Here's a good one. Rush "Freewill"

There are those who think that life has nothing left to chance
A host of holy horrors to direct our aimless dance

A planet of play things
We dance on the strings
Of powers we cannot perceive
'The stars aren't aligned
Or the gods are malign...'
Blame is better to give than receive

[Chorus:]
You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill
I will choose a path that's clear
I will choose freewill

There are those who think
That they were dealt a losing hand
The cards were stacked against them
They weren't born in Lotusland

All preordained
A prisoner in chains
A victim of venomous fate
Kicked in the face
You can't pray for a place
In heaven's unearthly estate

[Chorus]

Each of us
A cell of awareness
Imperfect and incomplete
Genetic blends
With uncertain ends
On a fortune hunt that's far too fleet

[Chorus]

Man, I love Rush.


Here is "Best God in Show' by NOFX. They are OK as a punk band, a little too happy for me, but the Atheism is pretty overt and I can't help but respect that.


I have no consideration
Zero mutual respect
For billions who suffer from rational thought neglect
I don't wanna waste a sentence
I don't want a conversation
That's gonna end in disdain disbelief and aggravation

And I find it's getting harder to hang out
With grown adults who actually believe
In Santa Clause and Noah's Ark, and Their god is the best
My distaste has turned into detest

Who would read a 2000-year-old medical journal?
Techniques for blood-letting
Advice on trichinosis
Would you navigate the globe
With a map of a flat Earth?
Without DNA testing would you believe virgin birth?

And I find it's getting painful to put up
With grown adults who actually believe
In unicorns and creation and god always takes their side
That's when my innocent jabbing turns snide

Thank god for the Grammy
Thank god for the touchdown
Thank god for blowing up the enemy's sacred ground
So how am I supposed to take anything you say seriously
When you swap free will for faith, hope and pre-destiny?

And it's getting agonizing to hang out
With grown adults who actually believe
Mythology and history trump physics and science
My aversion has turned to abhorrence


Read more: NOFX - BEST GOD IN SHOW LYRICS http://www.metrolyric...
Copied from MetroLyrics.com

Dear god by XTC

Dear god,

, hope you got 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!

, 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 in

I won't believe in heaven and 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 that
Father, Son and Holy Ghost is just somebody's unholy hoax,
and if you're up there you'd perceive that my heart's here upon
my sleeve. If there's one thing I don't believe in

It's you.

I know where heaven is. I know where hell is. I know where purgatory is

and I know where he lives, where he lives, where he lives.

Primitive, ignorant, gullible, human mind… human MIND!

http://peaceofrock.ne...

Standin’ on a rock, floatin’ in space.
No one’s above the stars with a bearded face.
Sittin’ on a rock, floatin’ in space. What we do to our home is such a disgrace.

Too many want more than they really need. Justify through worship to satisfy their greed.
Too many wars, make believe at the core. Most do as their told, don’t know what it’s for.

Kneelin’ on a rock, floatin’ in space.
No one’s above the stars with a bearded face.
Lyin’ on a rock, floatin’ in space. What we do to each other is such a disgrace.

Too many want more than they really need. Justify through worship to satisfy their greed.
Too many wars, make believe at the core. Most do as their told, don’t know what it’s for.

Too many want more than they really need. Justify through worship to satisfy their greed.
Too many wars, make believe at the core. Most do as their told, don’t know what it’s for.

Squattin’ on a rock, floatin’ in space.
No one’s above the stars with a bearded face.
Stuck on rock, floatin’ in space. No wrath from an ancient book are we goin’ face.

Standin, sittin’, kneelin’, lyin’, squatin’ and we're all stuck on a rock, yes we are, all stuck on a rock.

Floatin' in Space by Peace of Rock

I've been working my way through the Reasonable Doubts podcast's back catalog and just heard an episode they did about atheist/freethinker music.

Something about this sort of focus makes me feel really weird, and not in a good way. I was HUGELY into christian music when I was still in the church-- I subscribed to 7ball, went to the festivals, the whole bit. That I could have all these things that sounded and looked like normal indie/alternative music, but still reaffirm my faith and not have to worry about "questionable" content felt really important to me at the time.

What a whackjob, amirite?

I understand that threads and conversations like this aren't promoting these songs as alternatives to listening to "other" music, they're just meant to highlight clever or interesting contributions to mainstream culture that positively reflect our shared worldview. It's just that it reminds me of that mindset that I used to have-- that every song/show/film/image has to be sifted through and analyzed for its deeper meaning and its influence on me.

RL, I listened to your clip of Floatin' In Space, sounds good. Sounds like You have some CS&N influence going on there. It reminds me of Southern Cross.

I wouldn't call them atheist lyrics, but Woodstock has a great refrain that is often misheard.


Well I came across a child of God, he was walking along the road
And I asked him tell where are you going, this he told me:

Well, I'm going down to Yasgur's farm, going to join in a rock and roll band.
Got to get back to the land, set my soul free.

