A Trip Inside a Separate Mind

One of the benefits of a faith-based worldview is that you are immune to evidence. No matter how unavoidable the evidence is, no matter what unpleasant conclusions reality forces one to, you can just play ostrich, stick your head in the sand of your fantastic delusions, and you can preserve your worldview even in the face of the most damning facts and unassailable arguments.

Also, you get to just assert things without evidence - otherwise known as ‘making shit up’. And, the beauty thing is that if someone DOES bother to look up your sources and investigate your evidence, you can deny the refutation.

The only cost is your intellectual honesty. Though I’ve often considered, and demolished, the idea of christian ‘metal’, the evangelist headbanger brigade marches onward, immune to facts and logic and parroting their already-refuted idiocy over and over again, copying the Big Lie strategy of other christians they’d also like to disown. Though I’ve combed over the foundational catalog of metal, Sabbath’s first six albums, and explained how they define metal as anti-dogmatic pro-individualist scary music, they continue to deny that ‘christian metal’ is as nonsensical as ‘jumbo shrimp’ or ‘military intelligence’. Or, as experience shows, ‘christian thought’.

So, on a metal message board I frequent, we have more idiotic theists (yes, with that hilariously overblown ‘wrath’ among them) hanging their entire power-chord ministry on the slim, but ultimately vain, hope that people will accept that ‘After Forever’ is a pro-christian song. You’d think that an eight-essay series would be enough, but then, as I note above, these are people who are immune to facts, and if their math is so bad that they believe 1=3, surely I can’t expect them to understand something that actually sticks to rules of logic and interprets written words. I should have expected it.

So, I’m going to go over “After Forever” again with a fine-tooth comb and show them, once more, just how moronic, idiotic, and just plain wrong they are. But first, a bit of housekeeping, as I sweep up the detrius of a few other arguments they use in conjunction with this, all cheifly stemming from an interview cited in the recent discussion with Geezer Butler about the time of the release of the g/z/r ‘Plastic Planet’ album, so something like 25 or so years AFTER ‘After Forever’ was written. He says some shit like “we even wrote a pro-god, christian-hymn type of song and people thought we weren’t serious - they thought we were taking the piss!” Well, it’s irrelevant on several points.

- First, TONY wrote the song, not Geezer. While the first reaction might be ‘but they were bandmates, surely they all knew what was what’, keep in mind that, despite the fact that different people wrote different things and it’s generally well-known who wrote what, on all of the four first albums the songwriting was always credited evenly to all four - EXCEPT for “After Forever”, which they make a special point in the liner notes to cite was written SOLELY by Tony Iommi. If that’s not a clue that we need to think about this one a bit differently, I don’t know what is.

- Second, even if you granted this one song, which I’m not, but let’s just say… - even if you granted this one song, that’s one song out of 50 or so, where all of the other 49 are about rejection of dogma, rejection of external control, solace in drugs, the ineffectiveness of pat answers like christian idiocy or social engineering, etc. Even on its face it’s too slim to hang the idea that “since Sabbath did one song out of 50 about god, we can be like stryper and evangelize with the masses d00d!!!”. Wrong, fuckheads: how do you reconcile the far-more-explicit lyrics like Under the Sun: “I don’t want no jesus freak telling me about the god in the sky - I don’t want no one to tell me where I’m gonna go when I die - I want to live my life I don’t want people telling me what to do - I’ll just believe in myself ‘cause no one else is true” (at this point the ostrich-imitation rears its head, so to speak….). By Occam’s razor, it’s FAR more likely that there’s something more than a bit different about this song, which even by the tone of voice and attitudes displayed (more on that in a second) is quite at odds with the over four dozen other songs they did on those six albums.

- Third, keep in mind this was 25 or so years ago at the time, and closer to 40 now. Have you seen how coherent Ozzy is these days? I can’t imagine the others being anywhere near as bad off, but to imagine they also escaped any sort of fogging of memories is just plain bonkers - one need read no farther than the wealth of contradictory accounts of ostensibly the same events from various biographies of the band.

- Fourth, let’s remember that these guys are still basically nice-guy theists. For their entire career, they’ve had to endure accusations of being in league with the devil, and they’ve always had to try to prove they’re not (which is, in fact, what I suspect the surface text of the song in question was trying to prove - while hiding a more subversive message, or at least a backhanded jab, in the subtext). This is compounded by the interview in question as the original question had nothing to do with “After Forever” itself - in fact, they were being asked how they felt about the church burning in Norway at the time, so it’s obvious that they used the fact that they wrote this song to distance themselves from such overt actions. Thus, it’s a pretty handy kind of thing to have from a PR standpoint. The Machiavellian in me would suspect that they wrote it SPECIFICALLY as camouflage, in anticipation of these kinds of situations.

