For this ridiculous religion thing. Let’s hear it for the smart young people who are starting to wake up:
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
For this ridiculous religion thing. Let’s hear it for the smart young people who are starting to wake up:
I don’t usually like rap, but this one had nice lyrics at least. It’s refreshing to hear hip-hop lyrics that are actually meaningful, versus the genre-standard songs of bitches and hoes :-/
Marvellous. If I were still a believer, I’d pray that this young man and many others like him will continue to channel their anger into fearless words and constructive deeds.
Get that man a record contract!
This man’s soul is in peril! Somebody send him a Chick tract, stat!
Clyde Weys: Very well expressed!
I don’t usually like rap, but this one had nice lyrics at least. It’s refreshing to hear hip-hop lyrics that are actually meaningful, versus the genre-standard songs of bitches and hoes :-/
You should check out more hip hop. There are lots of styles and themes, and while the standard “bitchez and hoes” and stuff may be the industry standard, there are plenty of other folks doing great work. One of my favorites is Michael Franti.
For more of him see: http://www.thecomptoneffect.com
This reminds me of a line from an article written by Richard Dawkins discussing books written by atheists:
“If those books are, as is often dismissively said, preaching to the choir, do not underestimate its size or ability. This is a very large and very talented choir,and the time has come for its music to be heard.”
I don’t know if atheist books influenced the YouTube artist’s work, but he is very talented and we are hearing music.
Many of the things he wrote are the things that I have been expressing about why I am an atheist; one of them stands out and was the question that I had that made me reject Christianity specifically. (paraphrasing) “Why would you send your own son to die to correct a defect that you created in the first place?
If God created the world, created mankind and free-will; to whom was he making the sacrifice when Jesus died on the cross? To Himself? The whole salvation enabled by the Cross thing is twisted so much like a pretzel that I can’t follow its justification.
The more rap I listen to the more I like it, the bravado of “bitches and ho’s” and “how do you like me now?” is a distraction of many of the issues that rap really does speak to. One of the best raps I have heard is Ice Cubes “Who’s the Mac?” Check it out sometime, Cyde.
@Cyd Weys
There’s a LOT of rap out there that’s not about “bitches & hos”. Some of it is quite good.
Check out Blackalicious, Jurassic 5, and even some N.E.R.D.
I’m generally more of a rock guy, but those are three rap groups that have my deep respect.
I want to second Mike H’s sentiments about hip-hop. The bluster which gets played on the radio is rather lame and though it doesn’t seem like so, it’s rather sanitized. Hip Hop is a rather “dangerous” form of music. I know I wasn’t around during the rebel years of rock and roll, but the message in much of hip hop is rather more revolutionary than anything my dad has in his vinyl collection. Groups/artists like the Roots, Tribe Called Quest, Blackalicous (Chemical Calistenics is a song all science geeks would love), Mos Def and even the Black Eyed Peas’ first two albums are incredibly talented and politically astute with their lyrics.
Just to chime in with some other great intelligent hip hop artists, I thought I’d mention Mr. Lif, Dead Prez, and Sarah Jones.
I used to write some pretty wicked poetry on atheism, and most of it could easily be turned into hip hop lyrics, I’m sure. If I just had webcam I’d probably take this blasphemy challenge with one of my lyrics.
That man is literally keeping it real.
I’d buy his music!
Well said, Paul. Others should check out ‘Chemical Calesthenics’ by Blackalicious for an example.
Ya I don’t mind straight-up rap at all. His lyrics have a very good rythm, and he gets it all out while posing important questions. I also appreciated that it didn’t have the “gloss” of popular hip-hop albums, i.e. the B&H stuff. I, like everyone else, can’t stand that. Message music hits me much better than music that’s just about your bling.
Good work.
I’m a rock, post-rock, classical and techno kind of guy, but hey, good music is good music.
Huh! If that were likely, you’d expect there to be proportionately fewer idiots today than back in the day of Pontius Pilate (the actual historical figure of the age, rather than
Brian, um, I mean Jesus).The guy’s great!
This made my Sunday.
