song for theme #14A: Moralistic God

“Moralistic God” by Stephen P. Cook

to be sung to the tune of “Lying Eyes” by Don Henley and Glenn Frey / The Eagles

Your guilty¹ conscience² often worries

‘Bout where your soul will forever dwell

Better get off this sinful³ path you’re on

Or oh my God you’ll end up there in hell

Your not so restful sleep is full of nightmares

Of hellfire’s flames and how they burn

How to escape tormenting bad dreams

You just don’t know quite where to turn

Losing sleep your mind is still churning

Like a pot of goat’s head soup⁴ on the stove

You’ve sinned, broken God’s commandments

Your soul’s like an emperor without clothes⁵

Don’t you hide from Moralistic God

You can’t escape from His jihad⁶

Listen my friend if you’ve been ba—ad⁷

You just can’t hide from Moralistic God

You were born a soul condemned to suffer⁸

Behaving yourself you can be saved

Start by having faith and repenting

No sin’s so great it can’t be waived

Find Jesus⁹, the way to salvation¹⁰

Protect your soul from suffering in hell

What this church marquee sign is also saying

Is “Hey, we have fire insurance to sell!”

You can buy it every Sunday morning

At the church up to heaven points its spire

When God opens his Day of Judgment book

You can avoid that awful lake of fire

Don’t you hide from Moralistic God

You can’t escape from His jihad

Listen my friend if you’ve been ba—ad

You just can’t hide from Moralistic God

SONG—NOTES / COMMENTS

1— Guilt is an emotional state produced by knowing that one has violated moral standards.  If one accepts society’s version of

      acceptable behavior, the punishment guilt produces is self-administered. 

2— Conscience is a sense of what is morally right or wrong.  When conscientious behavior and actual behavior diverge, guilt and

      feelings of remorse can result.  Some connect it with "God's voice." 

3—Sin refers to an act that violates moral law or offends God, breaking His laws, and producing alienation from Him.  For some,

      guilt comes from one's conscience with notification that a sin has been committed.

4—Goat’s Head Soup: a 1973 Rolling Stones’ album, mentioned here to bring attention to goats and sheep.

5—Refers to the “The emperor has no clothes” story where a child sees and states what others overlook, and will not speak of.

6—Jihad is an Islamic term, linked to religious duty, which some connect with waging holy war.

7—Refers to a goat or sheep’s way of negatively evaluating the worth of certain behavior. (It rhymes with God.)

8—Original sin appears to be a uniquely Christian belief.  That tradition teaches that all people are saddled with this type of sin at

      birth due to the sinful choice made in the Garden of Eden.

9—Muslims can substitute “Allah” for “Jesus” here.

10—Salvation is the saving of one's soul from suffering and punishment that sins would otherwise justify, by forgiving their sins 

     èredeeming their souls. This can happen by asking God for forgiveness, and backing the request with signs of repentance.

Comment: this theme promotes carrying emotional baggage (notes 1-3), but has value as emotional armor.  Feeling “the next life” will be better and justice will finally be done can help people cope with their dissatisfaction with the life they’re trapped in, pain from victimization, fear of death. The link between bad behavior ègoing to Hell and associated fear undoubtedly lives in neural connections inside billions of brains. The emotions associated with fearing God and equating God with love are as different as night and day. Many of those who instill such emotions may, like Machiavelli, find greater security in being feared than being loved.