Jon Lennon's imagine. perhaps the atheists anthem

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here is a thought
has any one ever analyzed jon lennon's imagine.
I say that it is possibly an atheist's anthem and part of lennon and many others in the industry's influence
to get rid of religions, especially ones that promote equality and egalitarianism.

Don't get me wrong, perhaps aspects of religion that he and the others were fighting against needed to be sorted out. However, knowing lennon's past interest in occultism etc aka alister crowley, hitler etc
i start to wonder if lennon's effort to undermine the church were partly selfish and to excuse or even promote
his own god like self promoting.

Don't get me wrong, i see lennon as an amazing and prolific musician and song writer. But, whether than means he is a god among men who has the right to enforce a socio-political and religious ethos that enslaves men, i think not.
Ironically, many called lennon a working class hero. But if you look at the rest of the beatles (and i have met one of them), i start to think, sure, your talented and you've made a lot of money. But apart from making some nice music how have you changed the world for the better? especially with the capital at your disposal.

I don't know, perhaps i am a bit childish and believe that saving human life is more important that buying diamonds and walking around the planet with your nose in the air because you wrote a couple of nice songs.

Does having the talent of song writing really equate to being classified as a superior person who has the right to judge others and decide their fate?

I thought it was the hippies anthem. It has a message about world peace. I like the song, anyways. I think it's the most beautiful song to ever be written.

I don't care if it's "the Atheist's Anthem," or the "Buddhist's Anthem."

I still like the song.

JL could have made a positive difference but he hid for ten years doing drugs and indulging that crazy bird of his.

Hunter agrees with me, or I agree with him, it's three of those two, leave the dodo alone Alice, no more mescaline.

Your thought process is very unclear in this post.

You decided on a motivation for creating the song just by analyzing the lyrics?


What does an interest in the occult have to do with self-promotion? And how was/would that self-promotion be "god-like"?


When and how did John Lennon enforce or attempt to enforce any sort of ethos?


Does any of this have anything to do with the song being an atheistic anthem, religion, or anything else you posted above?


Why are you asking these questions? Has someone classified any of the Beatles or any songwriter as "superior"? Has someone said that they have the "right" to judge others or decide others' fate?

actually
songs are written by people who have something to say
i know, as i am a songwriter and producer (although not working professionally at the mo)
but have spent many years making music and writing.

I went to the college started by jon lennon's band mate paul now sir paul
and have a BA degree in sound tech (which is sound engineering / record producing)

I have listened to jon lennons songs over the years
and love a lot of them, including imagine
but if you listen to the lyrics
especially in lennons writings

there can be arguably some signs of anti-religion or even anti-semitism in some areas
but like lucy in the sky, encoded so as to make it hard to be pulled up on this

now i know
me questioning lennon's lyric writing is basically asking for people to attack me
as goodness, people defend their musical hero's stronger than they defend their religion in our day and age
(not that i am religious either).

But looking at the history of pop culture and how the western world has developed since the turn of last century
i am starting to question the meaning of much of what is now pop culture and trying to examine as to whether their is a deeper meaning behind the lyrics

as to god like
and self promoting
these terms would be of no surprise to anyone who has ever read anything about some of lennon's influences
such as the infamous crowley
who did in fact see himself as god like and was notorious as a self publicist

it is arguable as to whether crowley set a president or blue print for future men who also wanted to be god like
or should i say godless and god like

going back to the god like thing
now please remind me, who was it again who said in a rather cocky way "were now bigger than Jesus"....
not if that isn't god like, i don't know what is buddy.

not trying to start a fight
more trying to break down the walls of delusion that have been put up for us by the consumer obsessed hero worship entertainment industry

goodness, i would worship lennon too, if he had done something more than just write a few great songs.
but like most people in the entertainment industry. sadly not. well not to the extent of their worth.
shame. especially these days, as moral integrity being even worse.. but that's another debate. one which i am sure people will disagree about too but often without research or proper understanding.
MK ultra anyone? Operation paperclip. nevermind.

Why are you asking these questions? Has someone classified any of the Beatles or any songwriter as "superior"? Has someone said that they have the "right" to judge others or decide others' fate?[/quote]
People with influence, wealth and power do often decide the fate of others. My experience with people in the entertainment industry, politics and journalism (which are now and perhaps have been for some time, intrinsically linked) do in fact decide the fate of others regardless of their victims merits. Wealth and influence is their power.
Unfortunately. The beatles (whom i actually like when it comes to creative works) are (at least the ones that are left) are powerful. With such power, people can do what they want. and i am afraid that the things such people do just because they can can include some very dark actions. This is how it is. But i guess this is how it is for any multimillionaire / billionaire. They live a different type of justice than the rest of the world. It's just how it is.
I just think it is a strange world that we live in that a person can write a few songs and then have that power in their hands. The power they get is not because they are necessary because they are good people or worthy of that amount of power but 'cause they wrote a few songs. Funny world.

sure i like the song too
but when learning to play the song on piano
i started to sing the song
and started to realise that the lyrics could easily be viewed in a different light
one side could be world peace
another light could be anti-abrahamic religion and pro atheism

no hell below us
above us only sky...

