Theism v. Atheism in Prog

keiser willhelm wrote: fuxi wrote: AQUALUNG not atheist? Then what do you make of Mr. Anderson's sleevenotes: 'In the beginning Man created God; and in the image of Man created he him. 2. And Man gave unto God a multitude of names, that he might be god all over the earth when it was suited to Man. 3. And on the seven millionth day Man rested and did lean heavily on his God and saw that it was good.' Pretty obvious, isn't it? No matter what Ian may be singing about in "My God", and no matter what he may have said in certain interviews, these statements clearly point towards an atheist way of thinking. I have to disagree that this is clearly an atheist way of thinking. although it could be seen as that from an atheist point of view and used to argue for atheism i think anderson meant it to be more of  condemnation of organized religion, ie the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church wrote the bible, created the image of God, set up the idea of God gave him a multitude of names so he might be God all over the earth when it suited the Catholic Church. Ian doesnt come out and deny the existence of any god or a God, just the God created by the Catholic Church.

I'm afraid your reasoning is not totally correct, oh Kaiser.

1. In fact, Ian Anderson makes a point of attacking "The bloody Church of England / in chains of history", whilst AVOIDING attacks on the Roman Catholic Church. If you listen to the live performance of "My God" on the Isle of Wight album, it becomes clear that the mysterious words "and the graven image you know who / with his plastic crucifix" (which always puzzled me) originally ran as "and the graven image Catholic / with his plastic crucifix", which makes more sense. But for reasons unknown Ian changed his lyrics when he recorded the album. In that same live version, Anderson sings about Anglicans, Catholics and Jews. It seems obvious he was attacking all the monotheist religions he could think of (with Islam being far less familiar to 1970s Britons than it is now).

2. The Catholic Church neither "wrote the Bible" nor "set up the idea of God". Most of the Bible was written in Hebrew, long before the birth of Jesus. Monotheism was a Jewish invention (or discovery, if you prefer).

Thanks Pnoom, I stand corrected. Wasn't Freddy Mercury a Zoroastrian? Don't think he sang about his beliefs, though...

As did the beliefs of Amenhotep IV of the Kingdom of Egypt, if I'm not mistaken.

"The Catholic Church wrote the bible, created the image of God, set up the idea of God gave him a multitude of names so he might be God all over the earth when it suited the Catholic Church.
Ian doesnt come out and deny the existence of any god or a God, just the God created by the Catholic Church."

Sits back and waits for the "Blue Storm"

I do find it rather amusing that those who don't like being "preached at" in music have no problem with words like those of Anderson and the ELP tune oft cited in these threads.  Both are extremely "preachy", they're just not Preachin' the Gospel.  The Atheists preach just the same as anyone. Take the lyrics of Iluvatar's Better Days for example.  If its not preaching (prosletyzing at the least) I don't know what is.

Preaching according to Webster:
intransitive verb1: to deliver a sermon2: to urge acceptance or abandonment of an idea or course of action; specifically : to exhort in an officious or tiresome mannertransitive verb1: to set forth in a sermon <preach the gospel>2: to advocate earnestly <preached revolution>3: to deliver (as a sermon) publicly

All these definitions can be applied to song lyrics like those cited in these various threads.

All of us like to be "agreed" with when we speak.  We all (intentionally or not) make our best efforts to "make our cases" and convince our peers of the correctness of our thought, and we are only offended, or turned off, it seems, when others preach a different message than our own.

If I preach that Genesis is better than Dream Theater I will have people calling me a heretic (Mr. T where are you) just as surely as if I preach the opposite.  Song lyrics are a public forum and any song that has a point ihas elements of the sermon in it.  It all comes down to how you choose to react to the message.  If you don't want to be preached at, you'd better switch over to instrumental music or admit that the what you really mean by that is that you don't want to hear a message different than the one you believe.




Edited by Trademark - May 08 2008 at 18:00

Not prog, but my favorite song dealing with a/theism is Dear God by XTC.

"Did you make mankind after we made you?"

Pure genius.

Pretty strong in it's message, but it raises a bunch of good points:

Dear god,
Dont know if you noticed,
But your name is on a lot of quotes in this book.
Us crazy humans wrote it, you should take a look,
And all the people that you made in your image,
Still believing that junk is true.
Well I know it aint and so do you,
Dear god,
I cant believe in,
I dont believe in,

I wont believe in heaven and hell.
No saints, no sinners,
No devil as well.
No pearly gates, no thorny crown.
Youre always letting us humans down.
The wars you bring, the babes you drown.
Those lost at sea and never found,
And its the same the whole world round.
The hurt I see helps to compound,
That the father, son and holy ghost,
Is just somebodys unholy hoax,
And if youre up there youll perceive,
That my hearts here upon my sleeve.
If theres one thing I dont believe in...

Its you,
Dear god.

Edited by Pnoom! - May 08 2008 at 17:06

It doesn't matter very much to me. While I listen to both types (Iona, Kerry Livgren's "Seeds of Change"), I actually find the "blasphemous" attitude of ELP's "I Believe in Father Christmas" to be more interesting.

Just a thought for consideration:  all Western music as we know it, and especially prog, was originally financed by the Catholic church.  (No, I'm not a Catholic nor much of a Christian for that matter.)

If I'm not mistaken, Royal Hunt's album Paradox may be a whole concept album where the band deals with questioning why God does certain things.

Stoogefright wrote: With prog covering such complex and varied lyrical subjects as it does, the topic of religion is one that appears here more often than in your run-of-the-mill genres. Do you find the appearance of theistic or atheistic views more often in prog? What are your favorite treatments of either side?

I think Prog does cover religious subjects more often, but it's not always that obvious.  My favorite treatment of atheism in prog is from Emerson, Lake & Palmer's Tarkus album.  "The Only Way".   What a more brilliant way of doing it than to set the lyrics against a Bach prelude played on a pipe organ!   Quite a cynical bite!  Also, "Bitches Crystal" is another song off of Tarkus which attacks superstitious beliefs and the people who prey on other people's weaknesses.