Let’s talk about religion for a bit. This is something that I have struggled with in my own life being raised in a Roman Catholic background then being able to travel and meet good people from different religions who’s view of Christianity were as foreign as my own of their religion. The fact of the matter is I believe in Jesus, I think he was a great man and teacher, a martyr who’s sacrifice is to be respected. I think the message he carried was of love and he made some sweet music with what he did! Now here’s the thing: I may love the band and the music but I think that a lot of the fans are pretty weird and can be fanatical! I do believe in God but I don’t believe in what the groupies of God are preaching (you know who they are). They, like all groupies give the rest of the fans who are more often then not pretty decent, good people a bad reputation. These groupies, act pretty much like all groupies do. They are zealots. Have little sense of humor and think they pretty much are better then everyone else because they have a sense of entitlement, as if everything they say comes directly from the Man making the music himself, when in reality they just use someone elses music to justify their own interests. In fact, its pretty safe to say that most likely these groupies like most groupies have little to no understanding of the music at all, and the Man actually making the music probably wouldn’t understand or even hang out with these groupies, and he hasn’t because no matter what these groupies claim, they have NEVER even met the Man making the musc, let alone have the right to speak for him.
So what am I to do? I mean I like the music, believe in the music, that its something good but what do you do when a good majority of the fans start to look like just a bunch of zealot groupies and start to really turn you off to being a fan? I suppose you can stop listening, stop being a fan. But then lots of… let’s call them ex fans, stop listening to music all together. Which is fine, nobody should be forced to listen to music they don’t want to. Find another band if it suits you better, in the end its just music in the end, and as long as its good music and makes you feel something then I think this is a good thing. But a lot of the time ex fans have a very violent reaction, and turn into what we are going to refer to as “haters” (you also know these people as well). Not only do they not listen to the Man making music anymore, they are the type of people who will ridicule and try to drag people who do listen to the Music into a 3 hour long conversation that goes nowhere about how foolish they are for listening to any bands and they think all music sucks. They are smug, arrogant, have a false sense of superiority and feel like they have found “the secret” and see past how foolish everyone else is for being fans and will absolutely tell you how much whichever band you listen to sucks and how your stupid for believing in them. They feel they are so much better then the overzealous groupies when in fact they are nothing more then the opposite side of the same coin. They are overzealous about their own opinions and will try to convert you to their own overzealous opinions, which is exactly what the overzealous groupies do as well.
Now lets replace groupie with Christian Zealot and hater with Smug Atheist and you’ll get where I’m going with this post. Now don’t get my wrong, I have met some very good people that are Christians and have also met very good people who were Atheist or from another different religion entirely. My problem comes from dealing with people who think they have the golden answer, and are more then willing to force their beliefs (or non beliefs) on you and think they speak for an authority, which they do not and use it for their own agenda. So what’s a music lover to do? I guess I am just going to do what I always do. Close my eyes, relax, ignore the groupies and haters and just keep listening to the music. The Band is great and so are all the other bands that are gonna come on stage later. They all play some pretty great music and I hear at the end of the night they are all going to come on stage together and do a song. In the end, it’s all just really good music. And I’m a fan of good music.
