Someone sent me a cute Christmas video from a British band, the theme of which was, “it’s too early for Christmas, but what the heck, let’s celebrate anyway.” I thought, OK, this is cute. So I clicked on the link to download the song to play on my show this Saturday.
The link took me to their website, where I put in my email address to get the MP3 … and immediately, I learned the band members are all adherents of a certain religion, whose name I won’t put here, because the religion — practiced by a number of somewhat colorful Hollywood celebrities — is notoriously litigious.
It was my quickest milkshake duck ever.
Look, in general, when it comes to someone’s religion or lack of religion, I’m very much “live and let live.” Frankly, I’d say most of my friends are probably “none of the aboves” or nominal adherents who attend a church or temple on special occasions.
Generally speaking, like Rev. Lovejoy in “The Simpsons,” I tend to think all of them are pretty much the same. Whatever gets you through the night, as John Lennon sang.
But one of the hallmarks of this particular religion is its need to trick people (such as, for example, middle-aged oldies disc jockeys who are just trying to download a Christmas novelty song) into following them, which is one of the main reasons you know it’s a cult.
You shouldn’t have to try to force people into worship. Nothing says “freedom” like demanding that kids pray and read the Ten Commandments against their parents’ will. Indeed, I’ve never heard of anyone converting to a religion because they were forced to pray. Kids who are forced to practice a religion they hate always seem to resent it, and in my experience, it never seems to stick. It always makes me wonder what the point of forced prayer is, other than as a show of control and dominance.
And you certainly shouldn’t have to trick people into joining. Catholics don’t try to hide that they’re Catholic, and the Salvation Army wears uniforms, so you can even spot them in a crowd. I’m an Episcopalian and we don’t lure people into a rock concert and then lock the door behind them and say, “HA HA! Now we’re going to hook you up to this electronic gizmo and then we’re going to brainwash all of you into making Jell-o salads for the annual parish meeting until you ascend to a higher level of consciousness.”
Anyway, you wouldn’t believe how fast I got off of this band’s website. I didn’t know you could burn rubber with an Internet browser but I swear you could hear Firefox’s tires squealing as I left.