I have a friend who wrote a song to me. (Free mp3 download courtesy of Anderson Productions, Ltd.) “Dear Friend” [1] appeared on Russ Anderson’s 2003 album, “Arsenal Street”. All his CD’s are Available here [2]. I recommend listening to the song before proceeding.
This nice, eerie, and sometimes psychedelic song is a heartfelt plea for me to discard my narrow, science-informed view of the world and just try to accept the ultimate truth of his favorite, ancient, re-translated book.
When my very Christian 11 year old nephew heard the song, he worried that it would anger me. He is fond of both Russ and myself, and the song conveys a basic disconnect. Conversations I’ve had with other Absolute Biblically Literal Truth Christians indicate that these are common misperceptions of atheist ideology.
Let’s examine some of the contentions in the song:
“You say it’s all a lie” implies that my disbelief in God is equivalent to my casting the aspersion of a willful falsehood on believers. I have no doubt about their sincerity, their total faith and dedication to their belief. I’m sure that the multitudinous original authors of the various books of the Bible, and most of the innumerable editors since then, were quite sincere, as well. They were smart people who had no alternative explanations for seemingly random acts of God. Now, I believe we do.
“How can you hope to see, when you close your eyes” implies that I don’t look at the testimony of the Bible. I have casually read much of it, and there is a lot of good allegory and even some sections of historical interest. As archeology becomes more subtle, precise, and accurate more pieces of the Bible are being proven historical. But I don’t think that proving that one segment of the anthology is correct proves that all the other, unrelated sections of it are.
My eyes are open to many sources, so that that one source becomes a small fraction of what I have seen. But I have seen it. I just don’t weight the one source as even equal to the rest of the total knowledge that Man has accumulated both before and since the Bible was written.
“What do you hope to gain, what do you fear to lose” implies motives that are not relevant to my belief. I don’t hope to gain anything by believing in nothing supernatural, nor do I fear to lose by having something that is currently defined as supernatural being eventually proved natural. But I am guided by my faith in the completely natural universe to wait for measurable proof of anything that doesn’t fit the paradigm and model of the Natural Sciences; the Laws of Nature that we (as a civilization) are continuously and asymptotically refining.
“I’ve been inside your shoes, but you’ve never been in mine” might appear correct at first blush. I have never been a blind faith sort, but Russ had a period of irreligiousness.
I was raised by scientists, had was exposed to the rituals and mythologies of several cultures as a child. In my adolescence I did flirt with various supernatural belief systems: ESP, UFO’s, magic, Bhagavad-Gita, Torah, and so on. But the more I learned the more amazing and appealing the non-magical world became to me. He, raised as a Christian, had gone though a skeptical period in his adolescence. Then he had a born-again experience; his conversion to “the truth.”I don’t think either of us has actually been in the other’s shoes.
But the overriding theme is, “Dear friend, I’m begging you.” The song conveys quite well his distress that, as nice a guy as I generally am, I am doomed to eternal hellfire unless I accept his faith. Both the music and the words are such a touching plea that it never occurred to me to take offense.
I may disagree with the words, but I do like the song. Russ has written and recorded many songs that are played on Internet Radio Stations and some FM stations around the world. See his site [3] for the details. Most of the broadcasters are promoting primarily his Christian-themed compositions.
I am partial to his “(God is) The Color of Water” from the Y2K “Milo’s Garden” album. He also writes love songs, fun songs, songs of mourning, and political songs (“Remember Tianenman” comes to mind, and is a free download from his site). He has 5 albums for sale on his site, the latest can be bought in single-song downloads. There are samples of all of his songs on his site.
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