All hope is not lost.

Communist Party of Nepal: "The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN (M)) placed first in the election with 220 out of 575 elected seats"

Japanese Communist Party: "At the July 2007 elections for the House of Councillors, it received 7.5%."

Communist Party of the Russian Federation: "At the last parliamentary elections in 2011, the popularity raised, and they received 19.19% of the vote and 92 seats."

The first two numbers are a bit dated (2007), but from what I understand, these are the most successful communist parties in the world right now outside of the communist states. Better than 1%!

On topic, I completely agree with your post about Christians playing the political correctness persecution card all the time. What is more mind blowing to me is that sensible people actually believe them sometimes! It's like when otherwise sensible atheists join in with Christians criticizing Dawkins for being "rude". Completely unfounded, feeds their bogus narrative, entirely nonconstructive.

Political correctness is bollocks, and should be erased from the face of the earth. If someone says stupid shit, then everyone else has the right to call them on said stupid shit in whichever (non-violent) way they see fit. To be honest though, it infuriates me more when Muslims pull off the PC card, mostly because they're the first ones to disrepect other people's rights and freedoms.

"Political correctness" is a precise term in Maoist jargon referring to historical revisionism that supplants the historical role of the Chinese peasantry (as opposed to the traditional Marxist urban working class) at the center of the historical dialectic in Maoism. Conservatives have taken it and stretched it to mean everything and nothing at once every time someone slightly left-of-center calls them out for being assholes.

The term was also used in the 30's by the Comintern to describe their prescriptions for foreign parties.

I find it hard say that Catholics aren't Christians. Catholicism is the original Christianity, so if anything the other sects of Christianity aren't Christian. But Orthodox Christians are as different from Protestants as Catholics are. And within each there are different groups such as the Westboro Baptist Church. When it comes down to it every single Christian believes in something different and so do all theistic people on this planet. Everyone believes in their own God, because they find out which God will give them the best chance to going to Heaven. Its all a big joke and I'm surprised there are still as many religious people as there are. Even with all of the scientific advancements we have made, people still choose to believe in their imaginary friend up in the sky. Its almost insulting actually, as if scientists spend all of their time for nothing.

Well that had nothing to do with the topic....

On-Topic: All other sects of Christianity are just as bad as the other.

There are major leaders from each group who attempt to pass laws against homosexuals and atheists and anyone else who doesn't agree with them. They are trying to teach creationism in schools. Guys like Pat Robertson and Ken Ham aren't Catholic. The pilgrims weren't Catholic, nor were the majority of people who came to the United States in the 17th and 18th centuries. They still treated the Native Americans terribly.

I think Christians who have been mostly opposed to heavy metal, or rock n' roll for that matter since its inception can be found mostly in the great US of A!
Which, turns out, has a greater number of Protestants than Catholics.

Not true. The jizya is applied to the "people of the book."


No they're not.


Some Muslims may not be anti-Christian, but the Islamic religion most certainly is. Just because it holds Christ to be a prophet doesn't mean it's tolerant of those who worship him as a messiah. That's heresy.

Seriously, people: the "Oh, Islam is 100% nice and dandy and it's just a few icky terrorists spoiling their image!" schtick is getting old. Islamic scriptures are just as full of hate, intolerance and general evil as the Bible.

Inherently, Islam depicts women as inferior.
Enough said!

As does Christianity, metal, rap, conservatism and a slew of others.

Not all metal does that to women. That is a broad and sweeping claim.
Islam however does so in a much more literal sense than any other institution you could name. Calling women "whores" and "bitches" is really not quite the same as forcing them into plural marriage, making them dress a certain way regardless of whether they like it and stoning them to death for a few unseemly acts.

That must be why they impose the shame tax on them.

It is a broad and sweeping claim. Yet, if we decide to talk about Islam (or Christianity, Conservatism... etc) as monolithic entities, we must do the same with metal.

They all do it, lets not single out any one group
They had (have) good reason here as everyone else was free to wear/express themselves as they liked, whilst anyone wearing a crucifix in the workplace was often told take it off or your dismissed. Good many might say, fine but it must apply to all or that is persecution.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ ... story.html

How can a society function in harmony if there's one rule for one while others are exempt? And don't forget this has been a Christian country for 2000 years however you feel about them.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/5662 ... ation.html

What will fill the vacuum?

