Reply #5: "Did you make mankind after we made you? "

[SiouxJ]

That's my favorite line from that song.

I remember the first time I heard that song, I was in college (around age 21 I think) and had lost my only brother about 6 years prior. I was already a big XTC fan and still kind of half-believed in god; I remember being stunned by the boldness of the message. It made me think. At the time I was very angry at "god" because I felt like he had taken my 16 year old brother from me, so I completely identified with the rage in the song. It may have been the first time I really thought about the whole issue seriously. It made me feel good to sing it loud in the privacy of my car. I remember thinking if my parents could hear this, they'd be shocked and very upset. It is a very significant song to me because of all the emotion I was feeling at the time.

I understood the "I'm mad at god so I'm not going to believe in him" concept, and that made me want to investigate the matter further. I wasn't 100% willing to throw the beliefs I was was brought up with completely out the window, just because I was angry. I started looking into other religions and the roots of Christianity and then I saw it for what it was, and as time went on, I became more certain that mankind made god, not the other way around.