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" People are still very uncomfortable with the idea that humans are not specially created species. I believe we are a fantastic species. But we are not created specially. That's very hard for people to accept in their day-to-day routine. "

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" 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

" One of our great thematic traditions in Bad Religion has been to question human nature. "

" I was never raised with the traditional story of creation in religion, and because of that I think I had a lot of questions. And evolution, the evolutionary narrative, helped provide some of that for me. "

" Naturalism teaches one of the most important things in this world. There is only this life, so live wonderfully and meaningfully. "

" I bill myself as a naturalist because if you say you're a naturalist, it gives people a conversation point to talk about what you actually do believe in, instead of when you say you're an atheist, and it's really just a statement of what you don't believe in. "

" You can look at Bad Religion, and, really, almost everything I've ever done was an exercise in creativity. I've always had a desire to challenge and question authority, and that's where the fire inside comes from. I challenged authority out of a desire to make things better, not to be nihilistic about it. "

" 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. "

" 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

" I'm trying to champion the naturalist's worldview and show it's not as heathen as most religious people would make it out to be. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Bad Religion took a long time to develop into gold-record-status artists. Along the way we learned and applied our knowledge, and Atlantic helped us every step of the way, since 1993. "

" 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. "

" I definitely was attracted to similar things in punk and science. They both depend on a healthy dose of skepticism. "

" Let's face it: There are people who are extremists in every corner of society, and whatever flag they're waving is something Bad Religion has stood against. "

" 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. "

" You can't let your personal disposition be dictated by the world around you. "

" I think English punk died in '79 or '80. Maybe '82 at the latest. As far as American punk goes, it wasn't the same as English punk. It wasn't a working-class movement that was protesting the conditions under which this class had to work. I don't think American punk ever died. "

" I've always been on a quest to use science in an artful way. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" If you go back far enough and get a wider enough picture of history, we have let go of many things that follow a religious narrative. We don't burn witches anymore. Most people would consider that barbaric. We don't sacrifice human beings, which was a religious act practiced by numerous cultures on this planet. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I call myself a naturalist as opposed to an atheist, but there are different styles. Some people just like to be close to nature. And some people actually worship nature, which is too wishy-washy because - like a lot of religious believers - they don't depend on facts. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" The thread of culture that runs through the entire history of punk is also a dedication to challenging the authoritarian. "

" If you can believe in God, then you can believe in anything. It's a gang mentality. "

" 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. "