The lyrics to John Lennon's "Imagine" (especially the part about "imagine no posessions")
remind me of a boyfriend I once had.
He was a leftist, who one day decided to give me a lecture on
how nobody should own their own car
but instead, everybody in the neighborhood should share one,
and sign up on a list to make an appointment for when they would need to use the car.
Like, "Monday at 3:00 p.m. for a dentist appointment."

After he finished the lecture about how nobody should have their own car,
he announced that he was going to the store
(driving his own car, of course)
to buy some fancy gourmet coffee which cost $35.00 per pound!

So much for "no possessions" ...

Suffice it to say, we weren't on the same wavelength,
and he didn't remain my boyfriend.

Thank God.

...

lol....
funny story. Sure. I used to hang out with some guys who said they were anarchists, others said they were communist and others yet again said they were rasta.
But funny thing is, none of them turned down "babylon's" welfare cheque, nor their free hospitals if need be,
and the ones who were the worst (who still profess to be left) are sycophant celebrity party gate crashers in soho london, trying their best to (capitalise) out of their celeb buddies in order to manipulate events to their favour, to exploite materially for their gain and to try and get a step up the ladder.

These people i fear would be the stalins and hitlers of party politics, if given half the chance.
I also fear that they are not the minority. Which is also a shame.
If anything, at least with most aspo's, you can trust what they say. even if it isnt always nice to hear. but aspo's do have a tendency to be straight. So if they say share, the actually mean share and dont actually mean let me take everything and then i will lie that i even have been given anything...

Going back to song meanings.
I also find it funny how the people that listen to a song that has been written with a specific meaning behind it attribute their own meaning which is often completely different to the original meaning that the writer meant.

One classic example of this is perfect day by lou reed.
Perfect Day is a great song which is great to sing. It was used a while back as an anthem to advertise the BBC. I personally found this hilarious as the BBC had a massive array of celebs singing the song in their adverts. and the celebs ranged from kids tv presenters to soap actors and film stars.

The song written by lou reed was about how he would like to spend his day with his best buddy at the time, his best buddy heroin. Thats why i found the BBC adverts funny. But there you go. I am a bit twisted like that. Twisted in the sense that i twist things back to how they were originally... lol

oh its such a perfect day... (ps. i don't use heroin....and dont recommend it kids! personally think its all just another money making spin for people behind the scenes. which we are made to think is rebellious but is actually just plain old capitalism again. but at so much a greater cost. who gets rich out of that one? not the user. but your life )...

Religions idea of "promoting peace and equality" is to declare war with anybody who disagrees with their version.

Take Conservative Christians for example. They don't believe in "equality". In fact, many are white supremacists who look down on minority groups. They describe people like us as "ret*ds", because we don't fit into their narrow vision of the world. They believe all gay people are going to hell and anybody who doesn't hold far right extremist views is a dumb, crazy, hippy, atheist liberal.

No offence to anybody with religious leanings, but I really really dislike religion. That's not to say that I don't believe there is something beyond what we experience in life. But if there is a god out there, I think they'd be very disappointed with the way religious cults have conducted themselves in this world.

I was born and raised Catholic ... But became atheist by choice....no...I don't see Imagine as an atheist anthem....if it were...nobody from the" atheist church " told me...

i don't know about that, tldr
but he's among the new idols of the new reli-order

"Imagine there is no heaven, and no hell below us, above us only sky....imagine there are no countries...no religion too"

He doesn't quite go so far as to say "imagine there is no God", but Lennon did say "no heaven, no hell,no religion". So the famous peace anthem could be taken as promoting atheism. That's just stating the obvious. And if promoting atheism was Lennon's intent then there is nothing nefarious about that. Its a free country. You can write songs promoting any creed you want.

But after stating the obvious the OP then goes off the deep end into paranoid nonsense. Much of self-contradictory: condemning Lennon for not using Lennon's power to "improve the world" in the same breath that he condemns Lennon for taking advantage of Lennon's power to meddle in the world.

Did you want Lennon to meddle, or to stop meddling? Which is it? And if its to meddle that you wanted him to do then why did Lennon have to meddle in ways that conform to your own particular religious beliefs? Sounds like your trying to "impose your own beliefs on everyone"! Project much?

By the way its "John" Lennon.

He was not christened "Jonathan". So he wasn't the shortened form of "Jonathan" kind of "Jon". The ex Beatle was the "John" kind of "John". Like King John, and Pope John, and Saint John.

I am a Beatles fan, but I don't like this song at all. I don't want to imagine a world described in this song, because I have read about how the wishes described in this song, as implemented by governments around the world, have resulted in poverty, ruin and death, either by government sponsored murder or by suicide. Not a good world.

Exactly.