Get $5,000 to start your own religion

NEW YORK -- The help-wanted ad had the whiff of a practical joke. "Documentary will pay you $5,000 to start your own religion," it said. "No exp. necessary."

"I laughed out loud," said Joshua Boden, 35, a bassist in an indie rock band, the Angelic Bombs, who stumbled across the ad in the Village Voice last spring.

But Boden, whose friends have long urged him to write down some of the bits of pop religion and philosophy that he has developed over the years, said his curiosity was piqued.

He went to the corresponding Web site and dashed off an application.

As it turned out, the advertisement was seeking participants for a very real, albeit unusual, social experiment: take $5,000 to start your own religious movement, in exchange for allowing a film crew to follow you around as you try to get under way.

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