heresy
he sewed his eyes shut because he is afraid to see
he tries to tell me what i put inside of me
he's got the answers to ease my curiosity
he dreamed up a god and called it christianity
your god is dead and no one cares
if there is a hell i will see you there
he flexed his muscles to keep his flock of sheep in line
he made a virus that would kill off all the swine
his perfect kingdom of killing, suffering and pain
demands devotion atrocities done in his name
your god is dead and no one cares
drowning in his own hypocrisy
and if there is a hell i will see you there
burning with your god in humility*
will you die for this?*
*written but not sung
this is a very angry song that i think trent wanted to get off his chest for a while.
you could go two ways with this song: one could look upon it as a declaration
of trent's "nietzschean" beliefs and how he feels that man has killed the same god that he created
to escape responsibility; or another way to see it is as a part of the ongoing story of the narrator's descent
into oblivion. this would be the first step: destroying god in his mind, thus
relieving him to explore the absolute depths of morality.
check out this brief overview of nietzsche's philosophy .
-broken
someone once said to me that people in enough pain cannot bring themselves to believe in a benevolent god. i don't know that i agree, but i find it a convenient little rationalization for the difference
between the agnostic/atheist/nihilist and the faithful. those people who life has disillusioned the hell out of (and trent is one. if you doubt this, listen to pretty hate machine. it chronicles his disillusionment
quite nicely.) find it hard to see god as an answer. why the hypocrisy? why the "killing, suffering and pain" and the "atrocities done in his name"? why the AIDS virus, particularly devastating to the character in
this album, a man who uses sexual power games constantly as a coping device? so he quotes Nietszche ("God is dead.") and tries to put on a front of not even caring whether god does exist or not, or whether or
not he is going to hell. after all, his life totally sucks. how bad could hell be, by comparison?
-alexa
I believe this song depicts the death of God in modern society. In the days long ago man had a far stronger belief
because he needed it. Today we have become disillusioned with the idea of God and for good reason. A relationship
with God is an abusive one. We love Him because we fear retribution if we defy Him. If this were a relationship
between two people it would be deemed as very unhealthy. I think this song is about throwing off the mantle of that
oppression. It's about man no longer falling back into that security blanket that is God. With the wonders of modern
society man no longer needs Him and many are choosing not to believe in a vindictive God.
-serena
Right in the beginning Trent tells us what his problem with Christianity is: "he tries to tell me what I put inside of me".
The whole first verse tells how man invented Christianity as a means of attempting to explain the unexplainable. In the
chorus he declares that your god is dead; notice the clear difference between that and declaring that god is dead. The
"and no one cares" lyric is rather immature, and should be taken by the faithful as an insult. Of course, it also reflects the
views of a modern society who become less and less religious every day. "if there is a hell, I'll see you there" - I take this
as a direct challenge to believers in the afterlife. He's saying that if there is a hell, this song will surely send him there.
Trent's banking on the premise that there are no such things as heaven and hell.
In the second verse, "he" changes from meaning man to meaning god.
"he flexed his muscles to keep his flock of sheep in line" - Bible reference.
"he made a virus that would kill off all the swine" - AIDS.
"his perfect kingdom of killing, suffering, and pain demands devotion, atrocities done in his name" - Trent's merely
pointing out how many slaughterings have taken place "in the name of god". Of course, those types of people are the
same as the people who kill "in the name of Satan", and are not the majority but simply a fanatical few. Blind morons I
call them, misinterpreting and misusing their religion to their own advantage.
The main statement in the song, although only half of it is actually sung, is:
"burning with your god in humility
will you die for this?"
And so I leave you with a somewhat well-known quote from Friedrich Nietzsche:
This man of the future, who will redeem us not only from the hitherto reigning ideal but also from that which was bound
to grow out of it, the great nausea, the will to nothingness, nihilism; this bell-stroke of noon and of the great decision
that liberates the will again and restores its goal to the earth and his hope to man; this Antichrist and antinihilist; this
victor over God and nothingness - he must come one day...
For some people, he's already here.
-Otis
