Mr Bungles guitarist (and the one who wrote the song) had this to say about it. "I just want to clarify that reference to Omega Point in NOTKTWR does not make the song 'about' that subject. Tipler's brand of scientific cryptotheology is just one of the elements taken into consideration in the song - I use it to help illustrate a point. Namely, that the reductionist tendency in physics/sciences springs from the same source as the worst religious Dogmatism. Gnostics would argue that both serve the Demiurgos, or False God - creator of the physical universe, who unwittingly conceals the True Hidden God while imagining himself to be The One. In any case, the reference to St. Augustine is not there to bash religion, but to help chart the linear history of where science and religion converge in their satanic pact (In the beginning was a Bang!). Most importantly, these images deal with the timeless tendency to overly-literalistic reductionism - how we render the universe to ourselves prematurely, and round out the edges to make it consistent with our beliefs. No area of inquiry is immune - we're lucky if we can penetrate any respective channel of 'human knowledge' deep enough to discover the three or four totally shit-upon luminaries who are sitting there dispersed through time in backed-up sewer-systems of brainbending superfluous nonsense.
"I hope people will at least see that the song doesn't consider science or religion to be particularly opposed in this regard. Sure, with the Inquisition we all have historical precedent for the severity of 'religious' atrocities - but it [cyclical time] might make you wonder which cloak the Beast will don to the next be-heading party... has it already begun? Either it never started, or it will never end. None of them knew..."
Mr Bungles guitarist (and the one who wrote the song) had this to say about it. "I just want to clarify that reference to Omega Point in NOTKTWR does not make the song 'about' that subject. Tipler's brand of scientific cryptotheology is just one of the elements taken into consideration in the song - I use it to help illustrate a point. Namely, that the reductionist tendency in physics/sciences springs from the same source as the worst religious Dogmatism. Gnostics would argue that both serve the Demiurgos, or False God - creator of the physical universe, who unwittingly conceals the True Hidden God while imagining himself to be The One. In any case, the reference to St. Augustine is not there to bash religion, but to help chart the linear history of where science and religion converge in their satanic pact (In the beginning was a Bang!). Most importantly, these images deal with the timeless tendency to overly-literalistic reductionism - how we render the universe to ourselves prematurely, and round out the edges to make it consistent with our beliefs. No area of inquiry is immune - we're lucky if we can penetrate any respective channel of 'human knowledge' deep enough to discover the three or four totally shit-upon luminaries who are sitting there dispersed through time in backed-up sewer-systems of brainbending superfluous nonsense.
"I hope people will at least see that the song doesn't consider science or religion to be particularly opposed in this regard. Sure, with the Inquisition we all have historical precedent for the severity of 'religious' atrocities - but it [cyclical time] might make you wonder which cloak the Beast will don to the next be-heading party... has it already begun? Either it never started, or it will never end. None of them knew..."