John Lennon "Imagine" and religion

[Brian63]

The street evangelist Ray Comfort recently posted on his blog:

Ray Comfort: Most atheists assume that John Lennon was an atheist, probably because of his famous song, “Imagine.”

...

John Lennon actually wrote the song as a prayer to God, praying that the world would set aside it's differences about countries, wars, religion, etc., and be as one.

He shared the fact that the song was written as a prayer, in his famous 1980 Playboy interview.

Please withhold from making the usual sorts of insults about Comfort and him being an unreliable source. Just focus on the issue here---does anyone know if John Lennon was an atheist, and what the song "Imagine" was intended to convey?

Thanks,

Brian

 

[PyramidHead]

I would say John was an agnostic. From his interviews, I got the sense that he was open to any kind of possibility regarding spirituality, and wasn't motivated by any kind of rationalism/skepticism. His ideas about religion were more socially focused. But, lest we forget, he does rather emphatically sing "I don't believe in Jesus!" in the song "God". He opens the song with the line "God is a concept by which we measure our pain".

 

[Keith&Co.]

He shared the fact that the song was written as a prayer, in his famous 1980 Playboy interview.

Did he say who it was a prayer TO, though?

He survived a knife attack in his home in 1999. During the attack, he chanted the Hare Krishna mantra. 'Hare Krishna' appears in the lyrics of more than a few of his songs, including My Sweet Lord. Funny how the thumpers ignore that when they try to claim him as one of their own...

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

He shared the fact that the song was written as a prayer, in his famous 1980 Playboy interview.

Did he say who it was a prayer TO, though?

He survived a knife attack in his home in 1999. During the attack, he chanted the Hare Krishna mantra. 'Hare Krishna' appears in the lyrics of more than a few of his songs, including My Sweet Lord. Funny how the thumpers ignore that when they try to claim him as one of their own...

Well I think they'd think likewise of you saying he was alive in '99.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Did he say who it was a prayer TO, though?

He survived a knife attack in his home in 1999. During the attack, he chanted the Hare Krishna mantra. 'Hare Krishna' appears in the lyrics of more than a few of his songs, including My Sweet Lord. Funny how the thumpers ignore that when they try to claim him as one of their own...

Well I think they'd think likewise of you saying he was alive in '99.

Aw, shit.

 

[Brian63]

'Hare Krishna' appears in the lyrics of more than a few of his songs, including My Sweet Lord.

Is that John Lennon or George Harrison? George did the song "My Sweet Lord."

Brian

 

[James Brown]

 Imagine_(John_Lennon_song)

When asked about the song's meaning during a December 1980 interview with David Sheff for Playboy magazine, Lennon told Sheff that Dick Gregory had given Ono and him a Christian prayer book, which inspired him the concept behind "Imagine".

The concept of positive prayer ... If you can imagine a world at peace, with no denominations of religion—not without religion but without this my God-is-bigger-than-your-God thing—then it can be true ... the World Church called me once and asked, "Can we use the lyrics to 'Imagine' and just change it to 'Imagine one religion'?" That showed [me] they didn't understand it at all. It would defeat the whole purpose of the song, the whole idea.^[3]
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