This is compounded by the fact that they are world-famous now, and would lose fans in droves if they came out and admitted anything other than they were devout christians - there are too many sheep in the wolf pens. I was rhetorically told “I’d rather trust Geezer than you” - well, I wouldn’t - not from fluff-piece interviews like this, where he has an image and business stake to uphold. Now, in a corner at a pub over a couple of pints, maybe I’ll think differently…

In any case, let’s pretend that NONE of the above big questions matters (as the idiot theists will simply dodge or deny them anyway), and challenge the theist on his own turf. Then, the question centers around just how much can you take Geezer at his word - IS this a ‘pro-god, pro christian, christian-hymn type’ song as he attests?

A clear examination of the text proves that no, it is not. Let’s begin, shall we? The first stanza:

Have you ever thought about your soul - can it be saved? 
Or perhaps you think that when you're dead you just stay in your grave 
Is God just a thought within your head or is he a part of you? 
Is Christ just a name that you read in a book when you were in school?

Well, we’ve already dismissed the ‘christian hymn’ part. Hymns already accept the glory of god and merely retell or reflect it. This sounds far more specifically like one of those loud, annoying street-preacher hucksters who stands around loitering and making a public nuisance of himself in service to his ‘lord’. Note that the questions are as much attacks as they are queries, but are dishonest to the point that they do bother to ask anything at all. The first line takes the soul as given - as well as the fact that the listener’s soul is damned. The belittling contrast comes with the second line, where if you don’t think about your soul you ‘think you just lay in your grave’. Well, that’s exactly what happens, but it’s given the sneering condescension common among street-type evangelists. It’s clearly meant to belittle (what is taken for) the non-theist’s attitude.

The second two lines also highlight a belittling attitude, if the listener is not so completely consumed with jeebus as the speaker is: “Is he just a thought in your head Or is he PART OF YOU?” “Is he just a name from a book you read a long time ago?” - implying, of course, that he MUST and SHOULD be much, much more.

So far, it’s nothing I haven’t heard on my own front doorstep or on random streetcorners. Nothing hymn-like, and while it cajoles others to accept god, to call it ‘pro-god’ would be a big, big stretch. Let’s see if it gets any better:

When you think about death do you lose your breath or do you keep your cool? 
Would you like to see the Pope on the end of a rope - do you think he's a fool? 
Well I have seen the truth, yes I've seen the light and I've changed my ways 
And I'll be prepared when you're lonely and scared at the end of our days

Sadly, but predictably, it only gets worse.

Note, the first line implies and assigns worldviews and values based on speaker bias - HE’s ‘cool’ with death because he’s saved, but the implication is that, since the listener isn’t saved, hasn’t accepted jeebus, that the listener WILL be upset by the thought of death.

I laugh at the evangelidiots who think the next line is so great, because most of them are the non-catholic born-again fools who DO think the pope would be better on the end of a rope - but then, as I always say, evangelists are long on intellectual dishonesty. Note, though, from the speaker’s own perspective, if you’re not a believer you must want to see the pope dead. Nice way to poison the well. And no, for the record, I do NOT want to see him dead. Just ignored. (And, yes, I DO think he’s a fool - but so do many of the idiots who think this song is a pro-christian song, so that can’t be held against me…)

Third line there shows the smug self-satisfaction that is inherent in all theism - *I* have seen *THE TRUTH*(TM), and therefore I know the truth - AND YOU DON’T. You can’t even take the line charitably, thinking “okay, so the speaker has the truth, and he’s just sharing it” - because in the very next line he has apparently given up on conversion already, because he says “I’ll be prepared *WHEN* you’re lonely and scared at the end of your days” - note that he’s taking it as given that the listener will reject his conversion attempt (if he hasn’t already), and so he paints as grim a picture as he can of the ‘poor’ listener’s ‘sad’ upcoming fate.

Feel the christian love.

So, two verses down, and not a lot of pro-god stuff, and while lots of BAD and INSULTING arguments are being made for christianity, they’re not really working, and really just show evangelistic born-again theists to be the smug, pushy assholes they really are.

But wait - it gets better. I mean, worse.

Could it be you're afraid of what your friends might say 
If they knew you believe in God above? 
They should realize before they criticize that 
God is the only way to love.

One short verse and so much insulting. Note he paints the listener as AFRAID to accept the ‘truth’, clinging to their ‘godless’ ways only out of peer pressure (at least it’s leavened by a delicious dose of crushing irony). Next, while ‘god is the only way to love’ is a semi-core christian doctrine, that doctrine itself is quite unsupported elsewhere in the text of this song, and worse is smug and insulting to anyone non-christian, completely devaluing the love they feel for themselves, each other, and their own respective deities (if they have them).

Besides, if what we’ve seen so far is an example of god’s ‘only way to love’, I think I prefer the non-christian variety…

Is your mind so small that you have to fall 
In with the pack wherever they run 
Will you still sneer when death is near 
And say they may as well worship the sun.

And the insults just keep on coming, accusing the listener of being close-minded and judgmental, as well as weak and only disobeying out of peer pressure (at least there’s another delicious dose of crushing irony tucked away in there…). Finally, there’s the reminder again that death is coming and it’s something they should fear because they haven’t accepted god.

