As a child of the 70s and 80s, I didn't have the luxury of computer games and social media to shape my thoughts. Instead, a lot of it came from the music I listened to.
These are the top fifteen songs that helped to make me who I am and help keep me on track as a genuine person in this human experience. #STformativesongs
#2 - "With God on Our Side" by Bob Dylan
I too was taught that the country I grew up in had God on its side. I too learned that you never ask questions when God's on your side. What I failed to learn until I was older was that, even in a historic religious understanding, God doesn't get on anyone's side. God calls people to join his/her/its (God is spirit, not human) side.
I grew up believing that as long as I went to church and didn't do the actions that the grown-ups told me to avoid that God would be on my side. It had nothing to do with the attitudes of my heart or my actual love for others. It was all about not smoking, dancing, drinking, being gay, or hanging out with with people who did those things.
I learned later that most everything I had learned as a child was garbage. True religion, I learned, was taking care of widows and orphans. Real Christian character came from exemplifying the fruit of the spirit. And I learned that the whole of religious law can be summed up as love God and love your fellow humans.
And most of all, I learned that I never have God on my side. God doesn't get behind me and support my goals. Nor does God support the goals of the USA or the church or the conservative PACs or the goals of Republican or Democrats or Libertarians or anyone. God supports his/her/its own plan... period.
The sooner I got over thinking God had my back the soon I realized I no longer had carte blanche to pursue every selfish whim I had and try to cover it in some kind of religious version of Manifest Destiny. We can ignore a lot of evils if we persist with this notion that God is on our side.
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Oh my name it ain't nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I was taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side
Oh, the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh, the country was young
With God on its side
The Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War, too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I was made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side
The First World War, boys
It came and it went
The reason for fighting
I never did get
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side
The Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And then we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now, too
Have God on their side
I've learned to hate the Russians
All through my whole life
If another war comes
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side
But now we got weapons
Of chemical dust
If fire them, we're forced to
Then fire them, we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side
Through many a dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ was
Betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.
So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
That if God's on our side
He'll stop the next war
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