Testament’s Alex Skolnick is Worried About Religion’s Role in Society
I don’t care if you have religious beliefs, just don’t try to tell me that your religion overrules science, considering that science is how you understand reality and religion is how you understand a really old fairy tale book. Religion isn’t that popular amongst metal bands for the most part, unless you’re Stryper, who themselves are unpopular amongst metal fans. So it’s little surprise that Alex Skolnick, guitarist for long-running thrash metal band Testament, is not a fan of religion’s role in society.
In a recent interview with Music Interview Corner (that was transcribed by Blabbermouth), Skolnick was asked about a t-shirt he was seen wearing several years ago that said “On the back of this shirt is a list of scientific discoveries that were later proven wrong by religion” and, on the back, had a blank list numbered 1-10. He ended up giving his views on religion, saying:
“I think it causes more problems than it solves. I think it’s okay to have your beliefs, but there are things you know will happen, or that you can say with certainty it’s gonna happen, and then there are things that you can imagine are true. And, yeah, I always liked the story of [English astronomer, mathematician and physicist] Halley, the scientist. [Edmond] Halley calculated the [return of the] comet [in 1758], and he said, ‘There’s gonna be a comet.’ And they all thought he was crazy. And he said, ‘Oh, well, here’s why.’ And he had mathematical calculations. And sure enough, he said, ‘Okay, at this time there’s gonna be [a comet],’ and there was the comet. And he could have said, ‘You know what? I am God and I’m gonna make this happen.’ And he didn’t. He could have started an organization and he could have gotten a lot of money… But he didn’t. And I respect that.”
Then he got onto the point about scientists having trouble convincing people of reality during the COVID-19 pandemic, to which Skolnick said:
“I know we’re in a time where there’s a lot of questioning of scientists, and how could they get things so wrong during the pandemic? But at least scientists, for the most part, the good ones, they admit that they’re wrong. ‘Oh, we got this wrong, and we have to change…’ Unfortunately, with religion, they rarely admit to things being wrong.
“A lot of terrible things happen with religion, and a lot of the heavy metal songs have been written about it. We’re certainly not the first [band to sing about it] — not that we have a lot of songs about that, but that’s just something, yeah, in real life, I’m just, yeah, sometimes troubled by the outsized role that religion plays in our society.”
Sadly, it doesn’t seem like religion is likely to play less of a role in society anytime in the future, but at least the metal world is still mostly full of atheists and devil worshipers. Hail science!
