I Don't Believe in God Anymore

I know that my gentle readers would normally expect to find comments about God in the religious commentary section, but I feel that my new secular lifestyle could be better explicated in a secular forum. As you may have read in my title, I don't believe in God anymore. A lot of things have brought me to this, but the main thing was that I did not see the Christian tradition as offering a coherent set of beliefs upon which I can base my life. The constant intramural conflicts over predestination vs. free will, transubstantiation vs. consubstantiation vs. memorialism, feminism vs. chauvenism, alcoholism vs. abstinence, etc., etc., have completely turned me off. I might continue to go to mass, but that's just so I'll have an excuse not to go to stinking College Church of the Nazarene.

Thankfully, though, I have found a new foundation for my life, and it's one that is probably very familiar to most of you. There is a tradition that goes back to earliest antiquity and that has brought meaning to everyone who has seriously grappled with it: I mean, of course, the Pop Music tradition. From the lowliest one-hit wonder to the critically ordained genius, the legacy of the Pop Music tradition is one of coherence and comprehensiveness: that is, Pop Music answers every question one could ask in a way that is consistent with the other answers.

As an example, let's take the question that led me to this conclusion: "Does God exist?" Trent Reznor has spoken passionately on this subject on many occassions, most notably when he says, "Your God is dead and no one cares. If there is a hell, I'll see you there." Clearly if God exists, he exists only as a corpse. Trent does leave his options open, leaving room for the judgement machinery to continue in operation even without God's continuing life. And notice what a scathing indictment this is of the Christian God: if he's not there to intervene in the judgement, everyone goes to hell. Do you really want to believe in a lumbering corpse of a God whose default behavior is to send people to hell? I know I don't.

And neither does the legendary Maynard Kenan, lead singer for both Tool and A Perfect Circle. Maynard is not afraid to call Jesus a liar, going so far as to say, "He had a lot to say. He had a lot of nothing to say." Later he issues a challenge to the Christian idea of atonement: "It's not like you killed someone," he says, asking in essense, "What did you ever do that was so evil that you need someone to die a brutal death in your place?" Maynard's practice is completely in line with his expressed beliefs, in that it makes a mockery of Christian moral beliefs, as anyone who has seen the packaging for Tool's second LP can attest.

This practice of lashing out against Christianity is, ironically enough, completely in line with the practice of the Early Church. The earliest theologians had to articulate the reasons to believe in the Christian faith above the various pagan and Jewish options available to the religious shopper, and they often had to resort to negative characatures of opposing factions in order to affirm own their system.

This quest to root out falsehood does not stop at outsiders: Pop Music has its heretics as well. Those who attempt the unholy marriage of Pop Music with Christianity pay the penalty of being almost completely hidden from public view, but those who bastardize the faith from within are often singled out for attacks. Marshall Mathers has proven to be one of the most effective rooters out of these heretics: "I'm sick of all these girl and boy groups. All you do is annoy me, so I will search out and destroy you." That is not mere rhetoric, as any listener to his latest LP can tell you: "You don't want to [mess] with Shady [Mathers' alter-ego], because Shady will [freaking] kill you." All those who dare to follow in the steps of the great heretics Savage Garden have been warned.

It goes without saying, of course, that Pop Music offers a healthier system of sexual morals than Christianity. Take, for example, the famous statement of the above-quoted Trent Reznor, who compassionately says to his lover, "Help me. I've got no soul to save. Help me. The only thing that works for me: help me think I'm somebody else. I want to [make love to] you like an animal." Maynard Kenan is a similarly considerate lover, telling his partner, "This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to." Perhaps the most innovative thinker on this front, as in so many others, is Marshall Mathers. His liner notes are practical and insightful guides to healthy, giving sexual relationships.

As an English major, though, I must say that the thing that appeals to me most about the Pop Music tradition is the firm mastery of the English language. Billy Corgan, lead singer of the now-defunct Smashing Pumpkins, offers some of the best examples of this: "We're not the same: we're different"; "Ain't it funny how we pretend we're still a child?" REM's Michael Stype offers another example of subtle expressiveness: "I know you called. I know you hung up: Star 69"; "What's the frequency, Kenneth? Uh suh, things a dream, uh huh. I'm brilig with sum tin matter and chew suh suh moo, uh huh."

In conclusion, Pop Music has convinced me through rational argument that belief in God is unwarranted, and it has offered me a meaningful replacement for the Christian tradition I have rejected. Now I join Trent Reznor in his powerful refrain: I, too, am "Too [messed] up to care anymore."