More Christians against Bad Religion
A new episode in our series "Christians against Bad Religion". This time the source is a site called "The American Vision". This is what the About page says:
"American Vision’s (AV’s) mission has been to Restore America to its Biblical Foundation—from Genesis to Revelation since 1978. AV realizes that this task requires a strategy to “Make disciples (not just converts) of all nations and teach them to obey and apply the Bible to all of life” (Matt. 28:18-20)."
Their mission is to make the entire world a diciple and to teach everyone to obey the bible?! Sounds a whole lot like a plan for world domination to me...
Anyway, the guy who wrote the blog is quoting Greg from a recent interview in which he talks about having faith in your partner, your fellow man, your friends, rather than having faith in religion. He then brings up a couple of lines from Modern Man: "Modern man / Pathetic example of earth's organic heritage / Just a sample of carbon-based wastage."
The blogger's response: "So putting his thoughts together, shall we place our faith in a relationship with "carbon-based wastage"? Have all of our moral sentiments arisen from this wastage? Have all human art and beauty (punk rock aside) birthed forth from this wastage? Does this wastage give us any insight into the "big questions" that he esteems religion useless to answer? What blindness. What hypocrisy."
He also pulls up a quote from Brett from 2004 about The Process Of Belief (according to the blogger their last album... So much for doing proper research before quoting someone): "Our whole album is dedicated to getting Bush out of office. I'm not a presidential scholar but I don't think you'll find a worse president in the history of the United States. He's probably one of the worst leaders in the history of world leaders. I just hate the guy."
The blogger then responds: "OoooKaaay. As I've often said, I find plenty in Bush to criticize, but a worst leader in history? How about lining him up next to Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.-all atheists-and comparing? Write a song about that. How about comparing Hitler's political and economic policies with the current U.S. administration's? Dare you. Write another song about that, too."
Summarizing his blog, he states the following: "Thankfully, I believe guys like this do atheism a disservice in many ways. Bad Religion is the name of the band. Bad Reason would work better. And, "I just hate the guy," speaks volumes about their motivations."
Your opinions please!
An update on what the future will bring. Possibly. Maybe. Hopefully.
Last week Jay was interrogated in our forums about a new album and possible new tours.
In short, this is what was said:
- Hopefully there will be a new album next year. They're all having fun so it's more likely than not.
- Maybe, hopefully a tour of Europe next year.
- New multiple H.O.B. nights will be booked for early next year.
All in all, time appears to be the biggest issue in the coming period.
Jay: "What i am talking about is time. Greg has been busy with school and other outside projects, Brett has been busy producing the Rancid record and with Epitaph and a thousand other outside projects.... So the one thing that is in short supply, is time. We have scheduled the time for the Warped tour, and Australia, so those are "confirmed", and I am constantly working on new tours and shows, but somehow in the midst of all that, songs need to be written. While Greg and Brett are certainly prolific songwriters, they are not monkeys at typewriters. We have an understanding in the band that we will never "force" out another album. They will come naturally and organically, and be made of a pure desire, or not at all. This is not a difficult concept. even if we complete a project and are unhappy with the result, we will shelve it. So please, know that we have every intention of making a record for 2010..." (...) "The reason I say things like "hopefully" and "if everything goes well", is because after 30 years of this, all I know is that I don't know anything... Everyone in the band has a life outside the band, and between the time spent touring and doing "life", sometimes making a record just doesn't work out like you want... That has happened before, it happened on the last record and I fully expect it to happen again..."
For some reason I find this pic quite appropriate:
Bad Religion flyers and posters
Since a couple of weeks a beta version of our image gallery has been available to everyone. Although it still only contains pics from the Tours & Shows archive, we've already managed to put together probably the biggest Bad Religion flyer and poster collection you'll find online. Right now we have about 75 flyers and 155 posters. The earliest flyer is from the first show we have on record: 04/22/1981 @Country Club, Resida, CA. And the earliest poster is from 06/18/1981 @Valley West, Los Angeles, CA.
Please note that not all pics are of the best quality and that many pics contain watermarks of the sites where we found them (for good reasons, of course). However, as our goal is to provide you with the best quality pics possible, we'd like to ask you to submit better or missing pics if you have them. To add pics to a show, simply go to the Tours & Shows archive, look up the show and then click the "Add pictures" link.
Thanks!
Ps. Don't forget to check out our ever growing ticket (stubs) and setlists archive as well.
Bad Religion goes sci-fi
Apparently a couple of Bad Religion songs appear in a new low-budget sci-fi movie called "Eyeborgs". According to someone who was at the world premiere in London on April 29, the songs that are used are live versions of 21st Century (Digital Boy) and Los Angeles Is Burning. It's not clear where the songs were recorded, but they're definitely not from the Palladium DVD. Thanks to Jelle for this info!
