There is little, if any, justification for believing in god. And so when Eagle Owl’s unnamed female vocalist sings that she feels like she’s godless on Godless, I cannot help but wonder which god? Presumably, it is the son-slaughterer god of the New Testament; but ideally, or consistently, it should be all of them.
Who among us still believes that Poseidon lurks upon the ocean seafloor? Or that Ra carries the sun across the sky each and every day? Argue they exist if you must, but in that case I’ll argue you’re an idiot. And the same applies to the god of the New Testament and the god of Hebrew bible and the indigenous Creator god and the god of — gasp, don’t mention it, lest one be considered an islamophobiac (sic) — the Koran. It is demonstrably the case that these are man-made gods.
We make god in our own image. It has been the case since the dawn of civilization and it will continue to be the case. We are, and always have been, godless because there has never been a god. One is not losing anything when the feeling of godlessness strikes. You are the same person as you were when you were godfull.
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To read the rest of this review — and more by Steve Schmolaris — visit his website Bad Gardening Advice.
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Steve Schmolaris is the founder of the Schmolaris Prize, “the most prestigious prize in all of Manitoba,” which he first awarded in 1977. Each year, he awards the prize to the best album of the year. He does not have a profession but, having come from money (his father, “the Millionaire of East Schmelkirk,” left him his fortune when he died in 1977), Steve is a patron of the arts. Inspired by the exquisite detail of a holotype, the collective intelligence of slime mold, the natural world and the suffering inherent within it — and also music (fuck, he loves music!) — Steve has long been writing reviews of Winnipeg artists’ songs and albums at his website Bad Gardening Advice, leading to the publication of a book of the same name.
