My perception of this song is a deep one. I sense a heavy anti-religious undertone; particularly of the Judeo-Christian variety. To me, this is Chad's perception of religious people where they don't perceive themselves as hateful, greedy (religious salvation is a selfish motive), illogical (relying solely on faith and not listening to anything logical), et al. Lining up cattle and cutting the necks gives me the image of the overwhelming majority of faithful people blindly following their belief all the way through death and gladly giving their lives for the sake of their belief. The whole first part of this song lines up perfectly with your typical Christian who feels like they suffer and are polluted inside because they believe they are a sinner, hypocritically judges non-believers, greedily and selfishly seeks salvation and all of greatness of a heaven, and believes that mass judgment and death is the will of their God.
The second half of the song (after "Wash me off inside" but before it repeats "Cannot receive the obvious") appears to be written from the perspective of someone (perhaps Chad) who willingly rejects the Christian faith. He's gone too far into finding personal truth to give a damn about faith and belief. "Callous minds against trust and confidence" seems to relay that point. "Too late to beg pardons from the mother" seems to speak about Mary, the mother of Jesus, who Catholics place more importance on than Jesus himself when asking forgiveness. "Now we'll sit and wait...for the coming of the end..." sounds a lot like waiting for the coming of Jesus where all "sinners" will be killed by God with no mercy.
Yes, this is an untrue horror story to Chad, but too many people actually believe this is going to happen... and seem to want it to, thus, "the sickness" he speaks of. "Drain us of life and cleanse the mess" is written from the perspective of a believer and could very well mean to drain believers of their life and cleanse the mess, or, remaining sinners. It could also mean for God to drain all humans of life and destroy the earth.
Whatever the meaning of this song, it's definitely not pro-religious.
My perception of this song is a deep one. I sense a heavy anti-religious undertone; particularly of the Judeo-Christian variety. To me, this is Chad's perception of religious people where they don't perceive themselves as hateful, greedy (religious salvation is a selfish motive), illogical (relying solely on faith and not listening to anything logical), et al. Lining up cattle and cutting the necks gives me the image of the overwhelming majority of faithful people blindly following their belief all the way through death and gladly giving their lives for the sake of their belief. The whole first part of this song lines up perfectly with your typical Christian who feels like they suffer and are polluted inside because they believe they are a sinner, hypocritically judges non-believers, greedily and selfishly seeks salvation and all of greatness of a heaven, and believes that mass judgment and death is the will of their God.
The second half of the song (after "Wash me off inside" but before it repeats "Cannot receive the obvious") appears to be written from the perspective of someone (perhaps Chad) who willingly rejects the Christian faith. He's gone too far into finding personal truth to give a damn about faith and belief. "Callous minds against trust and confidence" seems to relay that point. "Too late to beg pardons from the mother" seems to speak about Mary, the mother of Jesus, who Catholics place more importance on than Jesus himself when asking forgiveness. "Now we'll sit and wait...for the coming of the end..." sounds a lot like waiting for the coming of Jesus where all "sinners" will be killed by God with no mercy.
Yes, this is an untrue horror story to Chad, but too many people actually believe this is going to happen... and seem to want it to, thus, "the sickness" he speaks of. "Drain us of life and cleanse the mess" is written from the perspective of a believer and could very well mean to drain believers of their life and cleanse the mess, or, remaining sinners. It could also mean for God to drain all humans of life and destroy the earth.
Whatever the meaning of this song, it's definitely not pro-religious.