Metal Reviews

Thanks.

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbe ... emID=47530

I need counseling.

Not necessarily. Here's how I think it often works. When you're a kid, you will basically believe whatever your parents believe. If your parents are Christian, you'll be Christian too. If your parents are Atheists, you'll be an Atheist too, etc. I think when you get to be a certain age, you start to think over your experiences, what you've learned, and even your own intuition. And then you come to the conclusion that there either is or isn't a God. My conclusion was, of course, the former. But I know quite a few other people came to the latter conclusion. I've seen plenty of people who grew up in Christian families that became full-fledged Atheists as adults. At the same time, I've seen quite a few that grew up in very Atheistic families but became full-fledged Christians as adults. I think it all depends on the person.

What kind of disturbs me, though, is the way some metal fans take this whole anti-religion thing to the extreme. I think quite a few metal fans (I don't mean anybody here, specifically, but certainly some of the posters on Blabbermouth) shun religion because it's something that represents "goodness/wholesomeness" and they're afraid of looking like un-macho nerds/sissies if they get involved with it. So in other words, these are people with self-esteem problems trying to use the "Macho/E-V-I-L" music they listen to as a blanket so that they can have a METAL image. Pathetic, really.

Ironically, there's probably more religion in the metal scene than a lot of metal fans realize. Several of the band members in Helloween, for example, are Christians - and they directly reflect it in some of their songs (especially on Better Than Raw and The Dark Ride). Amazing how nobody seems to notice. Savatage also has some Christian members. Dave Mustaine's a Christian, of course. So are Tom Araya (yep, that screaming vocalist on Reign in Blood was a Christian!) and Max Calavera. Chuck Billy is, I think, an agnostic. And Jon Schaffer, from what I've gathered in interviews, seems to have his very own belief system. You could probably write an entire book on the wildly varying religious views between metal bands.

Nowt wrong with that

I wonder if all those crazy b*stards who are trying to teach Intellegent Design in American High schools would try something like this?

I've no doubt there are many exceptions, but I imagine that the number of children of fundamentalist christians that become atheists will be absolutely tiny in comparison to those that don't. Decisions of this magnitude that are made for you at birth are very rarely reversed.

A lot of metalheads can be anti-religion in a very juvenile way, for sure. I was an atheist long, long before I was a metalhead, though. It started when I was at Sunday school. I was taught about Jesus and his "acheivements", and thought to myself: "That sounds pretty unlikely", and I've never looked back. Especially given that the case for God's existence has been worn down so far over the years that it only really exists as the "God in the gaps" theory. ie, that whatever science can't explain yet: "That's God". Of course, it never occurs to some people that what was god 10 years ago is now science, and what is god now will be science in 10 years. How long can people keep finding hiding places for Him?

I believe that God was a reasonable assumption to make in a pre-scientific world, but why some people still believe He is there is totally inexplicable to me.

A point people here are missing is that the ban stated that MUSLIMS can't listen to Black Metal- the whole country didn't have it taken away, just one (admittedly large) group.

It sucks that Muslims were banned from listening to Black Metal, but at the same time, it's their religion, and they can make the laws for it. If you really believe in the religion, and the leaders of the religion decide on something, you don't have much of a choice but to follow it. I bet a lot of Muslims wonder what pork tastes like, but Islam says "no"... it sucks, but they have to follow the rules. There isn't any point in saying "This sux, I hope they change it" because you aren't part of the club, and they won't change to suit your opinion.

On a side note, where do the Malaysian posters live? I saw lots of kids in Dark Funeral t-shirts while I was in Borneo (around Kota Kinabalu)... poseurs or the real thing?

@Shuten Doji

I must admit, that i'm some kind of anti religious fanatic extremist Atheistic Bin Laden :twisted:

Thanks Praetor

I'd disagree with you about the fact that the Malaysian metal scene is ignorant about BM, or metal music in general. There is infact quite a number of Malay BM heads in Malaysia, some even running their own small underground distros.

This is where them and us starts to differ. Most of the Malay BMheads are indeed Muslims, so they largely ignore the ideological part of BM and only focus on the music itself (so they claim). Most of them also stay away from the typical metal lifestyle (drinking, looks etc), so its not easy to spot a metalhead in the streets.

There's quite a few good black metal bands, Brain Dead, Rator, As Sahar, Langsuir, etc etc i also like Bazzah. Despite negative reviews here, it's infact very similar to early Beherit, but not quite.

and Singapore's Sadiztik Impaler fucking kills, literally.

Shuten Doji i wouldnt know if they are posers or not, anyway there are always more posers than real metalheads. I live in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city. Now i'm in Brisbane, Aussie though....

hails ! \m/

Here's my opinion. When I thought about religion as a teenager, I more or less came to the conclusion that everything had to come from somewhere. Even that tiny atom that may have blew up into the entire universe had to come from somewhere. And eventually, it all traced back to a higher power of some sort (God). I also believe everything has a purpose and nothing really happens by accident. Even with evolution, there has to have been a purpose behind it beyond just coincidence. Once again, for me it all traces back to that higher power (God). Ditto to things like human emotion and the "human spirit" which right now can't really be explained that well by science. I don't believe something could simply evolve from nothingness. Thus, I believe there is an all-powerful God up there who was for the most part responsible for things like the creation of the universe and the evolution of things like human emotion and conscience.

