Trent Reznor and Belief in God

[allegro]

Did you even read the whole paragraph that I wrote?

Yes. I did.

I don't get why any of that would compel you to "roll your eyes."

[theimage13]

I don't get why any of that would compel you to "roll your eyes."

Because A: it's tremendously overused (I hear it a LOT), and B: it seems like a cop-out; a lazy man's way of trying to justify something. Believe in God/a god? Give me something more than "that's pretty, therefore there must be some universal force that controls everything in existence". It works just the opposite as well - those antagonizing people who say "oh, well then clearly there's a flying spaghetti monster because you can't prove there isn't" irritate me.

[allegro]

I have never met anyone who used a sunrise as proof of "God's" existence, so I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about. Plenty of us have a very spiritual relationship with nature (see Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman* or Native American spiritualism).

Anyway, we HAVE a religion thread. This is the Trent Reznor believes in God thread.


* see transcendentalism.

[WorzelG]

So long as he doesn't go all Dave Mustaine supporting right wing presidential candidates and anti gay marriage etc I'm easy

[BrownEyedStatistic]

I religion is like...a road map.

*walks away*

[BenAkenobi]

is this proper topic to ask what "lick around divine debris" was supposed to mean?

[slave2thewage]

is this proper topic to ask what "lick around divine debris" was supposed to mean?

I always assumed it was part of the Icarus imagery in that track.

[sheepdean]

I assumed it was a reference to cunnilingus

[Halo Infinity]

But if finding faith gives you the strength to better yourself and accomplish great things, how in the world can you say "fuck that?"

It took me a while to consider that at some point, but I'm sure he was referring to all of the other bad things you've mentioned. However, I'll admit that there could've been a far better way and thread to state it in. I still get it though, as there are things in religion that can make any of us say "Fuck that!", but I won't argue against or deride any actual virtues. I actually just took it more as a joke even though it was a bad one. (I've also checked out a lot of religious satire on Facebook and YouTube, so I kind of got used to it, but I can see why such jokes are obviously a big fuck you.)

As for Trent Reznor's belief in God, I was always interested in that, as I was not only curious, but also because he's always come across as an agnostic to me, but after seeing more interviews, I'd obviously have to reconsider. (I still agree with what most people said here, and I also don't have any problems with religious people as long as they're not forcing anything on me.)

I also understand that God doesn't always have to mean God from the Bible and Christianity, which also took me a while to get until I looked up other beliefs outside of the Seventh-day Adventist Church a long time ago, which is the belief I was reared in. From my understanding, I think I'm an agnostic right now. I also recall Trent admiring and becoming inspired and comforted by the power of belief. I don't remember where the exact interview was on the Internet, but it was somewhere around the With Teeth era in late 2005 or early 2006 if I'm not mistaken.

Oh, and when I looked up Trent Reznor and religion, I noticed that some sources actually state that he was reared as a Catholic, yet some sources also claim that he was reared as a Protestant. Anyway, I was also just merely curious, but that's what I saw.

[BrownEyedStatistic]

I'd say he's agnostic and close the book on this one ;D

[allegro]

I'd say he's agnostic and close the book on this one ;D

He just SAID he believed in God. Why don't we just say he worships Satan and close the book?

[BrownEyedStatistic]

Oh, you thought I didn't read that? Of course I did.
I'm just expressing that I wouldn't have tried to find out.
I would have just made an assumption and left it at that since I don't find it important.
Now calm your nerves peasant.

[BrownEyedStatistic]

He just SAID he believed in God. Why don't we just say he worships Satan and close the book?

Yes let's do that. And add some conspiracies to spice things up. I can definitely see some fanfiction coming out of that idea.


And lets make ridiculous claims that make entirely no sense for the hell of it. (Haha I said hell)

I like how emphasized "SAID". It's like the fan in you got annoyed for a moment. You must have to deal with a lot of idiots.

What does allegro mean by the way? I'm curious. Is it related to satanism?

And why satanism of all things? Have you tried it out? If you actually are one, what type are you?

Wow you're been on this site a long time? Have you ever come across satanists here???

Did any of them wonder if Trent was one too?

[allegro]

His login here was Teitan which means Satan. And he allegedly followed Aleister Crowley. So it's not really all that far fetched.

I think we had a few threads devoted to it on the old board.

Hint: if people use all caps in one single word, here, they're not necessarily getting all aggro, sometimes it's just for emphasis.

[BrownEyedStatistic]

His login here was Teitan which means Satan. And he allegedly followed Aleister Crowley. So it's not really all that far fetched.

I think we had a few threads devoted to it on the old board.

