from my Patagonian hiking companions: badass. Everything from the character to the shapes to the colours grabs me. Stepping outside Buddhism, Hindus even get to worship a strange blue man who overcomes what surely was a debilitating skin condition to become a player.

It seems to me that if Buddhism and Hinduism combined with capitalism, their wild and imaginative styles would be easily marketable, and they could dominate new generations the world over through pop culture.