"Imagine there's no heaven" = there's a heaven
Posted on: November 29, 2006 - 6:32pm
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"Imagine there's no heaven" = there's a heaven
I'm just getting tired of the nonsense, someone feel free to actually pick this apart:
Quote:
----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Adam
Date: Nov 29 2006 8:27 PMi realize that your athest and thats fine my problem is the fact that you put "imagine" up as if it was some anti religous atheist song and the thing is thats simply not true. the song says "imagine" theres no heaven basically saying there is but imagine if there wasnt. so if thats the song reprenting your whole atheist thing then that means you arent really an athiest. my main point is that its not an atheist song thats all.
My Response:
Quote:
I guess you're right! Praise Jesus, I'm Christian now!
Vote for Democrats to save us all from the anti-American Republican party!
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Wow. That's a rather obtuse, out-right 'concrete' way of misinterpreting Lennon's intention. Where does the song "Imagine" say that you're supposed to just imagine, and stop there?
The point of the song is to get you to question concepts such as 'countries' and 'governments' and 'possession' and 'religion' and to see if things might not be better without any of them.
Brian 37 has done some wonderful poetry shows where he explains what the poem means afterwards.... I can see that this sort of format is required for many people. Maybe he could do a show about Lennon's song, and a few others.....
I'm continually amazed at what you have to point out to others..... but the reality is, there are a lot of people missing the point on a lot of very basic things, and it would be helpful if someone did a show that pointed such things out....
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
I think we should resurect John Lennon and ask him what he really meant.
Or here are some quotes that I found:
Lyrics From his 1970 song "God" (album "Plastic Ono Band"):
God is a concept by which we can 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.'
In a 1965 Interview:
"Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock and roll or Christianity."
"I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong."
1971 interview by Tariq Ali and Robin Blackburn:
Tariq Ali: Your latest record and your recent public statements, especially the interviews in Rolling Stone magazine, suggest that your views are becoming increasingly radical and political. When did this start to happen?
John Lennon: ... In my case I've never not been political, though religion tended to overshadow it in my acid days; that would be around '65 or '66. And that religion was directly the result of all that superstar shit--religion was an outlet for my repression. I thought, 'Well, there's something else to life, isn't there? This isn't it, surely?'
Later in the interview:
... At one time I was so much involved in the religious bullshit that I used to go around calling myself a Christian Communist, but as Janov says, religion is legalised madness. It was therapy that stripped away all that and made me feel my own pain.
... Well, his thing is to feel the pain that's accumulated inside you ever since your childhood. I had to do it to really kill off all the religious myths. In the therapy you really feel every painful moment of your life--it's excruciating, you are forced to realise that your pain, the kind that makes you wake up afraid with your heart pounding, is really yours and not the result of somebody up in the sky. It's the result of your parents and your environment.
As I realised this it all started to fall into place. This therapy forced me to have done with all the God shit. All of us growing up have come to terms with too much pain. Although we repress it, it's still there. The worst pain is that of not being wanted, of realising your parents do not need you in the way you need them.
... Most people channel their pain into God or masturbation or some dream of making it.
... It's a bit of a drag to say so, but I don't think you can understand this unless you've gone through it--though I try to put some of it over on the album. But for me at any rate it was all part of dissolving the God trip or father-figure trip. Facing up to reality instead of always looking for some kind of heaven.
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Thanks Susan, I am going to add that to my "people in hell list" for my entry on John Lennon...
"Imagine" Concept: way up here. --------------------------------------------------------
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Adam: Way down here.
Let's try to Imagine that some crazy Christian fan didn't actually gun Lennon down.
Copied from a CourtTV interview with journalist Jack Jones.
byrtle asks: Is Chapman on medication now?
Jack Jones: He has refused to undergo therapy or to take medication. He believes that he has been healed of the severe depression by virtue of his fervent Christian beliefs.
cnm4eva asks: When did Mr. Chapman claim to have been changed spiritually?
Jack Jones: Mark's spiritual change has followed a very long progression. He evolved from a Beatle worshipper and young drug addict at age 14 into an overnight Christian while he was taking LSD, which he believed the Beatles had advocated. After his conversion to Christ, John Lennon made the unfortunate remark that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus and sang the song, "Imagine There's No Heaven." This deeply offended Chapman's Christian identity and subconsciously I'm certain he began plotting John Lennon's death at that time, a full decade before he murdered the rock legend.
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Actually, if you turn the volume up really high on that song, right after he sings that line you can audibly hear John Lennon say "Just kidding." Oh yeah, he says Paul Mcartney is dead, too.
Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine
I am the walrus.
Koo koo ka choo.
Paul is a dead man, miss him miss him!
I find it odd that this person is missing the context of the song.
"I don't believe in heaven, now you imagine no heaven, it's easy if you try."
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Imagine, an intelligent mail bag question - perhaps some day this fantasy will be realized.
You might be waiting for that almost as long as Christians have been/will be waiting for Jesus! :
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