Now I'm really intrigued tell me more.
A lot of people see satanism as such a bad religion, but I'm convinced that public have only seen the more extreme groups doing ridiculous things. And of course, opposing groups don't like seeing their opposites in a good light.

What else do you know? I'm curious. DDD

[allegro]

Well, and there was that Anton LaVey stuff with Manson.

[BrownEyedStatistic]

Well, and there was that Anton LaVey stuff with Manson.

Ah, yes. I recall finding out a bit about it on the well. Anton LaVey seemed to have been quite the character.
I don't think I'll ever delve into satanism. But I believe some the philosophies it carries are worth keeping.

[allegro]

I don't believe in satan, myself.

I guess the purpose of this thread, though, was whether or not TR believes in God (or, if you are Jewish, G-d). Evidently, he's explored several options, LOL.

[Ryan]

His login here was Teitan which means Satan. And he allegedly followed Aleister Crowley. So it's not really all that far fetched.

Interesting.

Thus, altogether independent of historical evidence on this point, we are brought to the irresistible conclusion that the worship of Rome is one vast system of Devil-worship. If it be once admitted that the Pope is the head of the beast from the sea, we are bound, on the mere testimony of God, without any other evidence whatever, to receive this as a fact, that, consciously or unconsciously, those who worship the Pope are actually worshipping the Devil. But, in truth, we have historical evidence, and that of a very remarkable kind, that the Pope, as head of the Chaldean Mysteries, is a directly the representative of Satan, as he is of the false Messiah of Babylon. It was long ago noticed by Irenaeus, about the end of the second century, that the name Teitan contained the Mystic number 666; and he gave it as his opinion that Teitan was "by far the most probably name" of the beast from the sea. * The grounds of his opinion, as stated by him, do not carry much weight; but the opinion itself he may have derived from others who had better and more valid reasons for their belief on this subject. Now, on inquiry, it will actually be found, that while Saturn was the name of the visible head, Teitan was the name of the invisible head of the beast. Teitan is just the Chaldean form of Sheitan, * the very name by which Satan has been called from time immemorial by the Devil-worshippers of Kurdistan; * and from Armenia or Kurdistan, this Devil-worship embodied in the Chaldean Mysteries came westward to Asia Minor, and thence to Etruria and Rome. That Teitan was actually known by the classic nations of antiquity to be Satan, or the spirit of wickedness, and originator of moral evil, we have the following proofs: The history of Teitan and his brethren, as given in Homer and Hesiod, the two earliest of all the Greek writers, although later legends are obviously mixed up with it, is evidently the exact counterpart of the Scriptural account of Satan and his angels. Homer says, that "all the gods of Tartarus," or Hell, "were called Teitans." * Hesiod tells us how these Teitans, or "gods of hell," came to have their dwelling there. The chief of them having committed a certain act of wickedness against his father, the supreme god of heaven, with the sympathy of many others of the "sons of heaven," that father "called them all by an opprobrious name, Teitans," * pronounced a curse upon them, and then, in consequence of that curse, they were "cast down to hell," and "bound in chains of darkness" in the abyss. * While this is the earliest account of Teitan and his followers among the Greeks, we find that, in the Chaldean system, Teitan was just a synonym for Typhon, the malignant Serpent or Dragon, who was universally regarded as the Devil, or author of all wickedness. It was Typhon, according to the Pagan version of the story, that killed Tammuz, and cut him in pieces; but Lactantius, who was thoroughly acquainted with the subject, upbraids his Pagan countrymen for "worshipping a child torn in pieces by the Teitans." * It is undeniable, then, that Teitan, in Pagan belief, was identical with the Dragon, or Satan. *


