Atheist Anthems

[TheRocketSurgeon]

I've been thinking about a couple of music videos I posted, such as "Who Wants to Live Forever" (Queen), in the Songs That Make You Cry thread, which I consider to have atheistic themes. So I was wondering what songs you guys consider to be "atheist anthems", or songs that promote a secular worldview. The most obvious answer is "Imagine" by John Lennon, so I'm leaving that one out. Here are my first three submissions. I also see that this thread has been attempted before, so try to make it last longer, this time! (THAT'S WHAT SHEEEE SAID!!)

Post as many/few as you like, but do highlight the lyrics or passage you think makes it an Atheist Anthem.

"The Idiots Are Taking Over" - NoFX

"...Darwin's rolling over in his coffin,
The fittest are surviving much less often,
Now everything seems to be reversing, and it's worsening!
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool
Now angry mob mentality's no longer the exception, it's the rule,
And I'm starting to feel a lot like Charlton Heston
Stranded on a primate planet,
Apes and orangutans that ran it to the ground
With generals and the armies that obeyed them,
Followers following fables,
Philosophies that enable them to rule without regard ...

What are we left with?
A nation of God-fearing pregnant nationalists
Who feel it's their duty to populate the homeland
Pass on traditions,
How-to-get-ahead religions,
And prosperity via simpleton culture.
The idiots have taken over!"


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czx2p-GHBhk

"Judith" by A Perfect Circle

"You're such an inspiration for the ways 
That I will never, ever choose to be! 
Oh so many ways for me to show you 
How the savior has abandoned you. 
Fuck your God,
Your Lord and your Christ!
He did this,
Took all you had and 
Left you this way. 
Still you pray, you never stray, 
Never taste of the fruit. 
You never thought to question why...

Praise the one who left you 
Broken down and paralyzed..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTgKRCXybSM

"Crucify" by Tori Amos

Got a kick for a dog beggin' for love.
I gotta have my suffering
So that I can have my cross!
I know a cat named Easter,
He says, "Will you ever learn?
You're just an empty cage, girl,
If you kill the bird!"

I've been looking for a savior in these dirty streets
Looking for a savior beneath these dirty sheets
I've been raising up my hands,
Drive another nail in.
Got enough guilt to start my own religion.
Please be, 
Save me, I cry.

Why do we
Crucify ourselves?
Every day
I crucify myself.
And nothing I do is good enough for you!
Crucify myself every day,
And my heart is sick of being in chains.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ipCKIxdHTs

[downbeatplumb]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6EhZaFZ-Dc
Lyrics for Dear God By XTC

Dear God, hope you get the letter and
I pray you can make it better down here
I don't mean a big reduction in the price of beer
But all the people that you made in your image
See them starving on their feet
'Cause they don't get enough to eat from God
I can't believe in you

Dear God, sorry to disturb you but
I feel that I should be heard loud and clear
We all need a big reduction in amount of tears
And all the people that you made in your image
See them fighting in the street
'Cause they can't make opinions meet about God
I can't believe in you

Did you make disease and the diamond blue?
Did you make mankind after we made you?
And the Devil too!

Dear God don't know if you noticed but
Your name is on a lot of quotes in this book
And us crazy humans wrote it, you should take a look
And all the people that you made in your image
Still believing that junk is true
Well I know it ain't, and so do you
Dear God
I can't believe in
I don't believe

I won't believe in heaven or hell
No saints, no sinners, no devil as well
No pearly gates, no thorny crown
You're always letting us humans down
The wars you bring, the babes you drown
Those lost at sea and never found
And it's the same the whole world 'round
The hurt I see helps to compound
The Father, Son and Holy Ghost
Is just somebody's unholy hoax
And if you're up there you'll perceive
That my heart's here upon my sleeve
If there's one thing I don't believe in

It's you
Dear God

[LastPoet]

An oldie, but cool. Never thought rap would ever make sense.

https://youtu.be/aAYVY2eLMck

[brewer]

Imagine-John Lennon.