The movie features a couple of somewhat familiar faces such as Adrian Paul (who you might know from the Highlander tv series) and one of my personal favorites, Danny Trejo.
Check out the trailer here. BR is not is the trailer, though.
Greg Hetson's DJing project
Last month we reported that Greg Hetson would be DJing in Hollywood. According to a recent Myspace bulletin he will doing this every Wednesday starting May 20. Same time. Same place.
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Against the Grain Wednesdays
Kung Pao Kitty
Hollywood and Wilcox
DJ Greg Hetson spinning an eclectic mix of great balls of fire:
Punk, blues, novelty, easy listening, rock, disco, juju and everything in between.
10pm-2am
Every Wednesday starting May 20
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Tags: tour, Greg Hetson, soundtrack, christians, new album, dj, Minor League
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05/18/2009 at 00:50
Yeah... nothing works better for a christian trying to convince people they're right than a few quotes taken out of context and presented as general statements of the band. -_- But anyway, it is true (as some of you have already mentioned) that most people hate nothing more than stating that humanity is actually meaningless unless you give it some meaning, and are so self-centered they just have to believe that they've been deliberately created by some magnificent benevolent creator. Personally, I don't even think we're the ULTMATE creation of evolution. We've got nothing but brains, and most likely wouldn't survive a day without our inventions. But never mind this, I still think that the person who wrote this deserves our love and admiration - at least they weren't like the previous ones - "OMFG!! SATAN'S CHILDREN!! THEY HATE JESUS!! OMG!! (...) ....band? what band?!" xD
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05/17/2009 at 09:06
I think that's it. I don't really like the term garbage, but it is true that there's nothing special about us; we have to work to create something special. And, even if we are garbage, we are all garbage - equally unspecial and flawed. And then from that, as CivalienZero said, we can make change, form our identities free from the binds of institutions that try to define us. For my exam tomorrow (fuck) I've got to revise JS Mill's 'System of Logic', in it he says "It is of no consequence what we think forms our character, when we have no desire of our own about forming it, but it is of great consequence that we should not be prevented from forming such a desire by thinking the attainment impracticable". That is to say, it is a terrible situation when a person cannot think beyond their rigid belief systems, such as attachments to certain ideologies or philosophies, and escape to form their own beliefs, ideas and actions. |
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05/17/2009 at 07:49
Some folks really take offense when you call all of humanity garbage, or wastage. I tend to agree that we are, but it isn't a big deal. I'm as big of a piece of trash as everyone else. We're just another species... we are nothing to the life of this planet.
I think it takes a tremendous amount of arrogance to believe in an afterlife. It is just too hard for people to understand they won't exist anymore, so they make up a comfortable place. Just try and not think for a few minutes... even if you're thinking about not thinking, you're still thinking. Death is impossible to imagine, so there must be a continuation of the mind when it occurs right? Most of us are not significant enough to the life of this planet for us to continue on for eternity. Why do you need an afterlife? What good does that piece of mind do for you in day to day life? I would rather make something from nothing, than use a long term scare tactic on myself and others just to stay in line. Its all about awareness. Once you understand that you are indeed garbage, you can finally start to make real progress, rather than living your whole life believing your religious standard makes you superior in some way. If you're already right about everything, then what is there to change? |
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05/17/2009 at 00:03
Is it just me or does this blogger character see only a homogeny of "man". What I fight against every day is that I have to fit into a mold of what "man" ought to be. Social and cultural norms dictate so many things and they are so easy to attain but I don't want them which makes me wastage.
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05/16/2009 at 18:07
This is why the closed mindedness of (certain) believers bothers me to a great extent. You have to have faith in the "sample of carbon based wastage" because there is no one else to have faith in. Even if you are a believer you have to have faith in your fellow man on this planet. This is why I can never understand right wing Christianity especially (but also belief in any faith) because for as much as it talks about love thy neighbor and forgiveness it really teaches you to hate . “Your neighbor is a sinner hate thy neighbor. Your family are sinners hate your family. You are a sinner hate yourself???.” It’s madness! This is not just an extreme belief it necessary for almost all, most definitely a literal interpretation of their version of the founding story whether they want to admit it or not. I cannot imagine the feeling that my sins and imperfection had caused the death of Jesus Christ. Christianity is saying is “Everyone is shit, hang on to this dogma we present to you and your reward will be in heaven (the grey water of eternity where all the shit is magically filtered out and some how only the pure is left) where you will be one with god. Instead the belief and philosophy offered by Bad Religion and other humanists and non-believers is the ultimate up lift. While it admits that human kind is mostly a heaping pile of shit; it also says we alone have the power to change, there is no original sin or devil causing us to wage war, commit genocide and allow famine while some have plenty, instead its up to us. In that way it is the ultimate empowerment that you and you alone are in (relative) control of your own destiny. The only devil is superstition, the only hell is world in which a human kind with the power to change its nasty ways refuses to because it persists in its belief that the controls belong not to them, but rather to an in descript being in the sky. The misinterpretation that this blogger made is only compounded by his failure to grasp the point the Brett was trying to make. To add on to it the only that comes close to being more incomprehensible than the actions of men like Stalin and Pol Pot is that smart people can consider the actions of such men and still believe that a there is a loving god with a plan for each of us.
