Recording on the next Fireaxe CD, "Food for the Gods" is moving along steadily. The digital studio is working out very well and the sound quality is another major step up from that previously attained in "Lovecraftian Nightmares". The sixth and seventh preview tracks are now available as mp3s for free.

The name of the sixth preview track is "The Tower of Pain" and tells the story of Christ and the rise of Christianity. Although it is unavoidable that it is my "take" on the subject, I filled the lyrics of the song with direct quotes from the New Testament with most coming directly from Jesus and Paul, or at least as direct as anyone can be sure that they are. My intent in "Food for the Gods" is not merely to look to history for inspiration for songs, but to shine a new light on history from a nihilistic perspective and to be as honest as possible. I think that having no political agenda tied to one’s interpretation is the only way to gain a complete understanding of history. Thus, with nihilism, I am potentially free from having to put the facts through contortions to support a political or religious belief. Simply tearing away the facades of right and wrong, and good and evil from the characters and event in history yields a fresh new view. It also frightens those who are greatly personally invested in their ideologies, but then art is supposed to challenge.

For years the question of why Christianity has won the hearts and minds of millions has made me look beyond the simple explanations. Sure it promises a wonderful afterlife and the threat of hell can be used to keep followers in line, but it seemed that there was something about the Christ symbol itself that found traction in the psyche of men two thousand years ago and which continues to do so today. So I pulled out my childhood copy of the bible and began to read in a very analytical manner, trying to find the verses that generate powerful psychological conditioning. According to my working theory (See the Origins of Violence essay series) that consciousness had dawned only about a thousand years prior to Jesus and that the first millennium BC was a time of great social as well as psychological upheaval, the minds of the people in that time were desperately trying to cope with the loss of divine authority. Kingdoms rose and fell, armies stole or destroyed divine statues and holy temples, and the ways of the past no longer worked in the present. Tradition and gods, which were essentially one and the same, went from being reliable to being erratic or completely incapable of solving problems. Worshippers were fickle and changed gods often and kings used coercion to force religious submission. Also, the absence of a reliable god prevented worshippers from receiving a divine blessing when needed. In psychological terms this means that they could no longer find a regular source of positive reinforcement. If a god was not psychologically reliable, making a sacrifice to it did not always result in a feeling of security and purpose. Without a sense of purpose, which had before been bestowed by gods carved in stone, life is difficult indeed. Of course, the Jews had a god that was reliable and all powerful, but the Jewish interpretation of negative events, that god was punishing them for doing something wrong, did not give most a sense of security.

Then came the prophet, or more accurately, thousands of prophets. Not all with the same idea, but all with something that worked for them at least, and who were trying to spread their ideas to others. Jesus was one of those, or perhaps was a compilation of many of them. Maybe he existed, and maybe not, but it actually doesn’t matter since his story and words are all important. The theme of his story is that you find salvation through suffering. This theme runs through the sermon on the mount to the sacrifice on the cross. And it is not just any suffering, it is suffering in silence with submission to and faith in a single invisible all-powerful god. If you suffer in silence and obedience, you will receive eternal life. This is the connection that links bad things happening to feelings of blessing, or at least feelings that some good will eventually come. God is not punishing you, god is testing you. Remaining faithful is passing the test. Another difference with Judaism is that the rewards were all in heaven, not on earth. The Jewish tradition, with David and Job as its martyrs, were all rewarded with earthly riches. A poor but faithful Jew could become skeptical at his lack of wealth, but Christians could always look forward to a reward. We’ve heard them all before but consider Jesus’ messages again in this light: "Blessed are the poor", "the meek shall inherit the earth", "when men persecute you, rejoice and be glad", "Do not resist one who is evil", "Turn the other cheek", "He who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me", "Judge not lest ye be judged", "When you pray do so in private", etc. The common theme is to quietly suffer hardships and to trust in god to right all the wrongs done to you during your life while not doing any wrongs yourself. The goal is to do on earth as it is in heaven, in essence being as holy as possible no matter what. In doing so you become like an angel.

