Was John Lennon the first Atheist Rock & Roller?

[Cartoonist]

Probably not, but who else is there? He was certainly the most famous and outspoken.

[Fumesucker]

1. I'm pretty sure John Kay is an atheist...

[NeoGreen]

2. Almost certainly not the first...

...and maybe the most outspoken for his day and age.

But without any doubt, he will not be the last, and was merely the first raindrop over the dam.

[Promethean]

3. I don't really care if he was or wasn't.

His songs uplift and inspire. That is all that matters.

[cbayer]

10. +1

[Lordquinton]

20. -1

Very rude and dismissive towards people tying to find someone famous to look up to that thinks the same way they do.

[cbayer]

21. Well, I think it may also be rude and dismissive to make assumptions

about others just because you want them to be people that think the same you you do.

[Lordquinton]

37. Then you should stop doing it.

[cbayer]

38. No problem. Let me know next time I do it, ok?

[TM99]

26. Except he was not as you want him to be.

So which poster is actually the rude and dismissive one?

[Lordquinton]

36. Except he was, unlike how you want him not to be

Now you are rude and dismissive.

[cbayer]

39. He was what?

[TM99]

40. Sorry I presented the facts.

You got nothing but the insistence based on faith and emotion that he was an atheist when he clearly stated in interviews that he was not.

Stop with the games about being rude and dismissive. You are merely projecting your own shit.

[AtheistCrusader]

4. Don't forget folk music.

[struggle4progress]

5. Here's a lovely bit from an atheist composer

[Warren Stupidity]

6. he wasn't an atheist.

[edhopper]

7. Here is a list from wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_atheists_in_music

I am not sure it is entirely accurate.

[cbayer]

9. Lennon is not even on that list.

[Cartoonist]

11. I see John is not on the list

I guess the compiler never heard the song Imagine.

I didn't know that about David Gilmour and I'm a Floyd fanatic. I wonder if the compiler has him confused with Roger. I see Roger makes the detailed list. So does Nick.

Another reason to like Brian Eno.

What about Patti Smith? Surely someone who writes a song Jesus Died For Your Sins But Not Mine has issues with God.

Just guessing here, but Lou Reed strikes me as atheist.

I forgot about Frank. He's even more outspoken than John.

Linda Rondstat? Who knew?

[Act_of_Reparation]

12. Have you read Nick Mason's book?

The first chapter deals with his childhood. I was surprised to learn both of his parents were members of the British communist party until the 1950s or so. It doesn't surprise me he'd be an atheist. Same goes for Waters, who was always something of a leftist radical himself.

Roy Harper -- who lent his voice to the Floyd for "Have a Cigar" -- is also the list.

I guess poor Rick Wright was the odd man out in the band.

[AtheistCrusader]

14. IIRC, Waters really hated him too.

Which is sad, because he's a big part of how Floyd sounded, especially on The Wall, and DSotM.

I was glad that Wright and Gilmour got to work more on Pulse, it's a fantastic album. Too bad I never saw them in concert. I had the chance back when I was in High School. Didn't go. Damn.

[Act_of_Reparation]

30. I wouldn't call it "hate"

According to Mason, Wright was not particularly impressed with Waters' boorishness and the two were never particularly close. But I don't think that played a big role in Waters' decision to fire him.

Wright went through a long period of writer's block following DSoTM. His lack of musical contributions to the band's portfolio--while reaping the benefits of songwriting credits--really started to get Waters' goat. By the time the band hit the studio to record The Wall, Waters had gone full curmudgeon and flat out refused to pay him royalties for songs he didn't write. And so they pressured him into resigning while hiring him on as a session musician to play live gigs.

[AtheistCrusader]

31. One of these days I need to delve into a more comprehensive biography of the history of the band.

Because you just hit some details I didn't know, and I should know.

I still want to know who the FUCK has the multi-track masters so we can FINALLY get a version of Rock Band, RockSmith, or Guitar Hero with their songs.

[Act_of_Reparation]

32. Somebody has them.

Because they cut a special 5.1 surround remaster of Dark Side to celebrate the album's 30th anniversary. My money's on Atlantic Records for Dark Side songs, EMI for WYWH - The Wall.

The thing is The Floyd are stingy with their IP, though I imagine it is somewhat compounded by the convoluted legal arrangement made between the band members following Waters' departure from the group.