I read people's posts on fairness and tolerance for all - and are proud to talk of their politically "enlightened" ideals, yet in the next "breath" they feel quite happy to show disdain for certain groups

It's the same old story; All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others.
Fairness for all means ALL, yo'all.

The difference is that metal doesn't have any core scriptures. You can't judge all Muslims as one, but you can judge the central texts around which their faith is meant to be built. You can't do that for metal or conservatism, as they lack anything analogous to scriptures.

You can do it with Christianity, though, yes.

Absolutely. But the subject wasn't the Quran but Islam.
Fact of the matter is, as you very well know (I hope), that Islam (or Christianity, or... you get the point) isn't monolithic. Sweeping generalizations swings both ways.

The Qu'ran is an integral part of Islam, is it not?

Not disputing that. But not synonymous. The Bible does not equal Christianity. The Qu'ran does not equal Islam.

But it feels like we're drifting a bit from the point here. If we generalize, there's no problem talking about any of the world-religions as monolithic, and ignore (sometimes major) differences. But we can do that with a lot of things. And if we generalize about metal, it's pretty stupid to deny that it is generally depicting women as inferior.

Actually it does. And Catholics are not only Christian....they invented it as we know it. The early Catholic church also decided, through a process of picking and choosing what would benefit them, the actual content of the Bible as we know it.

Lol, that's some fucking bullshit.



Thank you, Beast, for being reasonable.

On topic, I would say metalheads in general don't have to fear any real sort of religious persecution in Western society. We've become pretty secular, even here in the USA... the last bastion of Christian fundamentalism, haha. We'll see what the future holds for the West and the rise of Islam's effect on society.... Maybe some of you on the other side of the pond could share your thoughts and perceptions on the issue, since Muslim immigration seems to be a more pressing issue in Europe than here in America.

I disagree on both accounts, as the Bible and the Qu'ran are both major foundations of the two religions, and there is no large problem of depicting women as inferior in metal. Hell, in a recent thread on the subject, one poster discussing women in a negative light was completely outflanked by everyone else in the thread, and outside this little microcosm, I've just not seen it, not to the point where it's some large-scale problem.

First of all, let me make this very clear: I am in no way defending the religions discussed here.
What I'm trying to point out here is that a religion and its practise is more than its core text. You'll see a LOT of practises and dogma that is not in the bible/quran. For example; communion is not proclamated in the bible. Thinking that all there is to Christianity/Islam is to be found in the respective "holy book" is plain stupid. And trust me, in the case of Islam; the religion looks VERY different in Somalia from what it does in Western China. So if you want to generalize about a world religion, you'll have to take it that it's ok to generalize about metal.

And BaloroftheEvilEye, yes it was very refreshing to see peoples' reaction in that thread, but metal is soooo much bigger than these forums. If you read 100 song lyrics concerning/touching the subject "women", across the board, how many depicts women in a respectful light?

I have followed this thread for a few days now. And I think this post will disrupt the flow of this page but in response to the title, I have never felt prosecuted as a metalhead by any religion. At least not on the basis of my musical tastes, anyways. I think it is fair to say that metal bands in general enjoy shocking such institutions like religion. But my spiritual beliefs, and/or lack thereof, have never been challenged by any religion or its practitioners. Not on that basis. I have no experiences of my devotion for metal inciting a religious debate. It is usually my involuntary, indifferent expression that triggers an argument when someone approaches me with the intention of discussing their faith. I DO think Christianity has an unfair amount of fire directed at it (and do not mistake that for sympathy), but only because I think that it is disproportionate to every other religious institution out there.

In high school one of the administrators told me to take off my Pleasure to Kill shirt.

I'm pretty much with Matras on the issue, except I gave up participating on this thread because it has basically turned into a distorted debate where facts are being evacuated so that some posters here can comfort themselves in whatever close-minded opinion they already had to begin with.

I think iAmDisturbed was right when he said early that the original post wasn't very inspiring. I'm not sure there was even a debate to begin with but if there was one, I'm not really sure what it is.

To be honest though, discussions about metal and religion always seem to degenerate into barely coherent, pointless babbling. This particular debate started in a sufficiently interesting way, but then turned into..... Well, whatever it is now.

I think religion and metal just have that perfect storm of a relationship. Metal thrives off of it. Metal musicians challenge religion, and I enjoy that. I strive to keep a fair perspective on everything, but I enjoy how metal strives to be a relevant antithesis to institutions such as religion. It is very alluring.

