Re: Lennon's remarks on Christianity

On Apr 9, 12:03 pm, "iarwain" <iarwai...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In what sense does Lennon's comment make him an arrogant phony?

If I recall The Catcher in the Rye correctly, the main character was
upset with a particular piano player who was arrogant and full of
himself. He called him a phony. I think if you're a pop singer and
you're saying you're more popular than Jesus, there has to be some
amount of ego involved in there somewhere.


If you are a big Lennon fan and have read a number of books about him
and interviews by people who knew John, you would know that John could
have a tough, nasty exterior. Bramwell and others, for example, write
that he had an attitude of "f--- them before they f--- me." If John
didn't know someone well, it has been documented on many occasions
that he would be introduced to them and they say or do something
nasty. He was constantly on the defensive, feeling like someone might
hurt him.

However, the truth is, deep inside, John was a very fragile, insecure
soft hearted person. Ringo called John the most kind hearted person he
ever met.

Contrary to the image you mention, John had big ego problems but the
opposite of what you write. John had very little self confidence.
This is supported, for example, in the long interview given by Julia
Baird, his half sister. Someone posted a link to this interview here
at rmb within the past couple of weeks.

John had an insecure, crappy childhood, and unfortunately, it affected
him his whole life.



But the Beatles *were* more popular than Jesus.

I can't really agree with this. The Beatles were just a pop/rock
group. Maybe they would record an album and it would sell a million
copies. If you compared that with the number of people who were going
to church every Sunday during the sixties I suspect it would be more
than a million. To John's credit, during his apology, he did say that
he meant that more for in the UK than in the US, so it probably was
closer to the truth there, but I would still take issue with it.

Christians took Lennon's comment as their chance to show their crazy side

No argument there.


.

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