(P.S. – To add to the list of interesting, “bitches and hos”-free rap: Gorillaz does some darn good stuff, accompanied by the slickest band-related animation this side of “The Wall.”)
Awesome. Great lyrics.
You are a very talented rapper. I’m a professional jazz musician so I have some qualifications to make that statement. I’d ask you this though… Is your anger directed at God or Jesus in particular or at the failings on humans who took those fundamental true spritual laws that were set forth and created “religious” organizations, practices and the rest that like all man made things are infected with greed, lies, pride, lust and the rest of the big 7? Show me a direct qoute of Jesus that you are angry about if that’s truly the case… God didn’t create religion… just the universe and the laws that govern it… he tried once to set some rules for us (old testament law) and found that we were useless at following rules. We still are… Is that his fault just because he gave us the gift of free will?
Hypocrites that use religious beliefs for selfish gain piss me off a lot more than people who simply are blinded by their own intellegence to the simple truths of life. The blind just get comfortable being blind and when offered sight are afraid how it will change them. (What will all my blind friends think if I can see now? Fear is the enemy of the spirit and our ego’s will take great pains to protect their fragile fortresses) Being right becomes far more important then than feeling anything… much less love…
Keep rapping in any case, you’ve been given a great talent … and don’t worry about turning your back on God, You can’t turn your back on God anymore than a fish can turn it’s back on water.
I say that in the spirit of Love… unless someone here can prove that love doesn’t exist either… If you can I’ll happily go back to being alone and afraid all the time…
Try admiting you are (not were) wrong about something, anything today and see how you feel after that. Just a suggestion.
The funny thing about Love is it still feels good whether you belive it exists or not…
Oh, and before anyone accuses me of trying to “convert” anyone I’m not and I don’t. Belief doesn’t happen like that. Look at the evidence around you, your personal experiences, lose your preconcieved ideas or prejudices and see what’s really out there for yourself. That’s scientific thinking.
Here’s the fundamental question though. (no it’s not was Jesus married or is abortion ethical) it’s simply this: God is or God is Not. the answer is a 1 for yes and a 0 for no. Pick one and stick to it absolutley! Time’s runnin out… One thing I know for sure is no-one’s getting off this planet alive!
-Love to Listen, Listen to Love. (annoyingly spiritual isn’t it)
(Insert sound of squeeling egos here…)
Peace- Greg.
blind lead the blind. the young man never was a follower of Jesus. Jesus still loves you. Matthew 15:11-14 KJV
This isn’t YouTube, you morons. The young man will likely never read your comments. He can’t magically hear you, either.
Scienceblogs – come for the science, stay for the hilarious comments.
Clever. The guy’s got talent. I don’t usually care for rap music, but this is good.
re#9″Why would you send your own son to die to correct a defect that you created in the first place?”
Why would a god of love create humans with so many genetic defects that are passed on from one generation to another and then give atheists the ability to fix them?
Regarding Hip-Hop:
Seconding Blackalicious (and Gift of Gab, solo) and Dead Prez, et al.
Dead Prez, from “Propaganda”:
If God made man, then why the hell would he put us here?
I thought he’s supposed to be the all loving
The same God who let Hitler put the Jews in the oven
Also try out RZA (pronounded ‘rizza’), 2Mex & Baldhead Slick, Copperpot, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Talib Kweli (solo and w/ Hi-Tek), APSCi, Foreign Exchange, and Saul Williams. Also, give Tupac a chance. Despite his bad boy image, the man made some brilliant music and had a lot of important things to say (e.g. “Me Against the World”):
See ladies in stores, Baby Capone’s, livin wealthy
Pictures of my birth on this Earth is what I’m dreamin
Seein Daddy’s semen, full of crooked demons, already crazy
and screamin I guess them nightmares as a child
had me scared, but left me prepared for a while
Is there another route? For a crooked Outlaw
Veteran, a villian, a young thug, who one day shall fall
Once you begin to look at the stories being told (in anecdote, in simile, in poetry and allegory) you’ll find that there’s a lot more to hip-hop than young ego-tripping adolescents looking to get rich.
