John Lennon's atheism in three of his songs

I love John Lennon's Imagine. But whenever I hear it played at some large event, like New Year's Eve in Times Square, I wonder why it's so popular in a highly religious country like the United States.

After all, the lyrics are not only secular, they're anti-religion. 

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today... Aha-ah...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace... You...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world... You...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

This is a great You Tube video of Lennon singing the song in the company of Yoko Ono.

I enjoyed reading an article about the song, "Imagine at 50: Why John Lennon's Ode to Humanism Still Resonates." This is how it starts off. 

Fifty years ago, John Lennon released one of the most beautiful, inspirational and catchy pop anthems of the 20th century: “Imagine.”

Gentle and yet increasingly stirring as the song progresses, “Imagine” is unabashedly utopian and deeply moral, calling on people to live, as one humanity, in peace. It is also purposely and powerfully irreligious. From its opening lyric, “Imagine there’s no heaven,” to the refrain, “And no religion too,” Lennon sets out what is, to many, a clear atheistic message.

While most pop songs are secular by default – in that they are about the things of this world, making no mention of the divine or spiritual – “Imagine” is explicitly secularist. In Lennon’s telling, religion is an impediment to human flourishing – something to be overcome, transcended.

As a scholar of secularism and a devout fan of the Beatles, I have always been fascinated by how “Imagine,” perhaps the first and only atheist anthem to be so enormously successful, has come to be so widely embraced in America. After all, the U.S. is a country that has – at least until recently – had a much more religious population than other Western industrialized democracies.

The article clued me in to two other anti-religious songs Lennon wrote after the Beatles broke up and went their separate ways, God and I Found Out. Somehow I've either forgotten about them, or never was familiar with them. 

Here's the lyrics of God. 

God is a Concept by which we measure our pain
I'll say it again
God is a Concept by which we measure our pain

I don't believe in magic
I don't believe in I-ching
I don't believe in Bible
I don't believe in Tarot
I don't believe in Hitler
I don't believe in Jesus
I don't believe in Kennedy
I don't believe in Buddha
I don't believe in Mantra
I don't believe in Gita
I don't believe in Yoga
I don't believe in Kings
I don't believe in Elvis
I don't believe in Zimmerman
I don't believe in Beatles

I just believe in me, Yoko and me, and that's reality

The dream is over
What can I say?
The dream is over
Yesterday
I was the dreamweaver
But now I'm reborn
I was the walrus
But now I'm John
And so, dear friends,
You'll just have to carry on
The dream is over

Lennon sings the song in this You Tube video. 

Beautiful. And inspiring to atheists like me. Or to anyone who wants to stop believing in abstractions and far-off potential objects of devotion, preferring instead to embrace the reality that's near at hand.

Lennon's I Found Out is another paean to his discovery that religions are worthless, being obsessed with pie-in-the-sky fantasies. Nice to see him taking a jab at gurus.

I told you before, stay away from my door
Don't give me that brother, brother, brother, brother
The freaks on the phone, won't leave me alone
So don't give me that brother, brother, brother, brother No!
I, I found out!
I, I found out!

Now that I showed you what I been through
Don't take nobody's word what you can do
There ain't no Jesus gonna come from the sky
Now that I found out I know I can cry

I, I found out!
I, I found out!

Some of you sitting there with your cock in your hand
Don't get you nowhere don't make you a man
I heard something 'bout my Ma and my Pa
They didn't want me so they made me a star

I, I found out!
I, I found out!

Old Hare Krishna got nothing on you
Just keep you crazy with nothing to do
Keep you occupied with pie in the sky
There ain't no guru who can see through your eyes

I, I found out!
I, I found out!

I seen through junkies, I been through it all
I seen religion from Jesus to Paul
Don't let them fool you with dope and cocaine
No one can harm you, feel your own pain

I, I found out!
I, I found this out!
I, I found out!

Here's a You Tube video of Lennon singing this song, which isn't one of his best. I like the lyrics a lot more than the song.

Comments

[Ranvir]

Imagine if the fake ass guru of beas, gurinder Singh dhillon reveals his truth ~ this how his song would go.

Imagine he is the biggest crook on the planet, hidden as a guru of love and light.

Image his rssb heaven is really a hell for souls, where they are tortured, and raped for his pleasure and send back to earth only to be tortured again.

Imagine he reveals that he is no son of god , but the son of satan. In fact image if was a sexual demon.

Imagine GSD reveals that he murdered his wife shabnam so that him and his sons can live the life of God's on earth.

... imagine.. I could go on and on

[Todd]

I like “Across the Universe” much more than these.