Changes

I'm pretty sure the narrator of the song is all of humanity. I love that the entire album up to this point has been savagely calling out religion for all of its hateful and destructive tendencies, but here, at the end of the world which has been brought about by religious violence and oppression, the good of religion shines through (I'm speaking as an extreme atheist here, too). 'God have mercy on our dirty little hearts' -- the redeeming quality of faith is that it reminds people that they are part of something larger than themselves, that they should make good decisions in life even though they may not result in immediate rewards. This is a truly beautiful song. Only at the end, while the world we've ruined is being taken away from us and we are being eradicated, do we realize...we deserve it. That we've failed. That we never even had a chance. You can almost see giant groups of people, staring toward the sky with regret, like children who've misbehaved and know it's time to be punished. And Americans and Arabs, Christians, Muslims, and even non-believers know that they are all guilty, that the Presence is justified in wiping us out. Because we all have, at some point, made decisions based on callous greed and short-sightedness. And we all should have known better. Zero-Sum is an obituary for the human race.[[User:Simulatedbear|Simulatedbear]] 1:54, 8 April 2007 (EST)