Is ELP against christianity

OK, I read the first page, and a bit of the second, and I can see from the last page that stuff has deteriorated somewhat!

I haven't read the intervening pages, but didn't Pete Sinfield write the lyrics for ELP. I know Greg had a choice in singing them, but I don't think he originated them (probably - PS: 'hey, wow, like I've got some words for you' GL:'thanks, what are they about' PS:'Like, does it matter' GL:'I guess not')

I agree with Maani and the others, I'm another Christian and prog lover. Indeed I was in the Christian band Paley's Watch (that's me with the long hair, now a grade 3 all over!).

I do think a line has to be drawn at times, for instance I would steer away from things like Darryl Way's Wolf's 'Night Music' cut, since it is openly satanic. Many prog bands are basically undecided and tend towards saying just anything that they think sounds cool and fits the story of the toon (cf 'And the nurse will tell you lies, of a kingdom beyond the skies'). This doesn't necessarily reflect their true belief, but it may be hinted at from the lyric.

At the end of the day, it is the Lord alone who knows the content of a man's heart, and we can espouse all we like about what aonther is thinking, but we will never be fully correct. Also we all make our own choices about what we listen to say, what we listen to, and whether or not these things will please the Lord. One of the best deciders is the old line of 'If Jesus was standing next to me, would I still do/say/listen to this?'

DSP

After reading all the nonsense on this  topic.......i can only surmise and say the Romans knew what they were doing.

maani wrote: thepods: Herewith, some of Arteum's "greatest hits" - rational, logical, and without rancor or name-calling (my editorial comments, if any, follow in parentheses): <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">"Except that they were heavily brainwashed since the time they could not even think on their own."</SPAN> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal">  <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">"All the people around me were aware of religion and its dogmas, but laughed about the stupidity and shortsitedness of the brainwashed part of the world."</SPAN> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma"></SPAN>  <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">"Because no brain is needed to believe in God."</SPAN> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma"></SPAN>  <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">"Recently, however, I've been applying more and more strict "filtering" to my acquaintances and contacts. If the person believes in God, I stop talking to him/her."  (Truly we have here a rational, tolerant person...)</SPAN> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma"></SPAN>  <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma"><O:P></O:P></SPAN> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">"To me, people who believe in God either have a flawed brain (it cannot follow logic sometimes) or are simply cowards who are afraid to die, or both."</SPAN> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma"></SPAN>  <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">"Practice shows that in many cases even a couple of years of influence of religion is incurable."</SPAN> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma"></SPAN>  <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">"Religion is a hierarchy puppet system in which only God himself is not licking somebody's rump."</SPAN> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma"></SPAN>  <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">"Most religious people I met had a flaw in their brain."</SPAN> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma"></SPAN>  <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">"And why then can't he create people so that they automatically give him their free love?"  ("Mr. Logical" here cannot even see the internal illogic of this question, given that "automatically" and "free" are polar opposites...)</SPAN> <SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">"It's like I am a doctor in a mental home and the loonies try to convince me the elephants can fly."<O:P></O:P></SPAN> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">"How can you make ANY statement about God, have any thought about him when you always know he's imperceivable? So, you are trying to understand something that is inherently unconceivable? You are trying to rely on something that is so grossly unreliable? You trust something which has all the rights and capabilities to change the rules of the game and screw you over any moment he likes?"  (Here our rational friend shows a deep understanding of God...)</SPAN> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma"></SPAN>  <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma"><O:P></O:P></SPAN> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">"No, I don't trust anyone. I don't even know what trust is."  (If this is not a self-explanatory comment, I don't know what is...)</SPAN> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma"></SPAN>  <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">"Whereas you, Maani and the rest of the multi-million crew are just small puppets by means of whose shortsightedness and stupidity some smart people live in luxury, comfort and the feeling of self-importance."</SPAN> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma"></SPAN>  <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma"><O:P></O:P></SPAN> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">"I feel it especially below my dignity to read the reviews and opinions of people 90% of whom are religious lunatics."  (Of course, he has no problem engaging in this particular discussion, and using invective and insult at every turn...)</SPAN> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma"></SPAN>  <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma"><O:P></O:P></SPAN> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">"I no longer trust the moderators. One of them showed himself not only a loony but a professional charlatan."  (That would be yours truly, of course...)</SPAN> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma"></SPAN>  <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">"The messages the people write and the language they use do not leave the room for a self-respected person to be here any more."  (Unlike, of course, the messages and language used by Mr. Rational...)</SPAN> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma"></SPAN>  <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">I also invite you to re-read in particular the "internal debate" between Arteum and myself.  I believe you will find that he deliberately avoided almost all of my most rational, logical positions and only responded to the ones that gave him the opportunity to use invective and insult and to denigrate me and all believers - and that I never once "resorted to name-calling or brain-dead rhetoric."</SPAN> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma"></SPAN>  <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" ="Msonormal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">Peace.</SPAN>

Ah well, here's your 2nd miracle maani. GOOD ONE!!


