Ten Atheist Musicians

Atheism is much more prevalent in some fields of work than others. Scientists, for example, espouse atheism at a rate significantly higher than the general population, while, well, priests do not (that Mel Gibson film notwithstanding). I don't know where musicians show up on the list: given how many Grammy winners thank God at the podium, maybe not very high. Yet atheists show up in every walk of life, and here are ten musicians who don't seem to likely to break out into a renedition of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" any time soon.

1.	BJÖRK: The Icelandic symbol for weirdness has been quoted as saying, "If I get into trouble, there's no God or Allah to sort me out. I have to do it myself."
2.	SIMON LE BON: Simon Le Bon, onetime tabloid fixture and lead singer of Duran Duran, speaks in detail about his spiritual journey: "Losing my faith was very gradual." He adds, "I started thinking, 'Well, what if it's just people trying to personify life? To personify the fact that there is matter, and that there is a universe? If there is a God, that's it. God doesn't have a brain, God doesn't think, God is just existence.' And when you get to that point, you realise, if that's what God is, then there's no such thing."
3.	PAUL HEATON: Frontman not only of the Beautiful South but also of the Housemartins, a 1980s band known in part for explicitly Christian lyrics penned by him, Paul Heaton is an unexpected name to find on this list. Yet Paul Yeaton is quite avowedly atheist, despite the message "Take Jesus - Take Marx - Take Hope" appearing on the cover of the Housemartins' début.
4.	TRACEY THORN: Half of the popular English duo Everything But the Girl has the following to say: "I've always been an atheist. We grew up in a village and I was like, 'I'm not joining the Christian Youth Club'. Believing something that's unprovable is not how my mind works."
5.	MICKY DOLENZ: One of the Monkees, of course, and he was interviewed by The Onion as one of a wide range of celebrities to whom the question, "Is there a God?" was put. His interesting answer: "No. God is a verb, not a noun."
6.	ROBERT SMITH: The lead singer and sole constant member of decades-old institution The Cure, Robert Smith has stated, "I don't believe in god. I wish I did."
7.	LINTON KWESI JOHNSON: Perhaps less well-known than the other names here, but a personal favourite and a legend in the rather arcane musical field of 'dub poetry'. Jamaican-British, he speaks of the Rastafarian tradition in this way: as an atheist, "I couldn't reconcile myself to the idea that Haile Selassie was God."
8.	SHIRLEY MANSON: The lead singer of 90s band Garbage has been openly atheist since she was twelve years old and denounced religion as "bullshit" while at her dinner table.
9.	RICHARD RODGERS: Of an older vintage than the other names on this list, the famous composer of American musicals is described in a biography as follows: "Richard became an atheist, and as a parent he resisted religious instruction for his children. According to his wife, Dorothy, he felt that religion was based on 'fear' and contributed to 'feelings of guilt.'"
10.	BRIAN ENO: Understanding Brian Eno can at times be a difficult and frustrating exercise, but give this one a try: "Well, I'm an atheist, and the concept of god for me is all part of what I call the last illusion. The last illusion is someone knows what is going on. That's the last illusion. Nearly everyone has that illusion somewhere, and it manifests not only in the terms of the idea that there is a god but that knows what's going on but that the planets know what's going on. Astrology is part of the last illusion. The obsession with health is part of the last illusion, the idea that there's that if only we could spend time on it and sit down and stop being unreasonable with each other we'd all find that there was a structure and a solution underlying plan to it all, for most people the short answer to that is God."

Ten Noteworthy Jesuses, Volume One

The wide world of Jesus... There are a million different Jesuses out there, and here are ten attention-getting ones. There are plenty more, so expect a sequel. In the meantime, though, Jesus Ahoy!