Psychologically this works by connecting suffering with feelings of heavenly ascension and divine blessing. When times are good a person will naturally feel good, but when times are bad they can always find comfort in their suffering by remaining faithful and knowing that god is real and still loves them. Suffering followed by submission becomes the trigger for a conditioned good response. Suffering is divine. This is the conditioning that enables Christianity to take root. Suffering for god bestows a sense of security and purpose.

So where does all this positive conditioning come from? The usual sources are the traditional links between the abstract god concept and tangible good things. Saying grace or attending church before a meal is a remarkably Pavlovian form of conditioning as well as the continual crediting of god for all things good that happen. But at the heart of Christian conditioning lies the strong positive connections forged in infancy between a child and a parent. An infant is helpless and completely dependent and when it receives parental love it associates the helpless feeling with being cared for. Also, when the child is older it learns that submission to parental authority is the way to get rewards. These connections still exist in the adult mind although those forged in infancy are mostly dormant and unused. They can be reawakened with Christian conditioning by regressing to the childlike state, at least temporarily, during rituals such as prayer. By responding to suffering with submission to a godlike figure the old child-parent conditioning is triggered and good feelings flow once again. There is also a point when you are enduring severe pain where endorphins begin to flow and relieve the pain. This can be also be evoked during rituals and interpreted as a divine blessing although it is a natural bodily reaction.

Now, getting back to the song. "The Tower of Pain" is a part of the full track titled "The Prophet" which tells the story from the sermon on the mount to the Christians’ struggle in Rome. "The Tower of Pain", is about Jesus’ reformist rebellion and his crucifixion. According to the story Jesus willingly goes to die on the cross, an excruciatingly painful death, after speaking out very emphatically about the Pharisees’ approach to running the church. When they decide that he is a heretic and must be put to death he does not fight or resist the decision. In the song Jesus says "I must practice what I preach, I must climb the tower of pain", meaning that he will die for what he believes to prove that he isn’t a hypocrite. In so doing he sets the gold standard for Christian suffering. Who could ever suffer more than Jesus? It makes whatever you are going though seem minor in comparison.

Adding to the theme of salvation through suffering, the apostle Paul drives home the idea of divine punishment by invoking the powerful image of a god to be feared. Paul is in essence the first Christian evangelist and rails against sinners while simultaneously promising deliverance if one submits. Thus the core of a powerful belief is born. With this new found ability to maintain their faith despite severe hardships, Christians were able to endure centuries of persecution at the hands of the Romans and eventually conquer the empire from within. Being able to endure suffering is a powerful tool, but as we all know, power corrupts.

The music in the song is eclectic. I recently acquired a keyboard (Yamaha PSRGX-76) that has extremely good samples with touch sensitive tonal changes. The grand piano sounds absolutely real, and other settings are top notch. The track begins with a soft piano introduction which lifts into the mainline and somewhat funky rhythm guitar parts. Intermixed are the chorus, the "Lord’s Prayer" (believe it or not), and goes on to the climactic "Tower of Pain" passage. The last part is on the track available on mp3 and it is extremely intense. With a little imagination you should have no trouble imagining Christ on the cross.

So is it "Christian metal"? I registered it with that as one of the genres on IUMA, so at some point a Christian metal fan is probably going to download it and think that Fireaxe is a new Christian metal band. Just thinking about that makes me laugh, but I approach the song as I did the other tracks, portraying the subject as flawed but heroic. Jesus is given the same charismatic appeal as Tiglath Pilesar, Akenaten, Joshua, and the Servant of Pain. So a Christian might like this song even after they find out what I intended it to mean.

