Imagine: no John Lennon
Firstly, I KNOW I’ll get some stick for this. John Lennon has plenty of fans, particularly for one of his best known works, “Imagine”.
I must admit that I’m a fan of the Beatles - I love their music and I think they were generally good guys. However, I just listened to John Lennon’s Imagine on YouTube and then looked up the lyrics to double check.
I’ve got to say I’m appalled by the song. Not because it’s anti-establishmentist, something that I’m not overly bothered about, but because it’s against religion. I’m not a fan of “religion” really - the word itself conjures up pictures of fanatics, priests performing meaningless ceremonies and profiteering. However, I do believe strongly that people should be allowed to believe what they want as long as they are given options - for example, being informed of other faiths as well as their own or their parents.
“Imagine” is strongly against religion entirely:
“Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky”…”Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too”
The rest of the song, fine I’ll tolerate, but not this. John Lennon appeared to be such a liberal, yet at the same time believed that religion/faith should be removed. Isn’t that a contradiction? Surely its up to a person to look deep into their heart and make their own decision about faith and God - not have some anarchic atheist mob forcibly making people believe what they wish. Brainwashing with religion is as bad as brainwashing with atheism - by default people are generally agnostics when they are born and then are pushed one way or the other by the society they believe in.
John Lennon called himself liberal and peace-loving yet any act to remove religion or force people to believe atheism would be entirely against peace. To me, John Lennon seems to have been a hypocrite.
I await criticism on this, because I know I’ll receive it…
February 27th, 2008 at 8:57 am
You are mis-understanding it completely.
He isn’t saying you shouldnt belive necassarily he means that the world would be much more peacful if people didnt argue war fight etc because of religion, you have to understand religion it self is responsible for count less wars and death, arguments, insults…
Thats his point nothing about “forcing” people to be athiests.
Dan
February 27th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
I have to disagree, certainly to an extent.
Religion, a simple belief, doesn’t cause wars and unrest - acting on these beliefs MAY. People down the ages have often used religion to gain the upper hand and gain recognition and support so that they can gain more power. Take the Crusades - the New Testament especially does not call people to go charging off after “infidels”, but Medieval kings and the Roman Catholic church manipulated and used religion to justify their wars simply to further increase their power.
Religion is not to blame (on the whole) - it is people who manipulate and use it that is. Even if religion was non-existent, you’d still find plenty of people who wanted to fight for power, wealth or whatever and you’d then realise that religion was not the cause of wars, simply something that has been repeatedly used for justification for such actions.
February 28th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
I think you and John Lennon strongly agree with each other.
You say people should be free to believe what they want. I couldn’t agree more (except I really think people should believe in Jesus). I think John L couldn’t agree any more, either. Look at it this way - do you believe in Jesus, or the Pope? Religion is the kind of word that can mean some really different things to differnt people in different contexts. To a lot of people, it means a collective group belief or practice or habbit or whatever. Like if your church says you do something a certain way. I’m anti religion but pro Jesus - I think people need their own personal relationship with God, instead of some institution separating them.
De La Soul has a line in a song that almost moves me to tears - I’ve blogged about this before
When I’m watching the news
and my daughter choose
to come in and ask
“Who are all those people, laying on the ground, sleeping, covered in red?”
I tell her
“They were searching for God, but found religion instead.”
Macio and Lennon aren’t saying we have to all be athiests to be cool - they’re saying do things because you understand them to be right, not because someone else told you to. I think they’re using the word religion to mean dogma.
The part about no heaven and no hell, there’s a hip hop group Forest introduced me to with a line in one of their songs that goes “Heaven and hell is a matter of whether you’ve ever felt hollow or whole.” I don’t think you have to wait to die to be in heaven - it means being united with God. Again, I think the song is saying what the world would be like if we found real heaven, instead of waiting on a promise of what other people tell us it will be like or about.
March 27th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
QUOTE:
you’d still find plenty of people who wanted to fight for power, wealth or whatever and you’d then realise that religion was not the cause of wars,
He kind says that these things wouldn’t exist too…
No heaven, no possessions, no one owned anything or controlled anything, so if no one has anything or controls anything theres nothing to take! lol
Just the idea of having absolutely nothing and people just existing and living in complete and utter harmony with everything and everyone.
- BTW, i no fan of JL and him singing this song annoys me because i just don’t like the sound.
Dan x
April 1st, 2008 at 6:17 am
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