1.	CHOCOLATE JESUS: "My Sweet Lord" by Cosimo Cavallaro is a work of art depicting Jesus and made from chocolate. While this is not the only example of a likeness of Jesus made from chocolate (Tom Waits has a song called "Chocolate Jesus", too, not that that has anything to do with anything), it's definitely the most controversial, having gotten all kinds of Christians upset, largely because Jesus is depicted in the anatomically-correct nude. His Christ-pose appears to be sans crucifix as well.
2.	HOMO SUPERIORIS: This is the theory, believed by nutballs, that DNA evidence from the bloodstains on Jesus's cross reveal that Jesus was not human after all - or at least, not quite human. He was, in fact, an entirely different species, Homo superioris, as identifiable by a triple helix as opposed to a double helix (representing the Trinity, surely). His being a different species explains his ability to perform miracles.
3.	MITSUO MATAYOSHI: Among the many lunatics claiming to be Jesus, a personal favourite must be The only God Mitsuo Matayoshi Jesus Christ, a politician in Japan who heads the World Economic Community Party, a party based around his own divinity as God and Jesus Christ. Part of his campaign for Second Coming involves being elected as Prime Minister of Japan, a position from which he can proceed to throw the corrupt into the Fire. So far he has been electorally unsuccessful.
4.	JESUS IN THE CLOUDS: Apparitions of Jesus are everywhere, and while the Toast Jesus and the Sofa Stain Jesus are awesome in their own way, I was most impressed by Jesus in the Clouds, a phenomenon where people around the world are apparently able to take more or less the same picture of a giant headless Jesus floating in the sky. The one I've included is apparently from the North Pole, but really you just have to check out the whole list here, which is intercontinental awesomeness.
5.	ORAL ROBERTS'S 900 FOOT JESUS: Another giant Jesus. This one comes courtesy of Oral Roberts, the slimy but extremely successful televangelist whose communications with the divine across the years apparently inspired him to buy a Buick and to claim that God would kill him if he couldn't recieve a few million dollars in donations. In 1980, a vision of a 900-foot Jesus appeared, telling Oral to build a hospital.
6.	GG ALLIN: GG Allin, a musician broadly classifiable as 'punk', had a 15-plus-year career based largely around varying kinds of 'shock'. His performances were very scatophilic, containing on-stage defecation or even the consumption of faeces in addition to plenty of blood and other enjoyable things. His lengthy discography is filled with songs such as "Suck My Ass It Smells" and "Last in Line for the Gang Bang". The reason he's on this list is because of the actual name given to him at birth by his father, who claimed Jesus had visited him: Jesus Christ Allin. A brother's incorrect pronunciation of this name led to the nickname "GG".
7.	JESUS LUZ: I could have filled this whole list with Hispanic people named 'Jesus'. The joke gets old. But this particular Jesus hangs around with Madonna, which is a pun way too good to overlook. He's apparently 22 and she's apparently 50. Which makes her old enough to, ahem, be his mother...
8.	THE JESUS OPTICAL ILLUSION: I don't get this one. Stare at the dots in the centre for a little while, then glance at a wall and see Jesus floating there. Well, obviously. It's a negative image of Jesus that your brain then reverts back. That black-and-white castle that you see in colour is way, way cooler. And so is that paper dragony-thing that always seems to be looking at you. That one might be evidence of a miracle.
9.	CESARE BORGIA: The Borgia family were a notoriously corrupt band of thugs in medieval Rome. Machiavelli's The Prince refers repeatedly to the Borgia clan and Cesare in particular, to the point that the behaviour today described as 'Machiavellian' describes the Borgias most of all. Cesare's father was pope, and as pope conspired to get as much power for Cesare as possible. Why he's here is because of the long-standing belief, attributed to Alexandre Dumas, that the (very European) image of Jesus we know now from countless paintings and imagery is in fact a picture of Cesar Borgia. Based on this painting, I'd have to say... I'm not sure. If I ran into Borgia on the street, I don't think I'd confuse him with Jesus.
10.	VICTOR GARBER IN "GODSPELL": A white afro, a heart painted on his forehead, a "Superman" t-shirt... this is pretty much how I, at least, have always pictured Jesus.