On the other hand, I'll certainly agree that not everything the bible says is true (Creationism, for example, is basically impossible to believe in now if you're truly educated). And I personally disagree with those people who try to ram their own conception of who God is down our throats. My belief is that God communicates through intuition. And he guides different people to do different things. Nobody can force feed you with an idea of who He is. Actually, a wise philosopher even once said, "When we die, we'll go to Heaven, meet God, and find out we're all wrong about who He is."

Interesting posts! back on topic for a second:



Ooh, just like fundy Islam, then!


It always strikes me as funny, Christians who believe in a god yet reject the "Jesus" bits. You're basically Jewish, without the traditions, yet you won't go and research it. What turned me off my religion was not just 'this god bloke doesn't really exist', but looking at it overall, there were far too many inconsistencies for it to be true overall. One example is the way Jews behave towards non-Jews, I've been quite shocked at some of the blatant rascism towards blacks and other minorities from Orthodox Jews. You'd think a people so persecuted would be different, but no. All non-Jews are looked down upon in some way (by some people, I'm not tarring everyone with the same brush here), the Talmudic 'goyim are animals' quote just one example. There's a teaching "Esav soneh et Ya'akov", meaning Esau (basically Rome, although it somehow gets stretched to include very anti-semites ever) will always hate Jacob (Jews). This leads to the ghetto mentality you get amongst religious Jews, along with a huge fear of assimilation. Great Rabbis have said that it is better to live a hard life being persecuted, than a free life and stop praying for salvation, as seen by their supporting the Russian Tsar (pogroms etc) over Napoleon (rights and freedoms etc). Personally, I just can't reconcile any of this, so the rest becomes tainted as a result. Disbelief in God came at the end, from the reasoning that as Judaism is the oldest non-Pagan religion, and xtianity and islam copied it, the rest are bollocks as well.
Sorry about any typing errors there, but you see my point.

The Big Bang wasn't the work of god, but of Chuck Norris; he got bored with waiting for something to happen and delivered a roundhouse kick to the firmament.

and you all wonder why god is depicted with a mighty beard.

The bolded line is epitomises why atheists find it very hard to argue with a lot of Christians, (I enjoy trying, though ) because it is so illogical to use the word "coincidence" in this context. Where is the coincidence? Had evolution determined that we evolved into enormous pie-crusts that moved through levitation and communicated through telepathy, atheists would still hear Christians asking "How can you explain us ending up like this without God's design?". It's like drawing 52 cards at random, and then afterwards saying "What were the chances of them being drawn in that order? There must have been a higher being...". Belief in science is malleable, and of course we have to recognise how humble humanity is and how little we know. But there is no more reason to look to the Christian god as an explanation than there is to assume the earth was constructed in 6 minutes precisely from an IKEA flat pack. Of course they are both possibilities...

But I feel that in the "God vs Science" argument, the former is incapable of addressing science on it's own terms- (see my earlier "coincidence" point to see an example of religion fundamentally being unable to even ask the right questions). Conversely, exactly the things science can't explain are equally as mystifying to religion. "In the beginning there was God"... The beginning? What was there before that? Just nothingness? If so, then why is it hard to imagine that the big bang just appeared from nowhere as well?

The only reason atheists deny god is that they can't bear the responsibilites and change from their evil ways that comes with it.

So I heard, anyway.

I find it much more likely that if there is a Kreator he really doesn't give a shit what I do... And he obviously isn't omnipotent because if he was then the whole universe would rock as much as earth.

If god made earth, he's still around. Don't give me that 'he got bored' bollocks. And if god exists, of course he cares!
Naah, religion = made to keep peasants tranquil.

Where did you draw all these conclusions from? Magic? The air? Your buttocks? They're completely invalid if not reached from logic, as true logic is really the only way to go about thinking things without being a moron.

'Everything had to come from something' WHY? WHY did everything have to come from something? Because that's the way your mind works? Because that's how you make cereal? Because the magic leprechaun in your brain told you so? Because fools fall in love?

Human emotion is a series of different chemicals released by your brain that react to certain situations in certain ways. Love is a chemical that releases a certain sort of endorphins.

The human spirit is just your mind, and the mind is only what the brain thinks. There's no soul, no evidence of a soul, nothing beyond a whole bunch of nutcases who don't want to consider how insignificant we all are on a universal scale and how utterly puny and nonsensical our concepts of morality are. 'There is no morality, there is only phenomenon. Morality is something that is applied to phenomenon after they occur.' - Nietschze (heavily paraphrased, bear with me here).

There is no god, grow up and act like an adult and stop clutching to your Jesus security blanket. This goes for all you bible-fellows out here.

Applies equally as much to god as Jesus, no need to piss the xtians off when you can piss everyone off!

And, twisting it around, is there not evidence that belief in a religion results in a healthier life, less worry when you're not ultimately responsible etc?

If you need belief in an invisible sky-superman to live a healthier life, then I really pity you.

If you need to think that all your actions are premeditated and that you're not really responsible for anything, then I really want to shoot you.

Healthier, happier, precisely the reasons why the majority of the earth's population "believe". What other explanation is there, I still can't accept that people are basically stupid (although I'm getting there..).

Just accept it. Einstein thought so, so did Frank Zappa.