Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion,
Or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,
Or abridging the freedom of speech
Or of the press
Or the right of the people peaceably to assemble
And to petition the government for a redress of grievances —
That's the Bill of Rights.
Don't lose it!
Days of the Theocracy
First they fight abortion,
Birth control is next,
Then comes sex if you're not married,
Finally, out goes sex.
Put the prayers back in the schools,
Install parochiaid,
Allow for corporal punishment,
And then you've got it made!
Chorus:
We're going back, back
To the good old days,
When men were really men
And women knew their place;
Back, back a couple of centuries,
And welcome back the days
Of the theocracy!
The family is so holy
There must be no divorce.
And if a wife is not content,
She must adjust, of course.
And if he's forced to beat her
It's all for her own good;
She must know what her limits are
As any woman should!
Chorus
The next to go is daycare,
It's all a commie plot!
What could be more fulfilling
Than a child, wanted or not?
The woman's work is housework--
God wanted it that way!
A salaried job degrades her, since
She never works for pay! ...
"Clearly, the Newmans weren't what you would call observant and the revelation of his Jewishness prompted in Randy a study of comparative religion that made him a devout atheist ('except when I'm sick')."
"In March 1972 [Wodehouse] was invited to attend Sunday service with President Nixon, but turned it down as 'too much of a strain.' He had no desire to leave Basket Neck Lane and, apart from his year in Tost, had never bothered much with religion, remaining strenuously agnostic."
Imagine
Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky.
Imagine all the people
Living for today.
Imagine there's no country,
It isn't hard to do.
Nothing to kill or die for,
And no religion, too.
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace--
You may say I'm a dreamer.
But I'm not the only one.
I hope someday you'll join us,
And the world will be as one.
The Preacher And The Slave
Long-haired preachers come out every night
Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right;
But when asked about something to eat,
They will answer in voices so sweet:
Chorus:
You will eat, by and by,
In that glorious land in the sky.
Work and pray; live on hay.
You'll get pie in the sky when you die. (That's a lie!)
Oh, the Starvation Army they play
And they sing and they clap and they pray
Till they get all your coin on the drum,
Then they'll tell you when you're on the bum.
If you fight hard for children and wife,
Try to get something good in this life,
You're a sinner and bad man, they tell;
When you die you will sure go to Hell.
Holy Rollers and Jumpers come out,
And they holler, they jump, and they shout.
"Give your money to Jesus," they say,
"He will cure all diseases today."
Working folk of all countries, unite!
Side by side we for freedom will fight.
Then the world and its wealth we have gained,
To the grafters we'll sing this refrain:
You will eat, by and by,
When you've learned how to cook and to fry.
Chop some wood — 'twill do you good.
And you'll eat in the sweet by and by. (That's no lie!)
“And yes I have all of the usual objections
To the miseducation of children who, in tax-exempt institutions,
Are taught to externalize blame
And to feel ashamed and to judge things as plain right and wrong
But I quite like the songs. ”
"[I]f ever I'm asked if I'm religious I always reply, 'Yes, I'm a devout musician.' Music puts me in touch with something beyond the intellect, something otherworldly, something sacred."
FAN BLOG (rating McDonnell's “hotness points”):
FAITH: Unknown but believed to be an atheist.
McDONNELL: I am an atheist.
FAN BLOG: Minus 50 points.
McDONNELL: Oh well, reason loses again.
It Ain't Necessarily So
It ain't necessarily so, (repeat)
De t'ings dat yo' li'ble
To read in de Bible,
It ain't necessarily so.
Li'l David was small, but oh my! (repeat)
He fought big Goliath
Who lay down an' dieth!
Li'l David was small, but oh my!
Oh, Jonah, he lived in de whale, (repeat)
Fo' he made his home in
Dat fish's abdomen.
Oh, Jonah, he lived in de whale.
Li'l Moses was found in a stream, (repeat)
He floated on water
Till Ole Pharaoh's daughter
She fished him, she says, from that stream.
It ain't necessarily so, (repeat)
Dey tell all you chillun
De debble's a villun,
But 'tain't necessarily so.
To get into Hebben don' snap for a sebben!
Live clean! Don' have no fault.
Oh, I takes dat gospel
Whenever it's poss'ble,
But wid a grain of salt.
Methus'lah lived nine hundred years, (repeat)
But who calls dat livin'
When no gal'll give in
To no man what's nine hundred years?
I'm preachin' dis sermon to show,
It ain't nessa, ain't nessa,
ain't nessa, ain't nessa,
Ain't necessarily so.
