[QUOTE=NDP]
The Anthony Quinn movie was certainly the starting part but I interpret the song as a lampoon of those who unthinkingly believe and wait for a messiah of some sort to arrive and set everything right. The apparent incongruity of an Eskimo named Quinn is used to demonstrate the folly of blind faith.
[/quote]
Hmmmm. I like that. Well put.
[QUOTE=hajario]
My girlfriend was singing this song right as I was reading this. Weird.
[/QUOTE]
Obviously, its a sign from God. Presumably he’s trying to tell you he doesn’t exist.
My vote: Rush. Freewill
[QUOTE=Rush]
You can chose a ready guide in some celestial voice
You can choose not to decide, you still have made a choice
You can choose from phantom fiends or kindness that can kill
I will choose a path that’s clear, I will choose freewill
[/QUOTE]
And arguably, Roll the Bones
[QUOTE=Rush]
Why are we here? Because we’re here
Roll the bones
Why does it happen? Because it happens
Roll the bones
[/QUOTE]
I Will Follow You Into the Dark - Death Cab for Cutie
Love of mine
Someday you will die
But I’ll be close behind
I’ll follow you into the dark
No blinding lights or tunnels to gates of white
Just our hands clasped so tight
Waiting for the hint of the spark
One of Us - Joan Osborne
Flies on the Windscreen - Depeche Mode More Nihilist than Atheist but still fun, fun, fun!
Joan Osborne’s If God Was One of Us, which has poor, tired ol’ God riding a bus like the rest of us slobs.
And the biggie: Superstar from Jesus Christ Superstar:
Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ, Superstar
Do you think you’re what they say you are?
There aren’t many blues songs that question God’s existence, since the blues is very much intertwined with gospel, sort of its ‘evil twin’.
However, there is one remarkable verse sung by Mississippi blues singer Son House in a couple of different songs in the same ‘tune family’ (Walking Blues, Death Letter Blues):
There ain’t no heaven, no burnin’ hell
Where I go when I die, cain’t nobody tell
House had been a preacher before he became a blues singer, and he gave blues up in his later years for religious reasons (and to stop drinking). His questioning of dogma is impressively honest.
Machine in the Ghost - The Faint
I Don’t Know - dredg
two agnostic songs.
hearing someone yell “i don’t know” is great!
When I’m Gone by Phil Ochs may be close to what you’re looking for, although I think it’s more of a humanist song than an agnostic one.
On the same line, Shakira’s Octavo Día (Eighth Day).
“Imagine” leans a lot more towards atheism than agnosticism.
Maybe “The Second Sitting For The Last Supper,”* by 10cc. It is angry and skeptical about religion, but I don’t think it is exactly atheist. They would like Jesus to turn up again and fix the world, they have just lost the hope that He actually will.
*Sadly, I could not find a version by the real, full Creme and Godley, 10cc.
For what it’s worth, this is a four-year-old thread that has been revived, though I don’t remember seeing it the first time around.
I can’t think of any songs that really count as agnostic songs, but a few lines spring to mind that are explicitly noncomittal about the existence of God, heaven, etc.
From “Is This The World We Created?” by Queen: “If there’s a God in the sky looking down what can he think of what we’ve done to the world that he created?”
From “The Verdict” by Joe Jackson: “We don’t know what happens when we die; we only know we die too soon.”
At the other end of the scale from some of the atheist-leaning examples given earlier, there are Christian songs that are in some sense agnostic, not about the existence, but about the nature or knowability, of God—for example, “Half Light, Epoch, and Phase” by Daniel Amos:
Best I can do.
“We sit outside and argue all night long
About a god we’ve never seen
But never fails to side with me
Sunday comes and all the papers say Ma Teresa’s joined the mob
And happy with her full time job”
Primative Radio Gods, Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth With Money in my Hand.
“Over Our Heads” and “Knock Yourself Out” by Jon Brion, off the “I <3 Huckabees” soundtrack.
Good one!
Love the song “Knock Yourself Out”