From: llensink@sci.kun.nl (Leonard Lensink)
Subject: Re: Atheism in pop culture
Organization: University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands
X-Newsreader: NN version 6.4.19
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 00:34:48 GMT

Brad Pierce writes:

[snip snip]

>Can you think of any examples of explicit atheism expressed in pop
>songs or other pop culture works?

>-- Brad Pierce 

My two favourite songs about God aren't exactly atheistic, but they
show the sarcasm I appreciate in Elvis Costello and Randy Newman.
Here comes for those interested:

God's comic (D.P.A MacManus)

I wish you'd known me when I was alive, I was a funny feller
The crowd would hoot and holler for more
I wore a drunk's red nose for applause
Oh yes, I was a comical priest
"With a joke for the flock and a hand up your fleece"
Drooling the drink and the lipstick and the greasepaint
down the cardboard front of my dirty dog-collar

Chorus:
Now I'd dead, now I'm dead, now I'm dead, now I'm dead, now I'm dead
And  I am going on to meet my reward
I was scared, I was scared, I was scared, I was scared
He might of never heard of God's comic

So there he was on a waterbed
Drinking cola of a mystery brand
Reading an airport novelette, listening to
  Andrew Lloyd-Webber's Requiem"
He said, before it had really begun, "I prefer the one about my son"
"I've been wading through all this unbelievable junk and wondering if
  I should have given the world to the monkeys"

Chorus

I'm going to take a little trip down paradise's endless shores
They say that travel broadens the mind, 'till you can't get your
  head out of doors

I'm sitting here on the top of the world
I hang around in the longest night
Until each beast has gone to bed and then I say "God Bless" and turn
  out the light
While you lie in the dark, afraid to breathe and you beg and you
  promise
And you bargain and you plead
Sometimes you confuse me with Santa Claus
It's the big white beard I suppose
I'm going up to the pole, where you folks die of cold
I might be gone for a while if you need me

Now I'm dead, now I'm dead, now I'm dead, now I'm dead, now I'm dead
And you're all going on to meet your reward
Are you scared, are you scared, are you scared, are you scared?
You might have never heard but God's comic



That's why I love mankind (R. Newman)

Cain slew Abel
Seth knew not why
If the children of Israel are supposed to multiply
Why must any of the children die?
So I asked the Lord
And the Lord said: "Man means nothing
He means less to me
Than the loweliest cactus flower 
Than the humblest yucca tree
Chases 'round his desert
He thinks that's where I'll be
That's why I love mankind

I record in horror the fineness of thee
From the squalor and the filth and misery
How we laugh up here in heaven 
The praise you all have for me
That's why I love mankind"

Christians and the Jews were having a jamboree
Buddhist and the Hindu join on sattellite tv
Pick the 4 greatest priests and they begin to speak
They say: "Lord Plague is on the world, Lord no man is free
The temples that we built to you are tumbling to the sea
Lord if you won't take care of us won't you please please let us be?"
And the lord said, and the lord said:
"I burnt down your cities, how blind you must be
 I take from your your children and you say how blessed are we
 You all must be crazy to put your faith in me
 That's why I love mankind, you really need me
 That's why I love mankind"


Leonard