We are stardust,
we are golden,
we are billion year old carbon,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

Well, then can I walk beside you? I have come to lose the smog.
And I feel like I'm a cog in something turning.

And maybe it's the time of year, and maybe it's the time of man.
And I don't know who I am but life is for learning.

We are stardust,
we are golden,
we are billion year old carbon,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

By the time we got to Woodstock, we were half a million strong,
And everywhere there was song and celebration.

And I dreamed I saw the bomber death planes riding shotgun in the sky,
Turning into butterflies above our nation.

We are stardust,
we are golden,
we caught in the devil's bargain,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

Of course >Joni Mitchell< wrote the song, and she didn't even make it to Woodstock. CS&N changed up the lyrics from her original version.

I always liked this bit from Metallica's My Friend of Misery:

You just stood there screaming
Fearing no one was listening to you
They say the empty can rattles the most
The sound of your voice must soothe you
Hearing only what you want to hear
And knowing only what you've heard
You you're smothered in tragedy
You're out to save the world

For electronic music fans, System Syn has a couple clearly atheistic songs, "The Void" and "Now." "The Void" is mostly nihilistic, but it still has some good lyrics:

Understand I have no faith
...
Understand I have no soul
The concept is a man-made joke
But it’s been told longer than I’ve been alive
And now the words come without thought
Just patterns, sounds that we were taught
So let them fade, like shadows in the night

With each new day
I will fade a little more
To a blur, and in a memory
And soon you won’t remember
Who that prayer was for

"Now" is solidly existentialist:

These days hold all the glory that you'll ever know
You pray for change for your whole life and let the beauty of the moment go
You hope to have a face one day but have no means to form expression
And when you suffocate on this you won't exist to learn your lesson
I don't want to live my life to think there's something more
I touch the things I want to feel
If it burns me then it's real
I don't care if you define your life by what you do not have
But I can't live my life that way
There's so much more I have to say before I say goodbye

There is nothing more than what exists before your eyes in this moment
And this moment breathes for you alone
This sunset burns for you alone
No change could burn it brighter
No new horizon could keep it in the sky forever

There's a part of me you never knew
The same thing could be said for you
I have no desire to try
To hold my past or live a lie
There are words you will never speak
People you will never meet
Heights to which you'll never climb
And all your dreams will fade away in time

There is nothing more

Now is all we have

Long before I knew what atheism was, I had a song called "Two Sides" by Clawfinger that I really liked. It essentially promoted agnosticism via the argument from religious confusion. Back then, I didn't even know what to search for when looking for people who might share my ideas on the internet. The first thing I tried was posting on the Clawfinger message board about my thoughts on the song. Some people there gave terminology for the ideas therein, and finally I had some clues to go on.

There's nothing a god can give to me that I can't give to myself
I put my beliefs in the things I believe, and a god can take care of himself
There's not enough love in the world for me to think about wasting my time
It's not that I don't believe at all, but I don't need a heavenly sign
I can achieve the things I need without getting down on my knees
I can respect your religion, but I don't want to pay your fees
I don't want to hear you talk about the things you think that I need
So don't help me back on my feet again until you can hear me plead
Just look in the holy book of crooks and tell me what you can find
All the rules and the regulations made to manipulate your mind
Don't pretend that you're blind just open your mind and study historical times
The bigger the loss the bigger the cost the bigger the cross and its crimes

I don't believe in a god that I need to worship
I don't believe that I need to get down on my knees
I don't believe that a voice from above can help me
I only believe in what I can see and the things that I can achieve

Whatever belief you belong to there is always a reason to doubt
and there's always another opinion as to what life is all about
there's always a bigger dimension and a different point of view
so I don't want to try to change you that decision is up to you
Whatever your final choice is and however you choose to live
you better be happy for what you can get and happy with what you can give
there's only one thing to remember there is only one thing you can do
and that is to do unto others as you'd have others do unto you

Two sides two sides to every story
Two stories more makes four new ones to choose
Four sides four sides to every story
Four stories more makes eight new ones to choose
Eight sides eight sides to every story
Eight stories more now which one should you choose
Now which one can you use

Another very early favorite was "Unholy Roller" by Electric Hellfire Club. It's a song about church-state separation that cracks me up every time I listen to it.

There are plenty of more popular artists with clearly atheistic/anti-religion songs. To name a few, "Heresy" by Nine Inch Nails, "The Fight Song" by Marilyn Manson, "Salvation" by Five Finger Death Punch, "Crucify" by Ozzy Osbourne, and "The Noose" by A Perfect Circle.

[Yes I have heard the reference to Southern Cross before, I can't say we planned it that way. The lead acustic guitar was played by a guy named Jon Weaver who once played the Nashville sceen. I have heard the song sounds a little like Sweet Home Alabama also. Once again, we didn't plan it that way. It is an interesting process how songs get fully created over several months of studio time. The lead guitar and the lead organ on the song were played independently of each other. Neither player heard the others part until it was finished]

RL, I listened to your clip of Floatin' In Space, sounds good. Sounds like You have some CS&N influence going on there. It reminds me of Southern Cross.