[Suzerain of Sheol]

Originally Posted by Ultima

But the religious lyrics and themes in the song and video make me a bit uncomfortable as an atheist. ...

I find this statement kind of curious. If you don't mind me asking, could you elaborate? It's just, I share your atheism, but I've never once been made to feel "uncomfortable" by religion in any manifestation. I'm not sure if I'm unusual for that, or if you are.

Even discounting it as archaic mysticism better left to the bleakness of our species' less enlightened past, there's really no discounting the influence of religion, Christianity in particular, on the Western canon, especially in literature and philosophy. I'm personally in the camp of taking the themes and metaphors and symbolism and putting them to wholly secular use.

Though, maybe I'm in a minority with that. I don't know many fellow atheists. I just personally find philosophy of religion fascinating, more so for the fact that I don't believe in any of it. Like it or not, people *do* believe in it, and by doing so, they make it, at least in some ways, real as a force in the world, for better or worse. It's a very interesting phenomenon, I find.

Anyway, about the video, I've never actually seen anything of hers before, as... anything my sister listens to is automatically abominable to me, and seeing that hasn't changed my opinion in the slightest. I wouldn't like it anyways, though, not my sort of music at all. And the lyrics seem like a cheap attempt at shock, rather than offering anything remotely resembling insight or commentary on the human condition through the lens of religion. You can find any number of death metal bands who go further with blasphemy (not that I like those, either), it's the same sort of attention-seeking publicity stunt with no deeper appeal to meaning behind it.