Category Archives: Keep it Metal!

Pros and cons

As the ALCP’s candidate for the Mana electorate, I was interviewed this morning by Nigel Hopkins (“the Rascal”) on Beach FM. I sang the praises of cannabis, God’s miracle plant.

The Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party exists to legalise cannabis for recreational, spiritual, medicinal and industrial purposes; to empower people to work together for peace and true justice; and to institute a proper and just balance between the power of the state and the rights and dignity of the individual. We believe adults have the right to freedom of choice unless that choice harms other people or the planet.

I’ll post the interview soon. Apart from that, not much time for campaigning. Or blogging. Thank God for my co-blogger Tim who is taking up the slack!

Unanswered

All who call on God in true faith, earnestly from the heart, will certainly be heard, and will receive what they have asked and desired, although not in the hour or in the measure, or the very thing which they ask. Yet they will obtain something greater and more glorious than they had dared to ask. – Martin Luther

I asked God for strength that I might achieve. I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey. I asked for health that I might do greater things. I was given infirmity that I might do better things. I asked for riches that I might be happy. I was given poverty that I might be wise. I asked for power that I might have the praise of men. I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God. I asked for all things that I might enjoy life. I was given life that I might enjoy all things. I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for. Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered. I am, among all men, most richly blessed. – Martin Luther

Pray, and let God worry. – Martin Luther

Behind the Crooked Cross

Time melts away in this living inferno,
Trapped by a cause that I once understood.
Feeling a sickness building inside of me,
Who will I really have to answer to?

March on through the rivers of red.
Souls drift, they fill the air.
Forced to fight behind
The crooked cross. …

(Is Slayer a Satanic band? Yes or no? You decide! I posted this track because it’s an appropriate follow-up to my previous post. Oh, and Slayer is the greatest heavy metal band of all time.)

Amore metallico!

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Brother Cesare Bonizzi is a Capuchin friar belonging to the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. He was (until recently) also the vocalist for the heavy metal band Fratello Metallo (“Brother Metal”).

“Metal is the most energetic, vital, deep and true musical language that I know,” said Bonizzi, adding that it allowed him to communicate “not religious messages, but themes of faith that have a bearing on life and which are experienced musically in a secular key.”

“Heavy metal has given me the opportunity to meet a world of people of a unique beauty and tenderness,” said Bonizzi. “Metal is the strength of music itself. Metal is a brother.”

Bonizzi blames the devil for his decision to quit two years ago. “The devil has separated me from my managers, risked making me break up with my band colleagues and also risked making me break up with my fellow monks. He lifted me up to the point where I become a celebrity and now I want to kill him,” said the metal monk in his farewell video.

He’s not just a headbanger, though. Bonizzi has an extensive discography, spanning many genres. Catholic tastes? His official website is here.

Hallelujah, brother!

Disengage

One day there will be no more pain, like an opiate wonderland
No more worry, it will all just end
And all of our forward movement will finally cease

The human machine will finally bleed
The human machine will finally cease to be

So set yourself free
And disengage from reality
So set yourself free
And disengage from reality

The grounds will shake and your children will tremble
Soon enough the machine will fall
And we will all crumble
The human machine will finally bleed and cease to be
We’ll finally be set free
Be set free
Be set free

Just be glad you know what life is
Be glad you know
You know what life is
You know what life is

One day there will be no worry
No more pain, it will all just end
And all of our forward movement will finally cease

Disengage
Disengage
Disengage
Disengage
Disengage
Disengage
Disengage

Lyrics by Mitch Lucker.

Objectivism‘s founder Ayn Rand, for all her genius, was a bad philosopher. She, and her successor Leonard Peikoff, attempt to define God out of existence in what maverick philospher Bill Vallicella likens to “a bad ontological argument in reverse”.

It is like a bad ontological argument in reverse. On one bad version of the ontological argument, one defines God into existence by smuggling the notion of existence into the concept of God and then announcing that since we have the concept of God, God must exist. Peikoff is doing the opposite: he defines God and the supernatural out of existence by importing their nonexistence into the term ‘existence.’ But you can no more define God into existence than you can define him out of existence.

Here‘s one example of Rand in action.

Catholicism and communism … Their differences pertain only to the supernatural, but here, in reality, on earth, they have three cardinal elements in common: the same morality, altruism—the same goal, global rule by force—the same enemy, man’s mind.

Note that Rand uses the term ‘reality’ to refer to this world only, excluding the next. Perhaps this use of the term is not so uncommon. Surely, Mitch Lucker had some such definition in mind when he exhorts us to “disengage from reality”.

From a Christian perspective, to disengage from reality is to disengage from this world. This world is Satan’s dominion. Jesus said (speaking to the Jews)

You are of this world; I am not of this world.

and

Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.

Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out.

From a Christian perspective, to disengage from reality is to follow Christ. To disengage is also to let go, to set free, to remit, to release, to pardon, to forgive.

Disengage is a song about forgiveness and about following Christ (with lashings of Christian eschatology). Stretching too long a bow? Just be glad you know what life is.