In the off chance Greg comes back and sees this (I doubt I’ll remember to revisit this post myself):
Look at the evidence around you…
I have. So far, it fails to support any deities at all. Are there unanswered questions? Of course! But I’m not going to assume that a deity did it, I’m going to leave it as currently unanswered and wait for (or seek out) new evidence that can lead to an answer. If that answer ends up being a deity, great! I’m not against such an outcome, I just don’t see any convincing evidence to support it at this time.
Awesome. Makes me want to look into this rap stuff.
I also doubt that Greg will revisit this post, but anyway:
Yes, actually, it is. To say otherwise would be like saying that it isn’t Ford’s fault that the Explorer tends to roll over.
Hm. Religious libertarianism. Interesting.
Ignorance is strength, eh?
Yikes. Remind me never to give you a job.
Actually, the whole point of rejecting religion is to acquire the ability to admit that you’re wrong about something.
Done and done. Hence atheism.
Whoa! Not only did I post this same clip today, I pimped almost exactly the same lyrical chunk for my title.
Apparently, Greyson Square (the rapper) really does hail from Compton and is now a quantum physics major in Tempe, which I guess means at ASU.
Not to piss on everyone’s parade, but I wonder how many here would stick to their “I don’t usually like rap, but this dude’s good!” opinions if the guy were waxing fundagelical instead of heretic. (I think I would; I admit I’m a longtime listener of stuff ranging from KRS-One to Schoolly D to Grandmaster Flash to Whodini to LL Cool J to Third Bass…and much, much worse.)
This is only tangentially related to the topic at hand, but I was just listening to Bill Cosby’s classic sketch about Noah, the one with
and it occurred to me that most of the humor in that sketch comes from Noah applying a little common sense and ordinary skepticism to the deluge story. That is, it’s funny because you’re not supposed to think about the story as you would about any factual report.
Personally, I couldn’t listen to it all the way through. I lasted about 1 minute 20 seconds, got the gist of it, thought “good for you, mate”.
But I loathe rap. Why couldn’t he have just looked at the camera, and said something along the lines of, “You know, all those myths I’ve been fed about religion just don’t sway me anymore”? Does EVERYthing have to have *doosh doosh* to get the attention of young’uns?
“Why couldn’t he have just looked at the camera, and said something along the lines of, “You know, all those myths I’ve been fed about religion just don’t sway me anymore”? Does EVERYthing have to have *doosh doosh* to get the attention of young’uns?”
Exactly. And the same with that annoying Saint-Saëns guy. Why all of the saccharine cellos and stuff? Why didn’t he just say “hey, swans are pretty?”
Nobuddy mentioned Public Enemy. So, Public Enemy.
And, PipeUp, ever wonder why commercials don’t just state plainly, “You know, you should really just buy this thing we are trying to sell you.”?
2000 years from now, people will be making fun of us
why wait?
too many procrastinators.
Well, what criteria am I supposed to evaluate rap on other than message and vocal delivery? Because musically, most hip-hop isn’t exactly earth-shattering. Sure, you can dance to it, but come on, most of these beats are fairly simple and are generally lifted from someone else anyway. I’m not dismissing the entire art form for that–after all, Shakespeare ripped off most of his plots, but it’s what he did with them that made him great.
Although I wouldn’t call rap my favourite kind of music, I know talent when I see it. Tupac was talented, even if I didn’t always agree with his message. Most of these guys today though are all about “the thug life” and “bitches and ‘hos”, and it turns me off. It doesn’t diminish the genre anymore than 80s hair metal (which by the mid-80s was all about misogyny and getting into pointless bar fights) tainted all of heavy metal and hard rock. I do like finding non-mainstream rap acts that are talented and whose message I appreciate, like Greydon Square, Mr. Lif or Sage Francis.
No, no one will be making fun of this 2000 years from now.
First, there is a very good chance humanity will destroy itself with more and more advanced wmds well before that; and further it is certain that the ephermal cyber material will have been long since wiped out by then.
Rest assured, you will be forgotten.
Exactly. And the same with that annoying Saint-Saëns guy. Why all of the saccharine cellos and stuff? Why didn’t he just say “hey, swans are pretty?”
Best comment I’ve seen all week.
That was good stuff.
I see you folks have met my bro?
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