Losing My Religion

Other people have already touched on this but I think this song is about the strange mental dichotomy that is constructed by many religions; the constant second guessing and criticizing of yourself which leads to internal turmoil and self hate and concentrating on the negatives in life. By accepting some religions, the individual starts resembling the definition of schizophrenia (literally “of split mind”) by inserting an artificial and hyperactive conscience to keep track of all of the sins of the individual. I think one of the most important lines in the song is: “Every whisper, Of every waking hour, I'm choosing my confessions, Trying to keep an eye on you.” This speaks to a constant mental process continuously tracking and judging every thought and action for something that is “wrong” that will need to be confessed. Instead of living life, the person is constantly self-analyzing all of their thoughts and actions. And you are so pathetic you are like a “hurt, lost blinded fool”. When he says, “That's me in the corner” that's how many children are punished. “That's me in the spotlight” speaks to him being himself, on stage and confident; which is then followed by guilt and shame. Religion makes you feel guilty for being you. An insightful exercise in Zen has you watch your thoughts when you are really angry at yourself. After you mess up you might hear a thought that says, “You really screwed that up, you idiot! You should have known better!” The interesting part of the exercise is to notice the pronoun. When we talk to or about ourselves we use the words “I” and “Me”. When we talk about others we use the word “you”! Why is there a thought in your head that calls you “you”. Where did it come from and who put it there? Look at the third line of the song, “and you, you are not me”. Hmmm. I think it is talking about this super-critical conscience. Look at the lines: “ I thought that I heard you laughing, I thought that I heard you sing, I think I thought I saw you try”. There it is again, looking for sins. “Where you having a good time? Those are sins. No, well I saw you try, that's a sin just thinking about it”. (Yes there are religions that forbid singing outside of church and declare that just thinking of things are sins — like coveting a neighbor's wife or goods — thought crimes.) Quite literally, if his religion forbids singing out of church than every time he gets on stage he is “losing his religion”. Figuratively, “That's me in the spotlight, Losing my religion” could speak to him expressing himself on stage realizing that it is his talents and abilities filling the seats, not a “gift from an invisible being”. The more he finds himself the more he drifts away from the religious ideas he was brainwashed into believing as a child. 99% of new religious people are children being forced to attend by their parents. Very few happy adults with an education and understanding of science will decide out of the blue to become religious. Most adults that convert are coming over from another religion because of a marriage. Most of the rest that convert due so only after trauma. (Loss of a loved one, job, war, crime victim, 12 step program, etc). They need some belief system to cling to in order to make sense of their world. I think this song speaks to this in the line “ Consider this, The slip that brought me, To my knees — failed”. I also find it very interesting, that as his criticism of religion become stronger in the stanza, he stops and says, “Oh I've said too much”. In one, he basically says religion is making you treat yourself like “hurt, lost blinded fool” and another talks about religious beliefs being fantasies, “What if all these fantasies come flailing around” then says “oh no I've said too much”. Why? Because in our culture religious people have constantly told people it is not polite to discuss religion in public. It is okay for them to try and convert you by scaring the heck out of you with tales of eternal damnation, but if people want to rationally discuss religion via science, logic, etc, that is to be frowned upon. Why? If people rationally discussed religion, churches would dwindle in size. It's interesting to note that the last stanza he follows “I've said too much” with “I haven't said enough”, meaning that maybe instead of being polite and shying away from discussions of how harmful religions are, maybe he should just let loose and be honest and say what he really feels about the subject. Maybe that's why he wrote the song.