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05/16/2009 at 13:25
I just wanted to add that I am a Christian, and I love Bad Religion's music and have been listening to them for 16 years. I believe God gave us brains to reason and to doubt. I think it's important to separate the fundamentalist Christians, the Christian Right, and abhorrent Church history from Jesus, whose main actions in life were to heal, teach, and feed people. I don't see Naturalism as a threat to Christianity, but an ally in discovering truth. Religion and Naturalism are paradigms we work from to understand our own existence and they both want to discover truth and natural laws. I don't see Bad Religion's music as a threat, but as a gift, and I'm grateful to Greg Graffin and Brett Gurewitz for their lyrics. There are many Christians out there including me who would rather side with agnostics and atheists than with the Christian Right; we just go under the radar, because the Christian Right seems embedded in politics and the media.
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05/16/2009 at 05:44
Hallelujah! |
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05/16/2009 at 04:50
Now I know what Greg Hetson will do when The Guys will go to retiring ;-). Of course besides imparting of weddings and burials.
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05/16/2009 at 01:54
He completely ignores the fact that Brett is referring to US history when he says Bush should be compared to Stalin, Pol Pot et al. Also, I hate the fact that he points out that they were atheist, as if this is some sort of explanation for their tyranny. I agree that mass genocide is abhorrent, but the god of his bible commands genocide. What gives him the moral high ground?
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05/16/2009 at 01:25
I disagree and think that's quite a dangerous thing to say.
Some Christian thinkers aren't stupid, especially theologians or "Christian philosophers". They tend to attempt to show science, predominately Darwinism, is flawed on its own terms, i.e. a bad or a non-science. The only way to counter that is by scientific reasoning. Merely ignoring or arbitrarily discrediting their argument is just as bad as a Christian proclaiming the bible is correct without any qualification or auxiliary hypothesis. As an advocate of science, we should remain consistent. |
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05/16/2009 at 00:57
No one should take anything a Christian says seriously.....I mean, think about it, they believe in all of this nonsense without even a shred of proof or even REASON to back it up. Sure, they are infuriating sometimes, but you must just stop and think- would you get all upset over what a 4 year old thought? Of course not.....and that's roughly the same level of intellect we are dealing with here.
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05/15/2009 at 11:01
In response to the first story:
I think the Christian blogger, J. McDurmon, has formulated a rational complaint. Unfortunately for him, he has made several illegitimate assumptions, predominately originating from misrepresenting his sources' context. Graffin's quotation concerning Christianity's inadequacy in 'answer[ing] the big questions' is directed at issues far broader than just humanity (e.g. origin of Earth, animal development, etc): Take Christianity to be a set of problem solving strategies. How successful is it compared to modern science? The answer, it is hugely inadequate - it is totally ad hoc, convoluted and ridden with anomalies. Can it predict or harmoniously explain phenomena as science can? No. Before Christianity can 'counter' Greg by focusing on a nuance like empathy or sympathy, it should first tackle these far broader conflicts. However, even if we grant him an attack on Graffin's humanism, he makes an unreasonable claim for a further fact, i.e. God. Ironically, his misinterpretation of 'Modern Man' begins his downfall: Graffin/BR are not saying that humans are worthless, but rather pleading - with profound empathy - for humanity to universally coexist (for the very reason that people have worth!). It is this natural human empathy that Graffin is supporting in his quotation about the importance of relationships. He, like philosophers Mill, Hume, et al, appreciate that there is no need for a further fact like God to have human relationships, morality and beauty - because it is a component of humanity. And in modern evolutionary science we can further understand the origin of inter-human relationships - i.e. altruism to aid 'inclusive fitness', and the commonsensical truth that people lacking empathy would fail to have offspring that survive, as they would not support them, hence ending the continuation of non-cooperative genes. So, yes, humans do answer the big questions. In science, we are progressively improving current paradigms/problem solving strategies - i.e. accurately representing reality and offering predictions of future events. And, it is also only from humanity that moral sentiments arise (as the empathic tune Modern Man shows). We are only 'wastage' when we betray these innate intuitions, in a selfish and pathetic way. Be it through hindering scientific progression (i.e. creationists) or exploiting other people (i.e. brainwashing/promoting irrational thought). Oh, procrastination. Exams in 3 days time - I hate revision. |
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05/15/2009 at 10:09
should we begin to be afraid of the mad christian attack ? Like all christian fundamentalists this guy can only twist everybody else saying.
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