In the Mysteries, as formerly hinted, an important change took place as soon as the way was paved for it. First, Tammuz was worshipped as the bruiser of the serpent's head, meaning thereby that he was the appointed destroyer of Satan's kingdom. Then the dragon himself, or Satan, came to receive a certain measure of worship, to "console him," as the Pagans said, "for the loss of his power," and to prevent him from hurting them; * and last of all the dragon, or Teitan or Satan, became the supreme object of worship, the Titania, or rites of Teitan, occupying a prominent place in the Egyptian Mysteries, * and also in those of Greece. * How vitally important was the place that these rites of Teitan or Satan occupied, may be judged of from the fact that Pluto, the god of Hell (who, in his ultimate character, was just the grand Adversary), was looked up to with awe and dread as the great god on whom the destinies of mankind in the eternal world did mainly depend; for it was said that to Pluto it belonged "to purify souls after death." * Purgatory having been in Paganism, as it is in Popery, the grand hinge of priestcraft and superstition, what a power did this opinion attribute to the "god of Hell"! No wonder that the serpent, the Devil's grand instrument in seducing mankind, was in all the earth worshipped with such extraordinary reverence, it being laid down in the Octateuch of Ostanes, that "serpents were the supreme of all gods and the princes of the Universe." * No wonder that it came at last to be firmly believed that the Messiah, on whom the hopes of the world depended, was Himself the "seed of the serpent"! This was manifestly the case in Greece; for the current story there came to be, that the first Bacchus was brought forth in consequence of a connexion on the part of his mother with the father of the gods, in the form of a "speckled snake." * That "father of the gods" was manifestly "the god of hell;" for Proserpine, the mother of Bacchus, that miraculously conceived and brought forth the wondrous child--whose rape by Pluto occupied such a place in the Mysteries--was worshipped as the wife of the god of Hell, as we have already seen, under the name of the "Holy Virgin." * The story of the seduction of Eve * by the serpent is plainly imported into this legend, as Julius Firmicus and the early Christian apologists did with great force cast in the teeth of the Pagans of their day; but very different is the colouring given to it in the Pagan legend from that which it has in the Divine Word. Thus the grand Thimblerigger, by dexterously shifting the peas, through means of men who began with great professions of abhorrence of his character, got himself almost everywhere recognised as in very deed "the god of this world." So deep and so strong was the hold that Satan had contrived to get of the ancient world in this character, that even when Christianity had been proclaimed to man, and the true light had shone from Heaven, the very doctrine we have been considering raised its head among the professed disciples of Christ. Those who held this doctrine were called Ophiani or Ophites, that is, serpent-worshippers. "These heretics," says Tertullian, "magnify the serpent to such a degree as to prefer him even to Christ Himself; for he, say they, gave us the first knowledge of good and evil. It was from a perception of his power and majesty that Moses was induced to erect the brazen serpent, to which whosoever looked was healed. Christ Himself, they affirm, in the Gospel imitates the sacred power of the serpent, when He says that, 'As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so much the Son of Man be lifted up.' * They introduced it when they bless the Eucharist." These wicked heretics avowedly worshipped the old serpent, or Satan, as the grand benefactor of mankind, for revealing to them the knowledge of good and evil. But this doctrine they had just brought along with them from the Pagan world, from which they had come, or from the Mysteries, as they came to be received and celebrated in Rome. Though Teitan, in the days of Hesiod and in early Greece, was an "opprobrious name," yet in Rome, in the days of the Empire and before, it had become the very reverse. "The splendid or glorious Teitan" was the way in which Teitan was spoken of at orb of day and viewed as a divinity. Now, the reader has seen already that another form of the sun-divinity, or Teitan, at Rome, was the Epidaurian snake, worshipped under the name of "AEsculapius," that is, "the man-instructing serpent." * Here, then, in Rome was Teitan, or Satan, identified with the "serpent that taught mankind," that opened their eyes (when, of course, they were blind), and gave them "the knowledge of good and evil." In Pergamos, and in all Asia Minor, from which directly Rome derived its knowledge of the Mysteries, the case was the same. In Pergamos, especially, where pre-eminently "Satan's seat was," the sun-divinity, as is well known, was worshipped under the form of a serpent and under the name of AEsculapius, "the man-instructing serpent." According to the fundamental doctrine of the Mysteries, as brought from Pergamos to Rome, the sun was the one only god. * Teitan, or Satan, then, was thus recognised as the one only god; and of that only god, Tammuz or Janus, in his character as the Son, or the woman's seed, was just an incarnation. Here, then, the grand secret of the Roman Empire is at last brought to light--viz., the real name of the tutelar divinity of Rome. That secret was most jealously guarded; insomuch that when Valerius Soranus, a man of the highest rank, and, as Cicero declared, "the most learned of the Romans," had incautiously divulged it, he was remorselessly put to death for his revelation. Now, however, it stands plainly revealed. A symbolical representation of the worship of the Roman people, from Pompeii, strikingly confirms this deduction by evidence that appeals to the very senses. Let the reader cast his eyes on the woodcut herewith given . * We have seen already that it is admitted by the author of Pompeii, in regard to a former representation, that the serpents in the under compartment are only another way of exhibiting the dark divinities represented in the upper compartment. Let the same principle be admitted here, and it follows that the swallows, or birds pursuing the flies, represent the same thing as the serpents do below. But the serpent, of which there is a double representation, is unquestionably the serpent of AEsculapius. The fly-destroying swallow, therefore, must represent the same divinity. Now, every one knows what was the name by which "the Lord of the fly," or fly-destroying god of the Oriental world was called. It was Beel-zebub. * This name, as signifying "Lord of the Fly," to the profane meant only the power that destroying the swarms of flies when these became, as they often did in hot countries, a source of torment to the people whom they invaded. But this name, as identified with the serpent, clearly reveals itself as one of the distinctive names of Satan. And how appropriate is this name, when its mystic or esoteric meaning is penetrated. What is the real meaning of this familiar name? Baal-zebub just means "The restless Lord," * even that unhappy one who "goeth to and fro in the earth, and walketh up and down in it," who "goeth through dry places seeking rest, and finding none." From all this, the inference is unavoidable that Satan, in his own proper name, must have been the great god of their secret and mysterious worship, and this accounts for the extraordinary mystery observed on the subject. * When, therefore, Gratian abolished the legal provision for the support of the fire-worship and serpent-worship of Rome, we see how exactly the Divine prediction was fulfilled (Rev. xii. 9): "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the DEVIL, and SATAN, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." * Now, as the Pagan Pontifex, to whose powers and prerogatives the Pope and served himself heir, was thus the High-priest of Satan, so, when the Pope entered into a league and alliance with that system of Devil-worship, and consented to occupy the very position of that Pontifex, and to bring all its abominations into the Church, as he has done, he necessarily became the Prime Minister of the Devil, and, of course, come as thoroughly under his power as ever the previous Pontiff had been. * How exact the fulfilment of the Divine statement that the coming of the Man of Sin was to be "after the working or energy of Satan." Here, then, is the grand conclusion to which we are compelled, both on historical and Scriptural grounds, to come: As the mystery of godliness is God manifest in the flesh, so the mystery of iniquity is--so far as such a thing is possible--the Devil incarnate. 2bab035.htm

