Religious lyrics ?

I don't like any religious lyrics on what forms it is. But i will still enjoy the music if it's suit my taste. But if i had too rate a cd with religious lyrics, i would take away .5 points. It's like dirinking a beer with just a tiny bad aftertaste in the mouth. (all comparaison being lame...)

Edited by rdtprog - June 30 2010 at 16:33

Guldbamsen wrote: This thread has been centred mostly around religion concerning "God", but I just realised that much of the Black/Doom metal, some of which, is featured on this site, including other types of bands like Lucifer´s Friend and Black Sabbath - hell, Coven did a full black mass on one of their albums, - also feature religious lyrics albeit with a different approach altogether... Speaking as a European, I grew up with no kind of religious beliefs other than my parents teaching me to appreciate life itself - and much of the religion I saw or heard of, was very much attached to war, indoctrination and one-mindedness. Recently in the Bush junior years, many of my friends and people around where I live, have come to detest every single thing that even remotely touches the subject religion. I try and explain to them, that I find that as much discriminatory and wrong - as the exact opposite they are fighting, but who can really win conversations, when you are dealing with people who don´t care?

No, no, no (with regards to the first part of the post). Most real human religion outside a few Eastern and extinct religions (which are really very similar) has taken the form of worship of Jehovah and tribute to his parasitic churches and bowing to his chosen ruling class and serving in the army of his chosen country...

This is what we call an "institution" and "ideology."

The devil-worship stuff is just a joke by mindless drug-addicts to sell records and is predicated on the existence of Jehovah worship, making the devil-worship stuff seem risque and controversial.

It is has none of the building blocks of a true religion.


Edited by RoyFairbank - July 01 2010 at 19:57

RoyFairbank wrote: Guldbamsen wrote: This thread has been centred mostly around religion concerning "God", but I just realised that much of the Black/Doom metal, some of which, is featured on this site, including other types of bands like Lucifer´s Friend and Black Sabbath - hell, Coven did a full black mass on one of their albums, - also feature religious lyrics albeit with a different approach altogether... Speaking as a European, I grew up with no kind of religious beliefs other than my parents teaching me to appreciate life itself - and much of the religion I saw or heard of, was very much attached to war, indoctrination and one-mindedness. Recently in the Bush junior years, many of my friends and people around where I live, have come to detest every single thing that even remotely touches the subject religion. I try and explain to them, that I find that as much discriminatory and wrong - as the exact opposite they are fighting, but who can really win conversations, when you are dealing with people who don´t care? No, no, no (with regards to the first part of the post). Most real human religion outside a few Eastern and extinct religions (which are really very similar) has taken the form of worship of Jehovah and tribute to his parasitic churches and bowing to his chosen ruling class and serving in the army of his chosen country... This is what we call an "institution" and "ideology." The devil-worship stuff is just a joke by mindless drug-addicts to sell records and is predicated on the existence of Jehovah worship, making the devil-worship stuff seem risque and controversial. It is has none of the building blocks of a true religion.

You get institutions and ideology everywhere, not just in religion. Capitalism is as much an ideology as any religion. Religion is not bad per se, but when it becomes a mass movement it is no longer to be trusted, just like any other mass movement. I am a member of a small religious community of 14 (a High Priestess actually). We worship Gaia, the ancient Greek Goddess of the Earth. We don't ask anyone to switch off their brains and believe in some dogma, we just feel a spiritual gratitude towards Mother Earth which we express.
I see the world as a process with lots of sub-processes. I am deeply convinced that any sufficiently complex and self-referential process develops a mind, a consciousness. Our brains are such processes, for example, or more correctly our bodies, since the body is an important part of that process. Since brain scientists don't have the slightest idea where our consciousness comes from (trust me,they don't), this hypothesis is as good as any other. Now the most complex process in the world, with myriads of self-references, is the universe; it is hence just logiccal for me to believe it has a mind, a consciousness, which I call "God".
With what right do I call the hypothetical mind of the Universe "God"? Well, the definition of God is that it (I prefer "it" over "he") is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient entity. The Universe certainly is omnipresent. It is omnipotent too; everything that can happen in it. And, as astrophysical and quantum physical studies show, the universe appears to have a kind of holographic structure, so that all the information in it is somehow in each particle. Hence we have omniscience too.
Now why do I worship Gaia then instead of the universe? Quite simply because her manifestations are directly accessible to me while the universe as a whole is out of reach. It's mind is so much above me that trying to communicate with it would be like one of my blood cells trying to communicate with my brain, only the difference in scale is a lot larger even in the case of me and the universe than in the case of my brain and the blood cell. "The ways of God are inscrutable" is more than just an empty saying.
I am quite certain that you will sneer at my beliefs, non-religious people usually do. But none of my beliefs is in contradiction to anything modern science tells us.

 Probably a better way of looking at this question  is to step away from any notion of theism ( or atheism ), and regard whatever words being sung as poetic expression. They could be "I get up, I get down" or "The power and the glory of God", both are valid passionate statements , and either could be fact or fiction. If Christian belief ( or Bhuddist, Islam, or Wiccan for that matter ) is not your position, then the message will just be a story , and take it at that level.

Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^ if none of your beliefs contradict scientific evidence, then for me you are a Deist - with some additional esoteric beliefs maybe, but since they don't manifest in the real world or make claims about it that can be disproven, I would not call it a religion. BTW: What do you think about Taoism? I'm a layperson so please be easy on me if I'm wrong, but I don't see that much of a difference between Gaia and the great Tao (Spirit).

How much of what science believes today will stand the test of time? How many forces are out there which we don't recognize just because we don't have the senses to recognize them? By "senses" I mean  the senses we human beings have plus the apparatus of modern science. You may say "this is all speculation", but one will get you thousand that in a thousand years (provided human beings will still exist then) people will look at today''s science with the same mild smile as we today do on early alchemists. Some people feel that scientists of today more or less know how the world works, and only a few missing bits have to be filled in, but this is far from the truth. Every new discovery gives us dozens of new questions. Once again I recommend the excellent book "Why Aren't Black Holes Black?" by Robert M. Hazen and Maxime Singer, in which it is made clear how little we actually know.
Also mark that scientific evidence only remains so until a counterexample is found.. All we actually have are models of the world, and none of these models is totally free of contradiction.
Of course some of what modern science tells us must at least have an ounce of truth in it, else we would not have technological progress. But that does not say anything about what we don't know yet.
So believing only in what today's science "knows" is actually just as much speculation as believing in a deity.
As to Taoism: I am not an expert either, but as far as I know an important thing in Taoism is the principle of "wu wei", "action without action", which means a kind of going with the flow without meddling. But it does NOT mean "not acting at all"; it just means "doing the right thing". It is very hard to explain; you just have to do it.
Taoists believe that by understanding yourself you will understand the world. But take all of this with a grain of salt; I am by no means an expert on Taoism.

religion is culture and culture is religion

Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^BTW: What do you think about Taoism? I'm a layperson so please be easy on me if I'm wrong, but I don't see that much of a difference between Gaia and the great Tao (Spirit).

Epignosis wrote: octopus-4 wrote: Guldbamsen wrote: RoyFairbank wrote: Guldbamsen wrote: This thread has been centred mostly around religion concerning "God", but I just realised that much of the Black/Doom metal, some of which, is featured on this site, including other types of bands like Lucifer´s Friend and Black Sabbath - hell, Coven did a full black mass on one of their albums, - also feature religious lyrics albeit with a different approach altogether... Speaking as a European, I grew up with no kind of religious beliefs other than my parents teaching me to appreciate life itself - and much of the religion I saw or heard of, was very much attached to war, indoctrination and one-mindedness. Recently in the Bush junior years, many of my friends and people around where I live, have come to detest every single thing that even remotely touches the subject religion. I try and explain to them, that I find that as much discriminatory and wrong - as the exact opposite they are fighting, but who can really win conversations, when you are dealing with people who don´t care? No, no, no (with regards to the first part of the post). Most real human religion outside a few Eastern and extinct religions (which are really very similar) has taken the form of worship of Jehovah and tribute to his parasitic churches and bowing to his chosen ruling class and serving in the army of his chosen country... This is what we call an "institution" and "ideology." The devil-worship stuff is just a joke by mindless drug-addicts to sell records and is predicated on the existence of Jehovah worship, making the devil-worship stuff seem risque and controversial. It is has none of the building blocks of a true religion. Anton Lavey might have challenged that opinion if he was still alive... Satanism isn´t just mindless drug-addicts trying to be controversial. It is on the other hand a Religion that evolves around real human emotion and instinct, and how we often feed on them - making it the exact opposite of that of Christianity - where people often are taught to suppress these aspects of life. That is why sex is not a bad and unhealthy thing in Satanism. I´m with you a 100 percent, when it comes down to a lot of the Black/Doom metal bands, and how they choose to present their so-called religion, because most of them are influenced by the Norwegian Varg Vikernes (The man behind the band Burzum), who savagely killed a guy from a rivalling band, -burned down old wooden churches. Not a nice guy at all. -Actually, he is so screwed up, that when he was in jail (The guy just got out after 16 years!?!) trying to make music for himself and his fans, he always found a way to link his very brutal Dark metal back to some form of Blues, and that was Negro music - as he put it - starting all over again, only to face the exact same problems... He wound up playing some sort of old Norwegian folk-music  Dressing black instead of white or putting a cross upside-down can't be called a religion. It's like the "countrary sioux" who were used to do the countrary of everything...to be a Satanist you have to be a Christian first.   oct, have you even read The Satanic Bible?  I have.  Satanism essentially hedonism, nothing more, and is atheistic.

I didn't read it, but calling it "bible" confirms what I was saying. An atheistic book about hedonism could be called "Epicure's phylosophy" instead.

kiwi wrote: This is a great discussions and mostly people have adopted a respectful inclusive tone. Any ideology that has grown oppressive over time has sought to suppress people's voice.This discussion is an example of how diverse voices can be heard and judgement/evaluation can be suspended. There is an interesting parallel with musical taste. When I was younger (much younger) anything that was not rock or prog was ignored and in some cases vilified. Its goof to get to the point where you know what you like, but can also appreciate a more eclectic range of music.

Biblos is phenician and was the name of a city in today's Lebanon. Book is the correct translation effectively.