At the bus stop, W. tells me about his current intellectual projects. They can be summed up under the general heading, capitalism and religion, he says. The 'and' is designed to be provocative, W. says. He wants to provoke the new atheists, he says.
There's nothing more infuriating than the new atheists, W. says as the bus comes. Nothing worse than what they take religion to be. He wants to show that belief in a world beyond this world has nothing to do with religion, he says. Religion has to do with what is sober, real and objective, he says. The true object of religious belief has always been this world, the world as it currently is.
Of course, by religion, it's Judaism he has in mind. And by Judaism, he has in mind the Judaism of Cohen and Rosenzweig. If only the new atheists could read Rosenzweig and Cohen, W. says. If only he could read, really read, Rosenzweig and Cohen! , he says.
Capitalism and religion. What's the significance of the copula? What does it mean to think one alongside the other? Of course, he'd appreciate my input as a Hindu, W. says. What would a Hindu make of all this?, he wonders. But he knows I have no answer. My Hinduism has no depth, W. says. He can't believe in it, not really. – 'Convince me', he says. 'Convince me you're a Hindu. In what does your Hinduism consist?'
He still remembers when I first told him of my Hinduism. I'm a Hindu, I said, and he laughed until beer came out of his nostrils. Where was it? In Freiburg? In Wroclaw? It's as improbable today, my Hinduism.
'You know nothing about it!', W. says. If he drew a Venn diagram called Hinduism and a Venn diagram called Lars, where would they intersect?
But about capitalism, now. I might have something to say about capitalism. For wasn't it in my long periods of warehouse work and unemployment that I came into contact with the essence of capitalism?
Capitalism and religion. Somehow, I'm the key to his project, W. says. I'm the key to the copula, though he's not sure how. In some way or another, I'll be his Virgil, W. says. I'll lead him through the circles of my hell.
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