“I'm an atheist. ... How unfortunate it is to assign responsibility to the higher up for justice amongst people.”
"As an atheist, I believe at the moment of death it’s just lights out. Done. Because, I dunno, brain waves ... science. But if I’m wrong, I have ZERO doubt that the folks who claim to be 'Christian' but live their lives in opposition of Christ’s teachings are gonna be first to burn."
"I had some pretty dark and desperate moments all those years ago. ... I didn't ever smash up a hotel room or throw a TV out a window. That was Led Zeppelin. Thank god. If there was a god, you know, which there isn't."
Shameful rivalries of creed
Shall not make the martyr bleed,
In the good time coming.
Religion shall be shorn of pride,
And flourish all the stronger;
And Charity shall trim her lamp;
Wait a little longer.
“What a blessing to know there’s a devil, and that I’m but a pawn in his game / that my impulse to sin doesn’t come from within, and so I’m not exactly to blame.”
“Those around him knew that ... Rodgers was an atheist. At the age of twelve, Mary Rodgers Guettel [his daughter] asked her father whether he believed in God and he answered that he believed in people. ‘If somebody is really sick, I don't pray to God, I look for the best doctor in town.’ ”
"Although later in life Cole briefly considered embracing religion, he was never a believer, and his several comments about his mother's attachments to Peru churches were dismissive."
"Paradise doesn't compare.
All the nice people are there
They come there from everywhere
Just to revel with Mister Devil."
“First you get down on your knees,
Fiddle with your rosaries,
Bow your head with great respect,
And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!
Do whatever steps you want, if
You have cleared them with the Pontiff.
Everybody say his own
Kyrie eleison,
Doin' the Vatican Rag.
Get in line in that processional,
Step into that small confessional,
There, the guy who's got religion'll
Tell you if your sin's original.
If it is, try playin' it safer,
Drink the wine and chew the wafer,
Two, four, six, eight,
Time to transubstantiate!
So get down upon your knees,
Fiddle with your rosaries,
Bow your head with great respect,
And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!
Make a cross on your abdomen,
When in Rome do like a Roman,
Ave Maria,
Gee it's good to see ya,
Gettin' ecstatic an'
Sorta dramatic an'
Doin' the Vatican Rag!”
Do Unto Others?
Love thy neighbor as thyself?
Hide that motto on the shelf!
Let it lie there, keep it idle
Especially if you're suicidal.
Realist
For what we are about to receive,
Oh Lord, 'tis Thee we thank,
Said the Cannibal as he cut a slice
Of the missionary's shank.
"It’s called flowers wilt / It’s called apples rot / It’s called thieves get rich / And saints get shot / It’s called God don’t answer prayers a lot / Okay, now you know."
“I’ve never been religious. But most people seem religious, and it gets more and more bothersome as religious language invades common, spoken English. ... Politicians have always tried to out-Christian one another. It was a big deal having a Black president, but it would be a bigger deal having an atheist president.”
"His religion was his music and his lifestyle — his enjoyment of elegance and his voracious appetite for having a good time."
“One of the interesting parts about Christianity, at least the way that I experienced it, was that you are in a sense responsible for this whole system of thought and belief that you literally don’t have a chance to investigate thoroughly. When you do come in contact with certain bits of information for the first time, it’s not like, ‘Hey, check this out. See what you think. Reject it or accept it.’ It’s always that you’re discovering this system that you’ve already signed on the dotted line affirming.”
“I am an atheist, I have no religious beliefs. And obviously I don’t believe in spirituality of some kind.”
“I’m definitely against all organized religion just because, when you really look at it, organized religion has caused most of the deaths in the history of this planet. Most of the wars were fought over organized religion.”
“We owe a faith to the world and to ourselves. We owe a grace and gratitude to things that have brought us here. But I think it’s very ignorant to say, ‘Well, for everything, God has a plan.’ That’s like an excuse. Maybe the real faithful act is to commit to something, to take action, as opposed to saying, ‘Well, everything is in the hand of God.’ ”
“I started reflecting on my beliefs and seeing which ones held up next to my own experience. And when I was able to look at a belief and realize it wasn’t true for me anymore, I tossed it. And I had to leave the church because of that. I mean, I left the church in my heart and in my thinking; there was this period when I was there physically but I was not there. A year or two after that I quit going altogether. But even then, the songs still held up for me, they never let me down. I still loved those songs, and I still sang them.”