Now I could be wrong, but I think there are probably a lot more ways that an MTV pop star could thank God then by saying so at an award show.

Seriously, if your up on stage dressed sleazier than a Las Vegas street whore, I’m sure that God really would prefer that you didn’t drag him into the situation.

Thankfully, I’m not much for watching MTV at any time let alone during the annual video awards. If I wanted to be brainwashed like that on a daily basis I’d do it in a more productive way. I’d join a cult.

But for some odd reason I ended up watching this year’s awards last week and, as usual, it turned out to be a complete waste of time.

During the presentations several pop stars strolled up to the podium to accept their moon man and proceeded, like in all other award shows, to thank those who supported them in their aspirations.

Many of them thanked their managers, parents, friends, producers, “The Label,” and then some of them thanked God. If you can believe it, they did it with a straight face too.

One of them, I think it was Nelly, even put a classy twist on the message saying, “I’d like to thank the Man upstairs.”

Now I’m not very religious. I don’t attend church and I don’t find myself doing volunteer work all that often but I do have complete faith that God would rather that most of those people did their thanking in a different way.

It’s easy for a pop star to thank God on stage in front of screaming fans. It’s not like we’re in Afghanistan. But it is a lot harder to thank God in a way that actually means something, in a way that is not patronizing.

For example, right after Pink of “Lady Marmalade,” screamed out, “Thank you to all of those who knew we could be the best whores,” another group member said “And we thank God. God bless.”

There could probably be better ways that the performers of “Lady Marmalade” could thank God. Gee, I don’t know, maybe they could put on some clothes. Maybe they could not dance around on the stage like they are having sexual intercourse with thin air.

For God’s sake, these “women” are supposed to be role models. And some parents wonder why they have to consider buying their 13-year-old daughter birth control.

Destiny’s Child is another one. Singing about how their 19-year-old bodies are so “bootylicious.”

Guess what. God doesn’t want you to thank him either. And I have a more appropriate term for bootylicious: Skank.

It makes me sick that people like that can get up onstage and thank God for their awards. I kept expecting them to just burst into flames or something.

If they really want to thank God and not just make it a passing comment like a glance at a bar then these corporate made “stars” could stop singing about killing people, smoking bongs, selling crack, sleeping around, cheating and prostitution.

They could even do a lot of volunteer work, a lot.

Joe Ryan is a senior journalism major and a biweekly columnist for The Daily Eastern News. His e-mail address is [email protected]. Columns are the opinion of the author.