Metal Reviews

Does anyone here try to balance their religion (Christianity, Islam, etc.) with their love of satanic heavy metal music without them interfering with each other?

I consider myself neither a faithful Christian nor a diehard metal fan, but I do like the historical weight of Catholicism and I still play some metal in the car etc.

So I guess I'm somewhere in the middle?

As a fairly liberal and open minded christian i try to avoid most of the blasphemic stuff (certain songs do slip in here and there) but i have no problem listening to metal music critical of religion as long as it not outright blasphemy. And i don't think metal is satanic by it's very nature (although many fundamentalist christians would claim otherwise) it's more what you make of it. I don't see a problem with bands professing their faith in whatever form it takes whether it be trash, power or deathmetal or whatever.

Religion is the root of sin, killing the weak they let the genocide begin.

Is that from a Deicide song or something?

I'm with Necrodude that I tend to avoid the outright anti religious stuff out there but bands that are somewhat critical about religion I don't have a problem because they aren't attacking the aspects of God himself but how men have turned religion into something evil that's disguised in a veil of good.

In my opinion religion is a crutch for the weak of will and a tool of domination for the power hungry. There is little merit so far as I can tell in organised religion. Having said that I personally don't consider religion to be the cornerstone of one's faith. I feel they can be seperate from each other.

I was raised christian but started drifting away from it in my early teenage years like a lot of people do and have never really come back to it. I've read the bible, still do read passages occasionally like lots of people do but I don't know if I would consider myself a christian. It certainly doesn't stop me from enjoying any music either.

I see where people get fed up with religion and the likes with all of the crazies it attracts and how many different denominations their are, then plus there is your own personal experiences which can totally kill the vibe for you, and at some point you might just call bullshit unless God himself just sends you the light. I'm not an atheist either, but as far as being a Christian I'm just not.

I'm not some crazy druggy, I'm not into anything bizarre/disgusting. I like what I like and can see the flaws in religion, but who can't at this day in age?

If had a penny every time a atheist said that to me i would be a rich bitch, but seriously there are problems with organized religion i agree, but it's not all bad i think. Even as a Christian i've never found a church that's right for me because it was either too charismatic or they were into doctrine that i don't agree with. I've found a place now that i've been very warmly welcomed and i feel accepted there even if i still dress pretty metal with band shirts and shirts with dragons or skulls or whatever and nobody gives me any shit for it. I can understand your distaste for religion man and i was the same really, but i had series of personal experiences that pushed me in the other direction. That being said i have a real big problem with televangelists who is more into getting paid massive amounts of money instead of trying to save souls. Every faith or creed has it's snakes unfortunately...

i'm atheist, so putting it from a different perspective, metal with a christian message doesn't bother me in the slightest, although sometimes i can't help but snicker because some lyrics just remind of that South Park episode where Cartman writes love songs about Jesus.

i was raised as a hindu, even then it didn't bother me, but then again i barely listened to extreme metal at the time.

Looong story, but basically am a laissez-faire atheist (as opposed to a Richard Dawkins-'ghooouls attack the church/crush the holy priest'-type) who thinks people should be able to believe in whatever they like as long as it doesn't impact in my life in a significant way. Have plenty of respect for religion and religion art, love old churches, Extol's last album was pretty good, etc.

Deicide is a pretty terrible band. You would never see me quote them.

Here's a better one:

The whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life. — Sigmund Freud

Actually I don't think I expressed my earlier thought very well. What organised religion has become holds very little merit in my opinion. However I can relate to some of the teachings of each faith. I just don't believe there's an omnipotent being or collection of beings watching and judging everything we do. Looking at old buildings built for the various religions is nice though and in the city where I live there are many to be seen. There's been some great artwork inspired by faith as well so it isn't as if there's no merit at all to it.

Like Azrael I don't have a problem with religious messages in the music I listen to. There are some things I can't abide in music but religion is not one of them (unless it's put across in a way which encourages hatred and violence against another religion or group of people)

I'm an atheist but I love religious metal and music because it tends to have an extra oomph.

Also hating on organized religion as a whole is painting a lot of diverse views and systems with one brush. There's an odd dichotomy between what I hear on the media, where lots of people use their faith as a foundation for bigotry etc and what I've actually experienced, which is people being incredibly nice, offering students free dinners, organizing food banks, and helping refugees.

This is very true. That extra bit of emotion really comes over and makes it more special...



This is also very true, although I've seen the dark side of religion. Is it the dark side of religion, though, or the dark side of people associated with it, is the question...

I don't hate religion, I just hate the people that practice/believe in it/one.

Ya dig?

All thinking men are atheists.

-- Ernest Hemingway

Why do you hate me? You don't even know me... You think having a belief in something higher than yourself is irrational right? Isn't it just as irrational or maybe even more so to hate 80%+ of the worlds people just because they don't see the world the way you do? Have the same creed or whatever as you do?

Didn't Freud also think that everything was about sex and we all wanted to fuck our mothers?

I respectfully disagree