Taken from a 2005 interview with Devin in Chronicles of Chaos:

Politics and religion don't belong in metal -- at least not in my metal.

Well Devin has contradicted himself then... or changed his mind since 2005, as he seems to regularly add ideas about religion in his music, indirectly at least. And playing live he has been very direct about shunning it as mentioned. Which I think is not logical.

Using religion as a method of control, dictation, and a literal set of rules to live by, forgoing all else and free will, as far as I'm concerned is unhealthy.

Or rather you think it looks and sounds unhealthy. But we should remind ourselves that things that look, sound, taste and seem unhealthy are not always so.

First, Devin uses the notion of religion as a metaphor, always has; Infinity is proof of this, predating the interview supplied. It's likely he meant promoting religion in music during that interview.
Second, I don't know about you, but I find extreme religious practice, which can lead to censorship, abuse, terrorism, and psychological scarring amongst other things to be unhealthy.

The story is "Answer," from Angels and Spaceships, by Fredric Brown (Dutton, 1954). Here is the original text:

Dwar Ev ceremoniously soldered the final connection with gold. The eyes of a dozen television cameras watched him and the subether bore through the universe a dozen pictures of what he was doing.

He straightened and nodded to Dwar Reyn, then moved to a position beside the switch that would complete the contact when he threw it. The switch that would connect, all at once, all of the monster computing machines of all the populated planets in the universe--ninety-six billion planets--into the supercircuit that would connect them all into the one supercalculator, one cybernetics machine that would combine all the knowledge of all the galaxies.

Dwar Reyn spoke briefly to the watching and listening trillions. Then, after a moment's silence, he said, "Now, Dwar Ev."

Dwar Ev threw the switch. There was a mighty hum, the surge of power from ninety-six billion planets. Lights flashed and quieted along the miles-long panel.

Dwar Ev stepped back and drew a deep breath. "The honor of asking the first question is yours, Dwar Reyn."

"Thank you," said Dwar Reyn. "It shall be a question that no single cybernetics machine has been able to answer."

He turned to face the machine. "Is there a God?"

The mighty voice answered without hesitation, without the clicking of single relay.

"Yes, now there is a God."

Sudden fear flashed on the face of Dwar Ev. He leaped to grab the switch.

A bolt of lightning from the cloudless sky struck him down and fused the switch shut.

when i was 10, i started going to church and became a christian. i put up with a lot of crap about how i needed to quit listening to rock music and stop dressing like a boy and was fed a lot of junk that i didn't buy even then. i still have residual beliefs in a god of sorts, but the part of me that still believes leans toward gnosticism while the rest of me is a solid nihilist. i converter to catholicism in 2010 because... i've wanted to for years. i ended up hanging around a good church to go through the process in where nobody really looked at me weird for having a mohawk at my confirmation.

Religion is an interesting meme. Take christianity for example. Its foundations are so old that there are huge flaws in the way the bible explains natural phenomena. But for the meme to survive the priests have this view that Slatewoman needs to listen the same kind of music and embrace the same kind gender roles that were "normal" in the past. I think this is because it'll increase conformity and critical thinking of the bible and different viewpoints are thus diminished. It's interesting to ponder which came first. Is the conformity preferred because the organisation finds useful or is the conformity preferred simply because the religion could not have survived for so long without it and nobody even questions it?

Imagine if the bible was written perfectly with no flaws and no questionable morality in it. Christianity would never go away. Now the times are changing too fast for it to keep up. If the level of education continues to increase I'd guess in two hundred years the vast majority of humans will become agnostic. Oh, and I'm an agnostic atheist myself. Not a homer in the slightest

ANCIENT ALIENZ

[Octillus]

ANCIENT ALIENZ

WHO WERE ALSO MUMMIES.

when i was 10, i started going to church and became a christian. i put up with a lot of crap about how i needed to quit listening to rock music and stop dressing like a boy and was fed a lot of junk that i didn't buy even then. i still have residual beliefs in a god of sorts, but the part of me that still believes leans toward gnosticism while the rest of me is a solid nihilist. i converter to catholicism in 2010 because... i've wanted to for years. i ended up hanging around a good church to go through the process in where nobody really looked at me weird for having a mohawk at my confirmation.

Religion is an interesting meme. Take christianity for example. Its foundations are so old that there are huge flaws in the way the bible explains natural phenomena. But for the meme to survive the priests have this view that Slatewoman needs to listen the same kind of music and embrace the same kind gender roles that were "normal" in the past. I think this is because it'll increase conformity and critical thinking of the bible and different viewpoints are thus diminished. It's interesting to ponder which came first. Is the conformity preferred because the organisation finds useful or is the conformity preferred simply because the religion could not have survived for so long without it and nobody even questions it?

Imagine if the bible was written perfectly with no flaws and no questionable morality in it. Christianity would never go away. Now the times are changing too fast for it to keep up. If the level of education continues to increase I'd guess in two hundred years the vast majority of humans will become agnostic. Oh, and I'm an agnostic atheist myself. Not a homer in the slightest

yeah, basically.

i read a book earlier this year called god and sex (http://www.amazon.com/God-Sex-What-Bibl ... 0446545252). it presents a really solid and unbiased historical understanding of gender roles from biblical times and what i found most fucked up about the whole thing is that eve *I* never really thought about just how fucked up that shit really is/was. the general fuckupedness extends way beyond gender roles, of course, and i wish everyone who considers themselves a christian of any sort wold read this book.

First, Devin uses the notion of religion as a metaphor, always has.

A metaphor for what? His universalist viewpoint? I would have less issue with that if he didn't proceed to insult religion at the same time, which encourages its demise (whether on purpose or not).

atheism, agnosticism, materialism, naturalism, humanism, secularism... and so on, is where I stand.