So, again, two more verses, and only ONE actual doctrine about god used, and that ONLY used as a backhanded insult. BUT, we do get plenty more insults, condescension, fearmongering, and emotional blackmail. And while one could say that, since all of those underhanded tactics are aimed at getting the listener to convert, it is TECHNICALLY ‘pro-god’, I don’t think it’s the kind of advertising any self-respecting deity would want…

And hey, we still have TWO MORE VERSES of this shit to go!

I think it was true it was people like you that crucified Christ 
I think it is sad the opinion you had was the only one voiced 
Will you be so sure when your day is near say you don't believe? 
You had the chance but you turned it down now you can't retrieve.

I’ve never understood blaming anyone for crucifying jeebus. If, by their own arguments, it was foretold that it had to happen, if jeebus HAD to die to take away everyone’s sins, SOMEone had to be destined to do it, and so the crucifier actually did all of mankind a favor. In fact, their whole cult is based on the fact that this guy actually DIED for them, so someone had to do the killing.

So why the hate for those who did the killing? As I’ve said before, and no doubt will say again, nobody ever accused christians of being intellectually honest.

Anyway, suffice it to say that the first line of that verse above is to be taken as an insult - “you’re one of those mean christ-killers!” So is the second one, again with a delicious dose of crushing irony. Then, there’s more of the fearmongering in the third and fourth lines - you better be sure, because I KNOW you’re going to hell. And there’s still no more attempt at conversion - “you had the chance, but you turned it down, and you can’t retrieve”. So much for christian forgiveness, which bears about as much resemblance to its non-christian variety as love does.

And, yet again, I note that very little advertises god at all, and very little is of the type of arguments that christians should WANT as advertising for themselves.

Perhaps you'll think before you say that God is dead and gone 
Open your eyes, just realize that he's the one 
The only one who can save you now from all this sin and hate. 
Or will you still jeer at all you hear? Yes - I think it's too late.

Finally, the speaker relents a bit, and grants that MAYBE the person will think, and he asks (demands? Unlike them, let’s be charitable - asks) the listener to ‘open his eyes’. Well, it’s still a condescending line, (“any blind fool can see it - just LOOK!”), but at least it’s somewhat a request. The third line though can’t be read so charitiably. It assumes that, since the listener is not a fellow devout believer, that he MUST be in so much ‘sin and hate’ to be in danger of damnation - i.e. more cheap fearmongering.

Finally, the last line is the capstone on the idea that this is any sort of pro-god or pro-christian hymn. He conclusively gives up on the idea of converting the listener, essentially consigning the listener to the damnation and torture he’s been threatening him with for the entire song. While jeebus did have that one example of simply shaking off the dust of the town that doesn’t want you, there wasn’t much vindictiveness there (he saved that for later, with the wailing and gnashing of teeth shit….). Here, though, the speaker consoles himself about his failed conversion by damning the listener.

And that’s that.

Now, keep in mind that the christian ‘metal’ brigade has been saying that this song is ‘pro-god’ and ‘pro-christianity’. Geezer even said it was a ‘hymn’ type of song. Well, the above exigesis has put that lie to bed. There is nothing hymn-like about it at all. In fact, it talks about god almost not at all - only one line, which is wielded like a bludgeon. The rest of the lyrics, though, are pure ‘pro-christianity’ in the same lines as those pushy, vagrant assholes who bother you by knocking on your door on saturdays or who accost you in the city as you walk down the street, jeering and mocking and being a fucking prick to try to cajole people into accepting his god. I might even give that it’s ‘pro-christian’ in that sense - showing just how such idiocy works - by cheap emotional blackmail and insults.

However, as I said a few times above, I hardly think it’s the kind of ‘pro-christian’ advertising christians would WANT to be associated with. Even the nicest, most liberal christians’ attitudes boil down to this, though they contort themselves to make it more palatable, or to at least alleviate it in some good PR cases (like limbo for non-christian babies and other such ideological and theological ret-cons).

And, as I pointed out in my last essay on this song, this type of fear-mongering and threatening was completely AGAINST the ideas Sabbath espoused in every other song they had on those first six albums. You can believe they meant this as seriously as they meant the others, and no doubt some christians will choose to do so, but then they were never taken to be intellectually honest anyway. Thus, one must re-evaluate - did the other forty-plus songs have other, more hidden meanings, or did this ONE song have something hidden beneath the raw literal layer - this one song which we already know had special attention paid to it in the crediting, and which happens to have a surface-text somewhat palatable to wishy-washy theists - provided they read it as closely as they read their bibles, that is…

(I gave up message boards soon after writing this, so I didn’t get as much mileage as I’d hoped out of it, but I’m still glad I wrote it. It’s more detailed than the previous essay I did focusing on this one song, and by going stanza by stanza I think it makes the case more watertight - christianity makes for nice praise hymns and church choir music, but it does not make for good metal. Metal is of the earth, of life, of death, of power and pain and filth and rot and blood, gore, guts, doom, gloom, fury, anger, and a big ‘fuck you’ to anyone outside of you telling you what you should think and how you should live.)