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 countries
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

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

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 live as one

[mediocrates]

A song about no longer holding onto outdated conservative values and not 'selling short' the progressive voice of reason.  One of my favorites...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsRfT5oaMF4

      Bad Religion
"Don't Sell Me Short"
we don't need any more mountains
because the trail builders
failed to give us passage there
so we can't reach the sky

we don't need any more failure
there is human tragedy
that's written everywhere
and we are all too young to die

like a mystery that's here to stay
some people never go away
cuz they've got something to say

don't sell me short!
you've been wrong too long
don't brush me off
just because I don't belong
like it or not I'm all you've got,
dispose when I'm shot
just don't sell me short,
I might not be who you thought

we don't need any more fables
because the writers have passed
and left us lessonless
and we must find our own way

we don't need any more privilege
there is vivid desperation
that is powerless
that no surplus can repay

like the fix of rapture in a trance
oh, fates are sealed by circumstance
so you've got to take a chance

don't sell me short!
you've been wrong too long
don't brush me off
just because I don't belong
pass me on by, ignore my cry,
forget me when I die
just don't sell me short,
not while I'm still alive

everybody's talking about heaven on earth,
I'm still trying to figure out
just what I'm worth
I'm full of emotion
and stuff you can't contain
and you just want to
flush me down the drain
but you can't make me go away

[mediocrates]

or

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlmE3z2_qy8

                NOFX
"I'm going to hell for this one"

Jesus Christ will resurrect
He's got his BMI royalty to collect
He's not the white fragile hippie
He looks and acts more like an indignant ICE-T
Jesus Christ is coming back
He wants to kick Mel Gibson's ass
Superstar, The Passion of
He wants his money, not your love

He's been kickin' 2000 years
He's fixed a lot of sports
and drank a million beers
Some ecstasy, a thin white line
He says designer drugs beat the hell out of wine
Jesus Christ on vacation
Spreading mass sacrilegion
"Sex and drugs, we abstain"
He thinks Christians are insane
They don't know love,
they know fear and moral hauteur
Scare tactics I never taught
"If you're gonna look to me,
better get rose colored shades,
Cuz what you see is what you get"

[mediocrates]

ooh! one more, then someone else can have the floor!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbBlnFtb8W4

     Propaghandi
"Supporting Caste"

When the credits finally roll 
for this, the worst story ever told, 
don't bother sifting through the names 
for yours or anyone you know. 
Unless they were by chance a shepherd king,
a virgin birth, a resurrection, a messianic prince 
or some such childish thing. 
You can storm the edit suite 
or move to block its theatrical release, 
but I think we can safely guarantee
that there will be no revisions to the script 
made on behalf of a supporting cast(e). 

Cause history exalts 
only the pornography of force-
that of murderers and psychopaths 
(the rest of us, of course, 
stricken from the narrative wholesale: 
a back drop to the tale)-

as we, the two-bits, 
are ushered on and swiftly off this stage 
with the jawbones of asses. 
No stirring curtain call for the masses. 
No floral bouquet. No breaking of legs. 
No recurring role. No artistic control. 

And so in these days, 
in this terminal phase, 
it's all left to chance. 
A piece of advice:
if you're cast on thin ice, 
you may as well dance. 

Do what you feel you must, 
but as for me I was not 
put upon this earth 
to subjugate or serve

[abaris]

"The Idiots Are Taking Over" - NoFX

Seems to me quite fitting - for any kind of anthem. Which also gives you a pretty good impression of what I generally think of anthems and the mindset involved.

Thanks, but no thanks.

[mediocrates]

"The Idiots Are Taking Over" - NoFX

Seems to me quite fitting - for any kind of anthem. Which also gives you a pretty good impression of what I generally think of anthems and the mindset involved.

Thanks, but no thanks.

I don't think "anthem" in the literal sense it what this thread was supposed to be about.  I think it's just about good music that has an atheist message or theme.  I won't speak for the OP, but I don't believe anthems and their implied mindset are the goal here.  Just tunes.

[JesusHChrist]

Nine Inch Nails - Heresy

he sewed his eyes shut because he is afraid to see
he tries to tell me what i put inside of me
he's got the answers to ease my curiosity
he dreamed up a god and called it christianity

god is dead and no one cares
if there is a hell i'll see you there

he flexed his muscles to keep his flock of sheep in line
he made a virus that would kill off all the swine
his perfect kingdom of killing suffering and pain
demands devotion atrocities done in his name

god is dead and no one cares
if there is a hell i'll see you there

your god is dead and no one cares
drowning in his own hypocrisy
and if there is a hell i will see you there
burning with your god in humility
will you die for this?