No crap. I could have guessed that without knowing anything about you.

Congrats, you have been a successful participant in our modern society of convenience that allows for those views. You have understood the surface details of what used to make the world work, and have chosen to follow along with the new western world view. But are you and your family and friends better for it? Your lives more enriched and stable? Unlikely.

So think some more is my suggestion.

DUDE! WHAT?!
More enriched and stable lives? I dunno... All I know is that I come from a country with a very high rate of non-religious people, and also a veeery low crime-rate. People seem pretty fucking stable and satisfied to me.

Think more? URRRRRH...... As far as I know, many non-religious people were religious once. Regardless of whether they are right or wrong, thinking was what brought them out of it.

As for me... I don't do thinking. I talk to unicorns.

i ended up hanging around a good church to go through the process in where nobody really looked at me weird for having a mohawk at my confirmation.

They look weird at you because they are human. They should really have no expression. But really what they are trying to say is that your mohawk etc is not acceptable to them.

There is not time in the space of a glance or an introduction to explain why something is unacceptable, so people make funny faces. Sometimes it's too difficult to easily explain why a set of rules and values must be upheld.... that is where faith and belief come in.

"Discriminating" based on your haircut is a truly different viewpoint. Truly different viewpoints are important to have, as they help maintain intelligence and diversity.

i'm a big fan of balance and indulging in both that positive and the negative when it's appropriate to do so. you can't know one without the other and that's something that's often beat out of people by religion.

It was traditionally beat out of people by religion to control people... so that the balance of their viewpoint can be maintained. Thus, it can be a very good thing. Strict religious rules can be very, very good for culture and people. This is fact, whether you accept it or not is irrelevant.

But most people will not be able to understand this until their put their mindset outside of the western culture and society they grew up in, which is the reverse... and allows intolerance of intolerance. Which people think is good... based on what they have been brought up with and told...... but most people are not truly thinking for themselves.

However, I could never really bring myself to throw away what I held as common sense at the time and just blindly follow, unquestioningly.

Because you have that luxury in today's convenient world. But are you better off for it? You yourself admitted you understood and felt like you were missing out on the ocean of other people out there who have no doubts.

There was a time when my mother was going through an atheistic phase, during which she really enjoyed her life, lived in the moment, and so on. But then, she became a Catholic again, and nowadays she can't even enjoy her life because she's too busy worrying about her duties as a Catholic and politics

Is she saying she can't enjoy herself with her new Catholic lifestyle, or are you the one saying it for her? Implanting those ideas in her head? One persons enjoyment is another persons hell, and vice versa.

I just wanted to use true examples that religion has never really had a positive effect in the life of anyone that I know. I do recognize that there are people that can be fulfilled by it, but I've only ever seen it bring the negative aspects to people.

Not in your area of the planet, in this life time.... where we are surrounded by a mainstream culture constantly putting other ideas in our heads.

But The Amish for example live very functional lives, and they seem pretty damn happy from what I've seen of them. They have no doubts about their lifestyles either because they do not allow outside influence of any kind to pollute their minds. They don't allow those choices into their heads to nag away at them, and leave them confused and questioning.

And it can easily be argued that they are a much more functional and successful society as a result, despite lacking all our modern technology.

Imagine if the bible was written perfectly with no flaws and no questionable morality in it. Christianity would never go away. Now the times are changing too fast for it to keep up. If the level of education continues to increase I'd guess in two hundred years the vast majority of humans will become agnostic. Oh, and I'm an agnostic atheist myself. Not a homer in the slightest

But according to the bible it was written perfectly. How do we know it has flaws in morality? Who are you to have an opinion on the "words of god"? Have you spent years in isolation studying philosophy, deep thinking and the like which the original scholars did? I highly doubt it. Therefore you should know that your opinion, by definition, is automatically less likely to be valid.

Most people who challenge religion bear the hallmarks of the aforementioned ordinary joe, finger pointing and picking at
small surface details of apparent hypocrisy which they have managed to understand, without understanding the wider picture at hand.

But of course we can't go around saying anyone's opinion is invalid, that would be too objective. Everyone is clearly entitled to their opinions today, even if they are wrong

[youtube]19GTl7h7waw[/youtube]

6:53 Daniell Dennet, one of the smartest men in philosophy, warning of the dangers of no religion.

But according to the bible it was written perfectly. How do we know it has flaws in morality? Who are you to have an opinion on the "words of god"? Have you spent years in isolation studying philosophy, deep thinking and the like which the original scholars did? I highly doubt it. Therefore you should know that your opinion, by definition, is automatically less likely to be valid.

This setnenence is written perfectly byu a god. Who are you to have an opinion on the "words of god"? Besides an idea is valid no matter from where it originates. No need for years of isolation in this case at least.

Most people who challenge religion bear the hallmarks of the aforementioned ordinary joe, finger pointing and picking at
small surface details of apparent hypocrisy which they have managed to understand, without understanding the wider picture at hand.

Such small surface details as the discrimination of women and homosexuals? God being a dick through to whole bible? Even the story of the garden of Eden has the highly questionable subtext "knowledge is bad for you".

But of course we can't go around saying anyone's opinion is invalid, that would be too objective. Everyone is clearly entitled to their opinions today, even if they are wrong

I think you should "think more".

[Octillus]

Everyone is clearly entitled to their opinions today, even if they are wrong

My sentiments except I'm not so arrogant to assume I'm right all the time. But what's right to you isn't right to someone from a different perspective even coming almost to the same conclusion, also, this thread has clearly run its course.