The name of the seventh preview track is "Them" and it is not at all like the King Diamond track. The theme of "Them" is one of demonizing and scapegoating a group of people and making them the target of retribution. The full song covers the Crusades, the Inquisition, and modern forms of dehumanization. The mp3 cut from it features the Crusades, specifically the destruction of Jerusalem in 1099. Once again I go for historical accuracy throughout the song. Almost every word is taken from historians’ accounts of the battle and the events surrounding the Crusades. Of the cut on the site, only the lines "The blood of the martyr is the grease for the wheels of the war machine" and "No mercy, no fear, a holy slaughter, in the name of the Lord" are ones I made up myself. But you will notice that they fit in perfectly with the rest of the lines, taken almost verbatim from the history books. For instance, the line "The dead littered the streets, what a wonderful site" was penned by someone who was at the battle for Jerusalem. The juxtaposition of gory details and the idea that this was for the "Glory of God" is something that period authors made, and not out of sarcasm either.

The music fits the theme well. A slow march leading up to the battle which is reaches a fevered pitch and then descends into glorious revelry and victory. The "Them" chorus drives the song title home as I sing words written nearly a thousand years ago that demonize the Muslim enemies. It’s cool. I also gave this song the Christian metal genre. He he he. It’s appropriate I think.

The Crusades, Inquisition, witch burning, etc., are all examples of how being able to suffer leads new levels of abuses. War, for instance, is all about being able to suffer greater hardships than your enemy. If your soldiers are able to stand on the front lines girding themselves with prayers while taking heavy losses, you have a better chance of defeating an enemy that routs under similar conditions. Torture requires strength both to endure it and to inflict it. To give you an example there was this thing they used during the Inquisition called a "pear" which was a pear shaped object with three spikes sticking out at the big end. The pear could be inserted into someone’s mouth, rectum, or vagina. Then the torturers would turn a screw at the end of the pear which would slowly widen the body of the pear inside the victim since the pear was hollow and was made with three pieces attached at the crank end. The more the pear was cranked, the further the pieces would spread apart and the deeper the spikes would dig into the victim’s throat, rectum, or vagina. Imagine suffering that. Also imagine doing that to someone. It should be difficult, yet people did these things to other people and also endured them without confessing. How? Religious conditioning. Fear of hell, good feelings following suffering and faithfulness, and the satisfaction of resisting or defeating the enemy fueled them and gave them the resolve to do all these things. But before we start thinking that it’s something that we could never do or never endure it’s important to remember that these people were just the extreme cases. Exceptionally stubborn people were required in both roles. As time has gone on since then, the bar has been raised across the board. Suffering to achieve a goal is something that has proliferated, especially in capitalistic societies where large rewards are dangled in front of athletes, businessmen, musicians, and almost everyone else at certain times. The lengths that people will go, enduring hardships along the way for no certain payoff, grow greater with each passing year. War has grown similarly terrifying. Preparing troops for modern mechanized warfare means making them able to endure onslaughts of explosions, bullets, fire, gas, and destructive force unthinkable in centuries past. The latest weapon, the suicide bomber, is just the next evolution of this process, which is simply not going to stop. Bush has made it clear that he will use tactical nuclear weapons if necessary and each new battle seems to produce another level of determination and suffering. The cycle continues, and each time around we take Pandora’s box and give it a good shake to see what comes out next. So as individuals we may be less able to endure suffering as the most stubborn people during the middle ages, on the whole we are much more capable. It’s the only way that one can survive.

One thing is for certain, Christian or not we’re all on the cross.

You can download and listen to the new tracks at the Fireaxe IUMA site

Of course I realize that my take on Christianity is wrong. I know this because in every argument I’ve ever had with a Christian it was made clear to me that I did not understand who God was or what Jesus meant or what Christianity was all about. The simple proof was that I did not believe. If I did understand, I would believe, so that is that. Thus, Christians out there can rest assured that I am wrong and that God will indeed save them if they are good. And, maybe, he will save me as well just because he’s a nice guy.

I apologize for my evil influences.