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" Bad Religion's tradition has always been to try and provoke people but hopefully lead them to a better sense of who they are and what they stand for. That's supposed to make them feel better. "
Greg Graffin
Stand
Religion
People
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" Science is very vibrant. There are always new observations to be found. And it's all in the interest in challenging the authority that came before you. That's consistent with the punk rock ethos that suggests that you should not take what people say at face value. "
Greg Graffin
People
Science
Value
" I've always been on a quest to use science in an artful way. "
Greg Graffin
Way
Always
Been
" My science teachers always encouraged their classes to 'go out and discover something' because all scientific endeavors depend on observation and experimentation. Through such pursuits, anyone can find something new to science, and if it's truly novel, the entire edifice of science might have to be restructured. "
Greg Graffin
Find
Depend
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" Bad Religion has never been about criticizing people who are Christian. But we've always been about pointing out the irony and contradictions in Christian theology and the more extreme versions of Christians that seek to challenge modern secularism. "
Greg Graffin
Religion
People
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" The vocal arrangements are a big part of the formula for a Bad Religion song - layered harmonies and background vocals. So when I start to describe the elements of Bad Religion's sound, it starts to sound like a Christmas choir. "
Greg Graffin
Christmas
Religion
Bad
" I want some fact-based evidence about where we came from. Things we consider mysterious need not be attributed to a deity. "
Greg Graffin
Mysterious
Need
Things
" I guess rock stars are role models for the kids who listen to that music. My role models have all been geologists - you know, the guys who are doing fieldwork until they're 70. "
Greg Graffin
Know
Doing
Music
" I don't mind if other people call me an atheist, but I call myself a naturalist. Atheism doesn't tell you much about what I do believe in; the term naturalist opens up the discussion better. "
Greg Graffin
You
Believe
Me
" So much of the habitat destruction and pollution is based on the simple principle that we somehow have been given free license over other species to degrade the planet. "
Greg Graffin
Over
Pollution
Simple
" Every place has its own punk flavor, but they all borrowed ideas from SoCal. It's still a vibrant scene creeping into every crevasse of youth culture. When you hear grunge, you think of the '90s, but when you hear L.A. punk, it's timeless. "
Greg Graffin
Think
Youth
You
" You can't let your personal disposition be dictated by the world around you. "
Greg Graffin
You
Around
Personal
" I struggled to keep one foot in music and one in academia. I had worked on my Ph.D. for three years full time before I realized Bad Religion could be a legitimate career. "
Greg Graffin
Religion
Music
Bad
" You can't take up all the music bins at a CD retail outlet with Spice Girls CDs and leave nothing for the Joan Jett catalogue. "
Greg Graffin
Nothing
Leave
Up
" A fossil is so powerful. It's moving. This is my ancestor. The naturalist is moved by the fossil... not the cross. "
Greg Graffin
Naturalist
Cross
Powerful
" Unfortunately, science cannot be reduced to short, catchy phrases. And if this is all that the general public can comprehend, it's no wonder that we spend so much of our time in the interminable debate about belief in God, or lack thereof. "
Greg Graffin
Science
Short
Debate
" The trick is: how do you talk about natural selection without implying the rigidity of law? We use it as almost an active participant, almost like a god. In fact, you could substitute the word 'god' for 'natural selection' in a lot of evolutionary writings and you'd think you were listening to a theologian. "
Greg Graffin
God
Listening
You
" I would say there's a lot of similarity between folk and punk. It's written for the common man. "
Greg Graffin
Common Man
Folk
Man
" There are so many ways to characterize evolutionary success. If one criterion is the number of millions of years that the species persists, we're still just infants. We're way too young of a species to tell if we were a creative fluke or if we have any staying power. "
Greg Graffin
Creative
Power
Success
" Most songwriters who have been lucky enough to have their song on the radio or be heard widely don't know anything about science. The best songs have a strong dose of metaphor. Most songs about science don't have that. Like 'She Blinded Me With Science.' It's a stupid song, no offense to Thomas Dolby. "
Greg Graffin
Stupid
Strong
Me
" The thrill of science is the process. It's a social process. It's a process of collective discovery. It's debate, it's experimentation and it's verification of claims that might be false. It's the greatest foundation for a society. "
Greg Graffin
Foundation
Society
Science
" One of our great thematic traditions in Bad Religion has been to question human nature. "
Greg Graffin
Human Nature
Religion
Nature
" If you can believe in God, then you can believe in anything. It's a gang mentality. "
Greg Graffin
Then
God
Gang
" In the 1970s, we had Carl Sagan, and he was so suave with his turtleneck and his tweed jacket. And he was, you know, he made science look cool. And in punk rock, we haven't had that. We haven't had the Carl Sagan of punk. "
Greg Graffin
Know
Cool
You
" As a scientist, of course, we have to believe there is no supernatural. There are only natural entities in the universe. And those are the things that we study as natural scientists. "
Greg Graffin
Believe
Natural
Universe
" I've written almost 200 songs with Bad Religion. No matter where you look in our history, the focus has been trying to instill some of these disturbing realities about the world, some of the implications of evolution into an artistic format that can be interpreted by people who may never study evolution. "
Greg Graffin
History
Focus
People
" The thread of culture that runs through the entire history of punk is also a dedication to challenging the authoritarian. "
Greg Graffin
Culture
Dedication
History
" I'm saying that there were many great naturalists before Darwin's time who were very pious people and who knew more about nature than most of us. These were great naturalists; people I would admire for their knowledge of natural science given the time. "
Greg Graffin
Nature
Knowledge
Great
" One of the things that all religions have is a narrative of doomsday. There has to be some kind of overarching fear of the future. If there wasn't, none of the religions could invoke this important thing - that science has no evidence of, by the way - called free will. "
Greg Graffin
Free
Future
Important
" From a very early age, I was in tune with pop radio, and most of this listening was done driving. We had an old '67 or '65 Buick LeSabre, and whenever we would drive around, I would actually stick my head right against the speakers in the back and sing along to the music. "
Greg Graffin
Driving
Listening
Music
" I view music as entertainment. When I'm on stage, I don't look at that as a platform for sharing ideology. Otherwise I'd be a zealot myself. That's why, when people ask me, 'Do you think you can change the world through your music?' I say, 'I doubt it.' "
Greg Graffin
Myself
Music
Change