Am I doing something wrong with these quotes?


Edited by marktheshark

Greg Lake professes to be a Christian and I believe that this was the case when he was with ELP. So the lyric is less a profession of the writer/singer but just a point of view or perhaps a man struggling with faith in the scientific age.  (or Perhaps even just relating to his audience.)

ELP is far from the only band to question blind faith.
Just look at Tool and it's lyrics to the song opiate and Sober, plus their obvius dislike of martyrs.
Pink Floyd's Roger Waters is a known atheist too, altough he choose not to dwell on it in his lyrics.
His distain for religion clearly shows tough on the album Animals, and later in his solo caree.
I also think that many people mistake Genesis for a pro-christian band.
True, they use religius imagery in songs as supper's redy, but it is my opinion that it is a parody on "our" religious values and the good and bad/black and white view on reality, going on in their Monty Python-esque parody about that "he has fooled you all" ,that god and satan are realy the same thing, and that the trumpets on the judgment day will sound Rock and Roll "the devils music".
In the end, alltough we know better, we will rather walk blindly intto the "new Jerusalem" than face reality.

Well, anyways, that's my tvo cents.
Don't take them too easily tough, 'cause I'm a bloody "devil worshiping, misguided Atheist"

Yes he was. He considered himself a "true" christian, put out death sentenses on oposing religions/ideologies and generaly tought that he was doing gods will.
He brought back theology what he saw as an increaincreasingly "Atheist" and non-christian nation, and part of that plan was to play on his contrymen hatred against the jews.
He was generaly kind to animals and children also.
He almost succeded in slaughtering a whole nation, and belived he himself would go to heven for it.
Just because he has been demonized does not meen he himself or his allies tought that of him in his time.
And hey, he was not the only one.
Just look at how the catholic church has slaughtered many "heathens" throughout the ages "all in the name of god".
Just look at how many muslims slaughter each other/there "enemies" all in the name of Allah.
Just look at how many Jews have slaughtered christians/muslims troughout the ages "all in the name of god".
Th blood of our ancestors is still fresh on our hands, one dictator demonized or not.

NecroManiac wrote: Yes he was. He considered himself a "true" christian, put out death sentenses on oposing religions/ideologies and generaly tought that he was doing gods will. He brought back theology what he saw as an increaincreasingly "Atheist" and non-christian nation, and part of that plan was to play on his contrymen hatred against the jews. He was generaly kind to animals and children also. He almost succeded in slaughtering a whole nation, and belived he himself would go to heven for it. Just because he has been demonized does not meen he himself or his allies tought that of him in his time. And hey, he was not the only one. Just look at how the catholic church has slaughtered many "heathens" throughout the ages "all in the name of god". Just look at how many muslims slaughter each other/there "enemies" all in the name of Allah. Just look at how many Jews have slaughtered christians/muslims troughout the ages "all in the name of god". Th blood of our ancestors is still fresh on our hands, one dictator demonized or not.

Yeah, well, anyway, he believed in a mishmash of different things that has nothing to do with Christianity at all. Maybe he thought of himself as a Christian, but he had a really twisted view on things (well, obviously I guess )

Some Bible quotes:

...I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Revelation 2:9.

Behold I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. Revelation 3:9.

Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes ... that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias ... All these things shall come upon this generation. Matthew 23:34-36.

I wear a cross sometimes and I'm an atheist. The cross as a symbol is much older than the touture tool, or chirsitianity for that matter.

Well, thanks for the tip, but I do also wear other religius symbols, like the Ankh and Thors hammer. +Mytholigy does fascinate me, but I would be a compleet idiot in beliving that the rainbow is a bridge to the gods, now wouldnt I?
Yet, I see no more realism or rightfullness in chrisitanity than the viking tales of old, it holds just as much validity.
The cross is originaly an ainchent symbol of anatomy, and Jesus is just one of the many versions of the sun god, witch dies only to be born again.
But what can I say, symbolism facinates me. It is the language of dreams :)

And btw. Do you realy belive in the hatfull political garbage that I just quoted earlyer?
If so, then you are a true christian. If not, your simply someone that bases your own personal faith on christianity.


Edited by NecroManiac