IS GOD RUINING PROG?

     "The morals in the Bible are great and are very insightful to live by." LOL! Yeah, if I want to punish my children I can stone them to death and I have the right to kill those that are born homosexuals, according to the "morals" of the Bible. There are a few passages in the Big Book that can be useful yet they are few and far between. Jesus himself even condoned castration, which I don't find very useful. If you want to say that the Bible is full of wisdom, you must examine the whole and make your own conclusions from there. It's quite barbaric but alot of people seem to think that it's true without actually reading the texts. Mass conformity, I guess. Oh, there is NO christian band that can touch the early Black Sabbath tunes yet even their lyrics seem to promote christianity, at least in that song "After Forever", from Master Of Reality. Anytime a christian wants to bash Ozzy, remember that he came out with what might be the first christian rock song with that number...

FragileDT wrote: Also, anybody talk about Genesis? They had a lot of religious references in their songs (Supper's Ready being the most obvious.)

I think that many songs on their 1st album "From Genesis to Relevation" are pure gospel!

You know I keep looking at the title of this thread and thinking it says "Is Gates of Delirium ruining prog?"

To which the answer is no....

Anyway carry on, nothing like religion or politics to get a good argument sorry discussion going!


Edited by Phil

Sean Trane wrote: Phil wrote: You know I keep looking at the title of this thread and thinking it says "Is Gates of Delirium ruining prog?" there is a site called Guts Of Darkness, too! Discussing sombre and progressive music too! http://www.gutsofdarkness.com/

Great name for a site...but sadly my French isn't up to it!

Norbert wrote: Sean Trane wrote: I am going to make friends here: God and Religion are not just ruining prog , but they are ruining mankind and the whole universe!   This is the intellectual nivieau of a teenage black metal fan or of a brainwashed Chinese communist.    Organized religion often means organized crime, but blaming all disasters on religion is simply disgusting. "Religions" that ruin the world are egoism, "mammonism",nazi ideology,racism, marxism. Mao TseTung killed more people than the whole inquisition(at least 35 millions) but he's probably among your heroes from  '68. The Sendero Luminoso has 10 thousands of victims in Peru, they are not a Catholic group. After all,  I could citate a lot of "good things" done by "well educated" people who wanted to"save the world" from this "terrible things called God and religion", much more than an average guy living in the western countries.

I understand that coming from an ancient communist country , you might have problems with communist regime>

But you are getting your pencils all mixed up> If the communists are atheists ,

being atheist does not mean you are communists> Huge difference!!

As for your generalization of metalheads being brainwashed chinese: you might want to read the post correctly before answering it, this meaning that you should not read things that are not there, also!

Furthermore , before belting out such ignorant posts such as this one , you might want to think twice before posting it and you might not post it at all , then!

A 42 year old atheist , not into metal and purely Caucasian (although he has nothing against brainwashed chinese metal heads), aqnd very happy to be freed by the incredibly backwards supernatural god beliefs, still happening in some countries that should know better.

This posts is not meant as an attack , but if taken as such , too bad for you!!!

Norbert wrote:  I don't believe that my replie says atheism and maoism are the same... I just can't accept ,that all terrible things in the world are blamed on religion. I have nothing against metalheads and China in general. I'm only against that Norwegian bands and their fans who burnt churches and killed even each other in the early ninties. I wrote black metal and not heavy metal or metal in general Metalheads are brainwashed Chinese communists ? I never wrote something like that ! So who is reading something what is not there ? I respect Albert Camus(and not only for '56) altough he was an atheist. I don't consider your original post a personal attack, I only think it's not fair.

OK , let's have peace!

But you are the one who brought communism into the debate! So it was sort of obvious you were linking the atheists with communism , which as I said coming from an ex-Eastern-block country maybe evident , but to the rest of the world is certainly not so! I am no communist and certainly not hold Mao as a hero. Communist guerillas are certainly bloody but they are fighting a bloody regime in most country where they operate!

As for Black metal fans , they are mostly young and irresponsible in burning churches , but the churches have been burning Satan worshippers for centuries!