Well, organized religion represents lots of things which are widely hated by people who are into metal, so it's just natural for both to have an antagonistic relationship.

I agree with you. I was just hoping to add a somewhat coherent voice to the dim.

He's kind of like the board's answering machine, auto-replying with the board's consensus on everything.

As for the thread... What is there to discuss, really? Metal has some beef with all religions and vice versa. Discovery of the century.

Since when?

Out of those random 100 songs, how many are talk about women at all?

Well, comparing the wealthy catholicism to a small kid - in a world where money is everything - is quite a stretch.

In some part of France (Alsace and Moselle), there is still no separation between state and religion. It means that Catholicism is still the state religion, and religious teachings are mandatory at school.
Also Catholicism uses a lot of non-profit association and religious schools to reap the UE / state funds.

To me, the Roman Catholic church is more like a guy twice your size who does not give a damn about mosquito bites.

Let me make it easy by bolding the text. Perhaps it makes it easier for reading comprehension purposes:



And as a preemptive comment: depicting them as helpless in need of saving from the big bad dragon does not count as respectful.

Oh, you're one of those people. Please tell me how a fictional woman being rescued by a man is disrespectful to actual women. Or would it only be ok to you if it's a man that needs saving?

Damsel in distress, women are helpless without men...etc...etc. It's not intrinsically bad, it's just so prevalent. Even if it weren't subtly disrespectful toward women, it would still be terribly cliche and trite.

Damn, this got me thinking: Whatever happened to Onerodeoverasabay?

She's still here, dunno what you mean.
And exactly how prevalent is it in metal? Practically nonexistent outside of power metal, and that's part of the charm of power metal anyway, cliched fantasy lyrics. And that's even assuming that it, hilariously, disrespects women. There's also the fact that in real life, men are just generally physically stronger than women anyway, so it's not like it's some incredibly unrealistic role in stories. But who cares if it is prevalent? It's not a remotely harmful cliche, and I realise from the video game thread you have some deep-seated privileged male-guilt or something or you've just bought into the deep end of feminist theory, but seriously, the damsel in distress cliche is not remotely damaging, and it's becoming less prevalent anyway. And here's the thing. I like like strong women in media. Always have, and I'm glad it's becoming more common thanks to Joss Whedon's work on Buffy, but I also like strong male heroes as well, something that has become a bit of an endangered species, though Driver has had one of the best protagonists in years. And if we're assuming stereotypes are harmful, I notice that you've never mentioned how male leads in a lot of American shows are generally bumbling fools (with the women of course, shown to be the ever-suffering bastions of intelligence), or sometimes appearing to be outright retards. Now this is a cliche I also enjoy, but I can't help but note that it somehow never gets brought up by people complaining about "harmful" stereotypes in media, especially since, under your own logic, widely portraying men as inept, braindead simpletons would surely be just as bad portraying women being rescued by men.

She's been very active recently compared to a while ago, you can always check her profile anyway, it's right up there in the "moderators" thingy when you check a forum. Also, funny that you thought of her during this discussion...

I thought of her because it would be awesome for her to swoop in and save me from having to reply to balor.

So I'm one of those people? Who are those people?

Care to enlighten me as to what that means? Because I haven't got a clue. Sorry.

And I'm talking about metal lyrics, not American TV shows (don't try to change the subject).
And yes, the "damsel in distress" is denigrating. And yes; it is mostly in power metal, but as you can scroll up and read again: I said across the board. In other genres of metal? How is it there BaloroftheEvilEye?

Giving birth is one of, if not, the most amazing thing. Women should be venerated and their equal place in society assured.
Men are in general physically stronger to naturally defend a woman (care/tend), especially when she is in a weakened condition around the time of childbirth.
Women should stay at home to raise their children as only they can impart a certain love that is crucial to a harmonious society, beneficial to all. This should not be seen as a servient role, but a crucial one. I believe many problems in the west stem from families having no choice but to leave the care of their most precious possession to, often, complete strangers.

Shouldn't religion always champion the unified family unit, where both are equal, though serve different roles, neither being above the other? Its been an unjustice that one sex has in the main for far too long lorded over the other, demonstrating a weakness of character.

To quote Rush;

Philosophers and ploughmen
Each must know his part
To sow a new mentality
Closer to the heart