Absolution

I have been recently bothered by some sort of contest they have going on CHEZ 106, the local classic rock radio station. For some time now they have had a VIP Club where you can earn points for listening and redeem the points for prizes or ballots for draws. Their most advertised prize right now is, for 1,000,000 points, you can get absolution from all your sins, provided by St. John's Anglican Church. In tongue-in-cheek manner, they mention that absolution is not guaranteed. Of course it's not... clergymen have no more actual contact with a fictional god than psychopaths have with unicorns.

What I don't really understand is how this type of "contest" benefits anyone. It's insulting to religious people because it sells religion for cheap. It's a lame marketing campaign to try to get people to attend church. It shows the desperation of religious organizations, and also puts into question the motivations of the station's management which decided to go ahead with this contest. The church is actually taking this rather seriously, issuing a press release and such. If you read through the lines, however, you can understand that what they mean by this is that only Zeus or whoever can give absolution, and so you must try and find that here on Earth.

The contest, and especially the marketing campaign behind it, are equally insulting to atheists and agnostics. In the radio ads, they give examples of sins that you can get absolution for, including "sleeping in on Sunday mornings instead of going to church". Oh, how fucking blasphemous! Having slept in on pretty much every Sunday morning that I can recall, I'm real worried about me going to hell and all. It's nice to see a religious organization getting so laughingly desperate with their propaganda attempts.