July 16 - Heretic Pride

The title track of this album is a great short work of fiction about zealotry and faith and standing for what's right even when the world says you're wrong. It's also a great short work of fiction about why those things I just said aren't necessarily always positive.

This is the story of a martyr, right up to the very moment of his martyrdom, where a number of truths will either be the case or not be the case. The heretical reckoning he is waiting for will (let's play the odds here) not be coming. Let's accept that. But it isn't a martyrdom if you live, so let's keep looking at the next option down the list, namely that his stand against the unbelievers or different-believers will be rewarded not in this life but in the next. We have no way of knowing if this is the case. We would have no way of knowing if this were the case even if the cameras kept rolling. However we do have a third option. He dies. Painfully and in ignominy, like most martyrs. And it didn't mean anything.

We don't know when the reckoning arrives. We don't even know if there is a reckoning. So let's make sure the things we get stoned to death for did some good here and now.