Also a digression:

I was born a few fears after the Floyd broke up. While my parents were both Floyd fans, I really didn't get into them until I was in college. Every time I listened to them, I couldn't help but feel a little bit cheated I would never have the opportunity to see them live. Then they reunited for one show in London, and I couldn't go... and that sucked. Then, Roger Waters announced he was going on tour to perform The Wall with Nick Mason, and I was poor, so I couldn't go... and that sucked. Then, one night, I get a phone call from my father. I pick up the phone, and it is Roger Waters performing "Run Like Hell" at Madison Square Garden. He bought a bunch of tickets and brought along my mom and my two brothers. Didn't invite me. And that sucked, too.

[Cartoonist]

34. I saw them 3 times

The DSOM tour, the Animals tour, and the Division Bell tour.

I'm a little surprised that a group of atheists never expressed that in their songs, unless it was too subtle for me.

[Act_of_Reparation]

35. Politics was always more important to them, but they did address belief a few times.

From Breathe, we have an endorsement of materialism:

For long you live and high you fly
And smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry
And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be

From the Breathe Reprise at the end of Time, we have a typical Marxist condemnation of religion as a distraction from real human concerns:

Far away
Across the fields
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells

From the "Psalm" segment of Sheep, we have a pretty scathing criticism of Christianity as a system that fosters passivity in oppressed people:

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want
He makes me down to lie
Through pastures green He leadeth me the silent waters by
With bright knives He releaseth my soul
He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places
He converteth me to lamb cutlets

For lo, He hath great power, and great hunger
When cometh the day we lowly ones
Through quiet reflection, and great dedication
Master the art of karate
Lo, we shall rise up
And then we'll make the bugger's eyes water

[mr blur]

41. I saw them twice in the '70s. Once Waters came to dominate, I lost interest.

I thought The Wall was tiresome, pretentious bombast and everything he 'wrote' after that was tedious drivel. No wonder the others got rid of him. Always struck me as an arrogant lightweight. And a very dull bass player. After they dumped him, I started listening again.

Mind you, he never had a good word to say about me, either.

[Act_of_Reparation]

33. "One of these days"

Sorry, can't resist:

[Dorian Gray]

28. Charlie Parker

died when he was thirty-five? Holy shit! I had no idea that he died so young.

Thanks for the list.

Some greats on there.

[edhopper]

29. The coroner was surprised as well

he thought he was 50 when he examined Parker.

[cbayer]

8. What do you base your assumption that he was an atheist on?

[edhopper]

13. It's hard to say what he did and didn't

believe in. He was all over the place.
He seemed to be an anti-theist though.

[cbayer]

15. My best guess would be that he was anti-organized religion but

I've never seen anything to indicate that he was anti-theist.

I agree that he was all over the place and is very hard to label.

[AtheistCrusader]

16. He was a mixed bag, and his religiousity changed over the arc of his life, cut short, as it was.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_beliefs_of_the_Beatles

[TM99]

17. Well, obviously Lennon was an anti-theist!

Imagine a world with no religion too!

[cbayer]

18. Imagining is different than believing...

or so I am told.

[Warren Stupidity]

19. imagining is a declaration that the thing imagined does not

at the moment exist. If the religious imagined there were gods instead of believing there were gods the world would be a better place.

[TM99]

22. What I want to know is

whether Lennon has any scientific evidence or empirical proof for his beliefs in that song. If not, it is just a song of faith!

[cbayer]

23. Great question.

He was all over the place during his life, and it's one of the things I have always liked about him.
He was not at all afraid to explore different parts of himself, including his spiritual parts.

I think he would object to be labeled so simplistically.

[okasha]

24. Seems to me

that atheist, anti-theist, and anti-religionist are three different categories.

[TM99]

25. And the really interesting thing is that

John Lennon never identified himself as any one of those three.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_beliefs_of_the_Beatles

He was nominally religious, rather agnostic, flirting with numerous eastern and western esoteric and alternative spiritualities, and towards the end of his life declared in an interview that he was in fact religious. In today's parlance, Lennon would have been spiritual but not religious and unaffiliated with any organized religion but rather agnostic on certain religious topics.

He was hardly the poster boy for atheism that some are attempting to project on him now.

[Warren Stupidity]

27. Imagine if a progressive sweep of the House occurred in 2016!

Is not the same as believing in santa.