[BrownEyedStatistic]

I don't believe in satan, myself.

I guess the purpose of this thread, though, was whether or not TR believes in God (or, if you are Jewish, G-d). Evidently, he's explored several options, LOL.

Yes indeed and I have strayed for from the purpose.

I guess just dabbling in pool of darkness again. DDDD

[allegro]

That's okay, this whole thread is a pool of darkness

[BrownEyedStatistic]

That was a very interesting read.

I'll have to transfer the text to my word-processing program so I can better analyze it.

[Prettybrokenspiral]

Are people really losing their shit in this thread over whether TR believes in god?

Oh the lolz

[Emil Dorbell]

I see that you're from Sweden, and I can only speak for usage in American English, but God means more than "a god, and I'm Christian." It sounds like you're asking people to change what they're saying just to satisfy some people's the preconceptions. It'd be like if someone told me that I shouldn't call myself "American"* because people will assume I'm white - that I should say "American resident" or something like that. That's also true, but it doesn't have the same meaning. And the suggestion and its implications (that the "majority" should be assumed to be normal or the standard) are pretty offensive.

* I know there are issues with using "American" to mean someone from the US. It's just the example that came to mind.

EDIT: Ugh. Can't believe I got pulled into reading this thread.

I still believe we could use more ways to express our spiritual or religious views. Using the same word for different things obviously gets confusing fast. This thread is already full of "the biblical God" to avoid said confusion. I guess another offensive part of my post is the implication that if you believe some of the bible, you must believe all of it. I confess to being narrow minded for thinking that.

[m15a]

I still believe we could use more ways to express our spiritual or religious views. Using the same word for different things obviously gets confusing fast. This thread is already full of "the biblical God" to avoid said confusion. I guess another offensive part of my post is the implication that if you believe some of the bible, you must believe all of it. I confess to being narrow minded for thinking that.

Yeah, I agree that people should be more descriptive when they talk about something complicated, which religion and belief definitely is. But the more "fair" way of doing that is for the speaker to not assume that the listener is assigning a more specific meaning to what they're saying and for the listener to not assume any more specific meaning until it's given. That requires that everyone is aware of their preconceptions, though. And that's difficult.

[BrownEyedStatistic]

He could be pastafarian for all I know.

[ZootZap]

He could be just a man with spiritually sense. The rest is privacy.

[laz001]

http://www.theskinny.co.uk/music/fea...s_trent_reznor

Fact settled

ASK TRENT
BRODY DALLE: T-DOG, DO YOU BELIEVE IN GOD?
“I do. I take comfort in thinking there’s some purpose and higher power of some sort. I’m not affiliated with any particular religion but that gives me some sense of comfort. I’ve had some dark days through the years and been through some shit that makes me think there is some reason here and it’s beyond just physics and biology.”

[allegro]

http://www.theskinny.co.uk/music/fea...s_trent_reznor

Fact settled

Yeah we established that, see post #122 on May 6th.

[staleincense]

In these post-billpulsipher days, I'd probably go back and be nicer to that PaperThin guy.

What happened to our good friend bill!?