As for your link between Chinese and metalheads that I read into you post , by reading it again and realizing that your sentence structure does have the word "or", which I obviously forgot to read, I'll give you half a point back!

 

Norbert wrote: OK, I also think that we can have peace. Everyone has the right to follow or dismiss any kind of ideology, but noone has the right to start manhunt in the name of ideological preferences. After all, ideology based arrogancy and the false feeling of being supreme cause maybe the most harm to the world. I have to admit, that this is quite frequent in religious circles, but it's present elsewhere, too. A bloody regime does not justify the killing of innocent people and the crimes of the medieval church doesn't justify burning churches.

AMEN!!!

UUUHHH!!!!!!................... I mean OK!!!!!!!!!!

bartok wrote: I'm an atheist and I couldn't care less.  It does me no injury for the Flower Kings or Dream Theater to wax religious in their lyrics.  If you don't like it, don't buy it.  Anyways, it doesn't seem like those bands are preachy so much as that's just their identity.  Incidentally, I'm not terribly fond of all the drug-culture emphasis in the lyrics of Gong, but I still love the music.

Is the music more important than the lyrics? 

Interestingly enough, it was Neal Morse who turned me on to prog through his Testimony album.  I have since purchased as much as I can from Spock's Beard, TransAtlantic, Genesis, Yes, Rush and Kansas.  I am befuddled by claims that Morse preaches in his music.  He weaves a wonderful story, which is really nothing more than his autobiography in such albums as Snow, Testimony, One and his latest Question Mark album.  I don't see him telling anyone what they should or shouldn't do.  If that is what you are hearing from his lyrics, then you are making leaps that just aren't there, in my opinion.

No one is immune from religion.  A religion is a "set of beliefs."  Atheists and Christians alike are religious in that they both have convictions which they believe are the Truth.  Too often in today's vernacular we lump "religious types" into one big melting pot which usually implies the right-wing "Christian" fundamentalists in the United States.  If someone like Neal Morse sings about what has happened in his life (which involves God), I guess some of you have him all figured out and stamp him with the label that you feel he deserves.  How is that any different than flat-out bigotry?

I appreciate Litl's reasoning for why he/she feels there is a big difference between Snow and Testimony.  I don't necessarily agree with his opinion, but at least he made a cogent effort and apparently sampled Morse's recent efforts in reaching the conclusion he did.  But for me, it's ultimately about the music (which I think Morse does well).  Whatever pitch the artist is making in the lyrics is secondary.  But I do enjoy hearing what it is that is important to the artist.  If I were to throw them out because they believe something different from me, well then...I wouldn't have any music to listen to.

Just my point of view:

I believe in God, but I respect Atheists right to not believe.

I hate Fundamentalism comes from it comes, Sendero Luminoso (Shinning Path) killed 25,000 iinnocent civilians, not rich and wealthy guys, not politics, only peasents who didn't wanted to give this guys their 2 or 3 sheeps or send their kids to die, that's fundamentalist politic and it's repulsive.

BTW: Shinning Path claimed to be Maoists, but IMO they were closer to Kmer Rouge and Pol Pot than to Mao Tse Tung.

I also hate Religious Fundamentalism, I don't care if they are Catholics, Christians, Jewish, etc, all forms of Religious fanatism is sectarian and that's not the message of the God I believe in. Those guys who say any musical genre is evil  if it's not used to praise God are just fanatics or big businesmen who promote their so called religious music to explode people's innocence.

Also hate Atheist fundamentalism, those guys that proclaim how superior they are because they don't believe in God, and how stupid ignorants are we. Real atheists don't have to prove a damn, they are so sure about their own belief (or disbelief) that they don't care about what the rest of the world believes.

And what is worst, I hate politic/Religious Fundamentalists, those guys who try to take control of a country based in pseudo religious beliefs are the worst of all.

My final point on this thread, don't blame God for ruining everything, blame the man who doesn't understand God's message and try to use it for their own purpose.

I'm sure that if God exists (And I believe he exists), he/she doesn't care for religion, but for the heart of the man.

Iván