In this edition, I am going to raise the following question - "Does religion have any place in Metal?" and I shall also give the answer.

First of all, let's get acquainted with what Religion really is. A religion is a set of beliefs, written down by man, offering advice on how people should live their lives and attempting to explain questions that have puzzled mankind for millennia, such as those to do with creation, existence & purpose. The answers to these questions are ofcourse, nothing more than theory. Theory, of which most has been disproved by the proven art of science, time & time again. The unproven percentage that remains, is presently not attestable and as such, there is no answer, regardless of what the various religions would have you believe.

With the above in mind, you should now clearly be able to see that religion is nothing more than a fantasists dream and merely a ploy to manoeuvre a group of people into an aligned way of thinking. Eg. do this and you shall benefit from it once you are dead, do that and you shall endure grave misfortunes - this being the ultimate weapon in any religion's armoury, the power of suggestion. The mere suggestion that there are rewards for an assortment of different activities and the promise of some glorious salvation in a revered afterlife, drive many willing compatriots into blind submission.

These days, the religious fanatics no longer have as much power as they once did, which has opened the door, if only a crack and allowed the light of common sense to seep through and shine upon the civilised populations of the world. As such, each day, more and more people are realising the falsities of religion & blind faith. However, there is also an alarming growth of individuals who seek to shelter themselves from real life and instead to embrace the dying art of living the archaic religiously fanatic, faith based lifestyle. There is another term that can be used for said people - depressives & generally mentally unwell. However the fanatic powers that be, have helped create a society that doesn't see the religious fanatics as mentally ill and instead we get such politically correct nonsense such as "everybody being entitled to their beliefs" & "there are no savage peoples, just different cultures".

If you were to look back at an unarguably bloody past, you can at first see that the route to all war lies squarely at the feet of differing religions, basically arguing over who is right and who is wrong. The roots of all discrimination, of any kind, lie within religion.

Ok, so now that you fully understand what religion is, let me now ask the question - Does religion have any place in Metal?

To answer this question, I must first split the question into 2 seperate components. 1> Does religion have any place in Metal music? & 2> Does religion have any place in the Metal sub-culture?

In answer to the first question, does it have any place in the music, I can say almost definitely - yes there is a place in Metal music for religion. Metal music is NOT ideologically restrictive when it comes to themes of religion & politics, as such, religious based lyrics can not be prohibited from Metal. However, they should be categorised correctly, which at present, they tend not to be. I raised the point earlier about religion being a fantasists dream, which clearly makes religion nothing more than a total fantasy. As such, any band with religious based lyrics, should be classified by the style of music that they play, with a supplementary description of "with fantasy based lyrics". This also means that the proposed Metal sub-genre of "Christian Metal" (using Christianity as an example of religion here) does not and cannot exist. It also means that Black Metal should not and cannot be considered as "Satanic Metal" and that much of Black Metal is fantasy based, but unlike Power Metal which usually explores the lighter side of fantasy, Black Metal tends to focus on the darker side of fantasy.

Now, in answer to the second question, does it have any place in the Metal sub-culture - this is really a moot point. The Metal sub-culture is diverse and includes a diverse range of people. I think that the best way to answer this question is - get a group of metalheads together and see if they all suddenly start preaching religion to each other. Note: It won't happen and if it did, it is debateable if they'd still be metalheads! As such, religion doesn't really have any place in the Metal sub-culture, it is a totally different lifestyle, one that is very rarely able to co-exist side by side with Metal, without the religious side becoming prevalent and taking control. Compare the religious lifestyle to a parasite, the result is generally the same, religion feeds off of the blind faith of the depressive members of the populace.

That's it from me, for yet another edition. Cya!

The Master.