Editing Bad Religion (section)

==Beliefs==
===Politics===
Many of Bad Religion's songs are about different social ills, although they try not to ascribe the causes of these ills to any single person or group. Greg Graffin believes that the current political situation in the United States can make it difficult to voice these concerns as he does not want to feed the polarization of viewpoints.<ref name="Lyxzén">{{cite web|url=http://www.badreligion.com/news/?id=9 |title=Brett Gurewitz Interview |first=Dennis|last=Lyxzén |date=June 29, 2004 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070406100750/http://www.badreligion.com/news/?id=9 |archive-date=April 6, 2007 }}</ref>

The band contributed a song to the ''[[Rock Against Bush]]'' series organized by [[Fat Mike]]'s Punkvoter, a political activist group and website whose supporters are primarily [[left-liberal]] members of the punk subculture.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.punkvoter.com/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140718095516/http://www.punkvoter.com/|url-status=dead|title=PunkVoter.com - Sign Up|archive-date=July 18, 2014|website=Punkvoter.com|access-date=October 18, 2019}}</ref>

Brett Gurewitz attributed his anger towards former U.S. president [[George W. Bush]] as the major inspiration for ''[[The Empire Strikes First]]''. "Our whole album is dedicated to getting Bush out of office. I'm not a presidential scholar, but I don't think you'll find a worse president in the history of the United States. He's probably one of the worst leaders in the history of world leaders. I just hate the guy."<ref name="Lyxzén" /> In a similar fashion, the album ''[[Age of Unreason (album)|Age of Unreason]]'' was inspired by the band's disdain for [[Donald Trump]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.laweekly.com/super-powers-and-punk-rock-brett-gurewitz-crosses-mediums-to-spread-important-messages/|title=Super Powers and Punk Rock: Brett Gurewitz Crosses Mediums to Spread Important Messages|first=Brett|last=Callwood|date=July 11, 2018|website=[[LA Weekly]]|access-date=October 18, 2019}}</ref>

Bad Religion performed at [[L7 (band)|L7's]] [[Abortion-rights movements|abortion-rights]] benefit [[Rock for Choice]] at the [[Hollywood Palladium]] on April 30, 1993, with acts such as [[Stone Temple Pilots]], [[White Zombie (band)|White Zombie]], [[Bikini Kill]], [[King Missile]], and [[Free Kitten (band)|Free Kitten]] with [[Kim Gordon]]. Hetson often wore a Rock for Choice T-shirt when performing, as he did when the band performed "21st Century (Digital Boy)" on [[Late Night with Conan O'Brien]] in 1994. Bentley has also worn Rock for Choice T-shirts, such as when they performed the [[Phoenix Festival#1993|Phoenix Festival]] in the United Kingdom in 1993. The band's song, "Operation Rescue", on ''Against the Grain'' is a pro-choice song (named after [[Anti-abortion movements|anti-abortion]] organization [[Operation Save America|Operation Rescue]]).

===Religion===
{{blockquote|Faith in your partner, your fellow men, your friends, is very important, because without it there's no mutual component to your relationship, and relationships are important. So, faith plays an important role, but faith in people you don't know, faith in religious or political leaders or even people on stages, people who are popular in the public eye, you shouldn't have faith in those people. You should listen to what they have to say and use it.|Greg Graffin<ref name="nyrock">{{cite web|url=http://www.nyrock.com/interviews/badreligion.htm |title=NYRock Interview with Greg Graffin |date=April 1998 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061108210720/http://nyrock.com/interviews/badreligion.htm |archive-date=2006-11-08 }}</ref>}}

Despite the name of the band, or the band's logo, the members do not consider themselves [[antitheist]]. Singer Greg Graffin states that, more often than not, the band prefers to use religion as a metaphor for anything that does not allow for an individual's freedom to think or express themselves as they choose. In this way, their songs are more about anti-conformity than anti-religion.<ref name="kellycathy">{{cite web|url=http://thebrpage.net/article/detail.asp?iArt=327&iType=21 |title=Graffin Interview |date=October 15, 1993 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928003612/http://www.thebrpage.net/article/detail.asp?iArt=327&iType=21 |archive-date=September 28, 2007 }}</ref> Contrary to popular belief, Graffin identifies himself as a [[Naturalism (philosophy)|naturalist]] rather than an atheist.

{{blockquote|Wired Magazine came out with a big exposé of "the new atheists." I was interviewed for it—and yet I think I was included as a sidebar but not as a main feature, and I think the main reason they did that was because they noticed that I wasn't that happy billing myself as an atheist. To me it just doesn't say that much; it doesn't say much about you. Instead I bill myself as a naturalist, which I think says a lot more. Because a ''naturalist'' is someone who ... first of all—they study natural science, and they have a hopeful message—I think—to send to the world, which is ... we can agree on what the truth is ... and it has to be through experimentation, verification, and new discoveries, followed by more verification. So ... if we can agree on those terms, we can agree that the truth changes, based on new discoveries, and the ''structure'' of science is such that you can never be so sure of something, because a new discovery can rework the framework—it can ''reconstruct'' the framework of your science and you have to look at the world differently. That makes it a very dynamic and exciting place to be. And if you say you're an atheist, it's not really saying much about how you came to that conclusion. But if you say you're a naturalist, I think it says something. You've reached that point because you've studied science, because you believe there's a ''fundamental'' way of looking at the world that is part of a long tradition. And so, I prefer naturalist.|Greg Graffin<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwqJ7X6yOaw  |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/mwqJ7X6yOaw| archive-date=2021-12-11 |url-status=live|title=Greg Graffin acoustic performance and interview at Harvard |publisher=YouTube |date=2008-04-28 |access-date=2011-10-15}}{{cbignore}}</ref>}}

Despite this, he did co-author the book ''Is Belief in God Good, Bad or Irrelevant?'', which is based on a series of lengthy debates about science and religion between Graffin and historian Preston Jones.<ref>{{cite book|last=Max |first=Tucker |title=Is Belief In God Good, Bad Or Irrelevant?: A Professor And A Punk Rocker Discuss Science, Religion, Naturalism: Amazon.ca: Intervarsity Press: Books |id={{ASIN|0830833773|country=ca}} }}</ref> In 2010, Graffin released ''Anarchy Evolution'', in which he promotes his naturalist worldview.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNDPXEn-RTQ  |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/dNDPXEn-RTQ| archive-date=2021-12-11 |url-status=live|title=Greg Graffin from Bad Religion Talks About Anarchy Evolution |publisher=YouTube |date=December 8, 2008 |access-date=October 15, 2011}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

The band's bassist Jay Bentley has stated that he has spiritual beliefs.<ref name="Bentley">{{cite web|url=http://www.bad-religion.net/jaybentley_tribute_page/interviews/interview2.htm |title=Bentley Interview |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080329125602/http://www.bad-religion.net/jaybentley_tribute_page/interviews/interview2.htm |archive-date=March 29, 2008 }}</ref> Brett Gurewitz is a "provisional [[deism|deist]]".

On March 24, 2012, Bad Religion headlined the [[Reason Rally]] in [[Washington, D.C.]], sharing the stage with [[Eddie Izzard]], [[Richard Dawkins]], [[Tim Minchin]] and [[James Randi]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2012/03/reason-rally-bad-religion-washington-dc.html |title=Bad Religion in lineup for March 24 Reason Rally in Washington, D.C. |work=Los Angeles Times |date=March 21, 2012 |access-date=April 5, 2012}}</ref>