God Eat God
There seems to be an endless amount of hatred in this world. Most of it is old hatred which is the worst kind as it can’t remember why it exists. Oh sure, you can get the party line, “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away; this god gave me a book and in it was a line about me being good and just and you being bad and unjust so therefore; I must now bomb you back to the stone age”. Religious logic rarely holds up under close scrutiny and although it can do tremendous good in the world, like any tool, it’ll do anything you tell it to.
Whenever I see a report of a suicide bomber taking out a café or bus, it’s always a person in their teens or early twenties that has the TNT strapped to them. This is because it’s easy for older (and more manipulative) heads to sway the minds of young people with heady words like ‘Destiny’, ‘Righteousness’ and ‘Holy War’. The young can do ANYTHING they put their minds to, as the truly important lessons that show that there is no easy way, take years to learn. Teenagers want to engage with the world immediately in any way they can and when you are still searching for a quick fix to find your identity and make you mark in the world, they word ‘martyr’ becomes a very compelling noun indeed. It solves all your problems and you don’t have to be around to face the consequences.
So why choose a three minute pop song to try and put this concept across? Well, it seemed fitting in a world where we try to shoehorn huge concepts into ever shrinking spaces, that a subject which cannot even be truly contained by such revered tomes as the Bible or the Koran, should be stuffed into the bars of a three minute ditty.
I love the irony.