Thursday, May 30, 2013

"People Get Ready" - Seal (video) - Updated

Here is quite a beautiful rendition of the song:



Atheists choke on this kind of stuff because, oh Lord, it will support the Christians but many atheists live as anti-Christians which is just as religious as Christianity except the polarity is reversed.  In other words, without Christianity as a foil, they've got no act.  Dawkins is a classic example of this as he's made a living out of just that.  It's the same thing with the hell rock bands that worship the Devil, etc.  If that's not religion, what the hell is it (laughs).

Here are the lyrics to "People Get Ready:"

People get ready, there's a train a comin'
You don't need no baggage, you just get on board
All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin'
Don't need no ticket, you just thank the Lord

People get ready for the train to Jordan
It's picking up passengers from coast to coast
Faith is the key, open the doors and board 'em
There's hope for all among those loved the most.

There ain't no room for the hopeless sinner
Who would hurt all mankind just to save his own
Have pity on those whose chances grow thinner
For there's no hiding place against the Kingdom's throne

So people get ready, there's a train a comin'
You don't need no baggage, you just get on board
All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin'
Don't need no ticket, you just thank the Lord


I don't see the song as overtly religious in any case.  There's a train coming and the Lord sent it.  Viewed in something more than the puritanical sense of basic atheism, it can be a metaphor for the Universe as I didn't make it, you didn't make it, and, furthermore, you have no idea what did make it.  If you want to see Stephen Hawking's train jump off the tracks, read "A Brief History of Time" in which he talks about what was before the Big Bang and, what do you know, right away he starts talking about God.

I don't see how Faith can be such a terrible thing in the second verse as surely you have faith in something even if it's only your massive intellectual prowess.  The train is going to Jordan and I really don't know where that is but it doesn't make any difference as that's a metaphor as well.  Jordan is wherever you believe it to be and those who are loved the most will go there.  It doesn't say who loved them the most, only that they are loved the most.  To be loved one must give love so it seems pretty clear to me that these must be good people.

The definition of a hopeless sinner applies immediately to bankers, the one percent, or any number of greedy evil bastards on the planet today but it doesn't say anything at all about what their sins might be, only that they are selfish swine.  OK, that works fine for bankers, etc.  They won't be able to hide against the Kingdom's throne and that part seems pretty straight-up to me also.  We're all going to die.  So it goes.

So you don't need no ticket, you just get on-board.


Update:

Atheism is not a religion but it becomes one when it defines itself in terms of the negation of Christianity.  I have no particular interest in Christianity nor atheism but it does amuse to see them all jumping around and waving their hands in the air pretty much the same.

2 comments:

Apmel said...

Atheism is no more a religion than non-astrology is astrology.

Unknown said...

What I mean is that the most common and widespread form of atheism manifests itself through refutation of Christianity while Christianity really has nothing to do with atheism. In my view, it would be much more appropriate to define atheism in terms of what it is rather than what it isn't. In America, political movements work much the same way and you can see it all over Facebook. People more frequently are defining the Democrat Party in terms of what it's not (e.g. anything but Fox News) rather than what it is.