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Let's talk about religious trauma and the gods we have in our lives that we have put in place to fill the void left by any number of losses we might have suffered throughout our lives. First off, the lyrics of our most recent song, "Not the Gods" repeat "anger not the gods, anger not the gods above, anger not the gods, heaven brings no love". This is not to say that there might not be a place like the Christian heaven so many of us have been taught about at one point or another through our parents or media portrayals of such a glorious place. I cannot comment too deeply on that side of the matter, as I don't recall ever being to such a place. This being said, I believe many of us cling to this idea that there is something better coming when we die, forgetting that we can build our own kingdom, of sorts, right here on earth.
Now, stay with me all you believers. What if by focusing on what we have to do to get to a place like heaven, we lose sight of making the earth a better place. I know, I know, the way to heaven is, in a way, working towards making earth a better place, but that might be only partly true, right? Just take one good look at the way such so called believers have condemned others, traumatized, beaten, and killed even, because they believe another person or group's way of life threatens their own beliefs.
Personally, I was raised in a household where certain actions would cause "god to smite you". The constant state of fear that I was in over an invisible omnipotent god constantly watching and judging me became unbearable, and I turned to drugs and alcohol to calm the agonizing anxieties I lived with on a daily basis. These "new gods" provided me relief from guilt and an excuse to behave as "badly" as I wanted.
"Not the Gods" is a way of calling to question the authority of certain people, deities, writings, and teachings, especially in their instruction to control and conform rather than to love and better life right here on earth. It also looks at the items that we might hold up as gods, portrayed symbolically by the masked figures in the music video. I'm sure most of us can agree that, at one point or another, we have chased that "fix" as if it would cure our religious trauma or fill the void left by a distant, inhumane, vengeful deity. For me it has been video games, shopping, relationship, sex, drugs, fame... That was until I truly grasped that "love surrounds us only... fire burns with in... we are the lost souls..." found, I hope, in a new way of life fulfilling a full of openness and acceptance.