I believe God can help you find happiness

This is by Reverend Run, from Run DMC.

If God is Love, how could someone be in love w/o a relationship w/God?

This is from some random person on Twitter.

Let’s break these both down, because they both bothered me.

Let’s get this straight, you don’t need to believe in a damn invisible being, whom may or may not exist to be happy. You create your own happiness, no one else. People like to attribute their success and happiness to some mythical Zeus looking deity, when you’re really only as happy as you make yourself.

And that second quote from twitter is just plain stupid. They should do his homework and see God is a vengeful and spiteful god that is willing to kill those who disagree with him. No one needs God in their lives to love. Love is a basic human emotion that has never needed an invisible monster to justify its existence.

Ok, those were ramblings, there is no need to believe in a god to have happiness or love in your life.

The song happened to be on one of many Epitaph Records collections of their artists. I couldn’t get enough of the song and my friend Kenny offered to trade me All Ages for some album from ALL that I owned, but never listened to. I played All Ages all the time. I memorized all the lyrics back and forth. I could air guitar and air drum like I was actually musically inclined. I scratched that CD up from so many trips from the home stereo to the car stereo. I started branching out and buying up the albums that were out.

I will say I am a purist when it comes to Bad Religion and I consider Suffer and No Control their two greatest albums ever recorded. I would even go out and say that post-Epitaph/Atlantic era, No Substance was their greatest work. The last two albums being far more politically vocal (although most of their work primarily is), it got to the point where I couldn’t listen to them any longer.

So why do I bring them up? They changed my whole perspective on music. Up to that point in my life, I listened to what was popular on TV/radio, with the exception of a few bands. Bad Religion started my assent into branching out my musical tastes and listening to whatever I felt like listening to without feeling like I was a pansy. Why them? I always just felt like I could relate a song to some aspect of society and something about that struck me as such a genius way to write your music. I actually listened to the lyrics and tried to understand them, but it didn’t help that Greg was getting his PhD and was using all these crazy words that I’d need a dictionary to look up. But it made them so much better than all the other punk bands, they had a message and there was thought put into the songs.

I eventually bought a set of drums and I drummed along to No Substance and The New America so many times. Around this time I also had the opportunity to see them live. It was simply one of those shows you’ll never forget. I had spent the first two opening acts around the 5th row area, but before Bad Religion took the stage, people started rushing it and so I retreated to the back to cool off and just enjoy the show. They put on a spectacular show in the wonderful Tabernacle. I didn’t like Brooks Wackerman on the drums, and I really still don’t now. I miss Bobby on the drums, even though they’ve had a few drummers since they formed, I felt Bobby was a great drummer, even though Pete Finestone appeared on my 2 favorite albums. Brooks couldn’t play the song, “Along the Way,” which is one of the greatest Bad Religion songs, it was butchered and even worse, over half of those there didn’t know the lyrics to the song.

Bad Religion for me has always been a band that no matter how horrible I feel at the moment, just listening to those songs makes me feel so much better. This band has helped me get through lots in my life. My problems may not be as big as others, but they’re always there to cheer me up.