NIGHTWISH’s Floor Jansen Criticizes Organized Religion, Calls It Responsible for “Worst Genocides and Most Horrible Situations”

Floor Jansen, the Dutch-born vocalist of NIGHTWISH, recently spoke candidly about her views on organized religion in a new interview with Brocarde. Now living in Sweden with her husband, SABATON drummer Hannes Van Dahl, Jansen revealed that while she grew up around religion, she was never a devout believer. Jansen said:

“It was there, but I guess from the get-go I really started to wonder what… There was so much contradiction, on one hand, they say that God is about love, and you come into church, and the first thing you see is a dead man nailed to a cross that has suffered tremendously. And if that is not horrible enough, it’s done because of your sins. So you’re even supposed to feel guilty for it. I’m sorry — where is this love? Then I need to eat his body, drink his blood. I think it’s fucking disgusting — pardon my French.”

Jansen went on to criticize the broader impact of organized religion throughout history:

“The more I learned about religion, the more I came to feel, like, okay, so we’re basing certain wisdom on a book written by someone thousands of years ago, [with] interpretation after interpretation… for some people taking completely literal, leading to all kinds of trouble. Not to mention organized religion, which is just causing the worst genocides and most horrible situations in the history of mankind.”

Despite her criticism, Jansen clarified that her skepticism is separate from the idea of a higher power:

“There is no love. And if that is the higher power, then I think it’s maybe a manmade desire to control… We have the tendency to want to believe there’s something more than we are. And where that comes from, I haven’t really gotten an answer to that, but I do believe there is something out there that we just haven’t understood yet.”

Jansen has been open about personal struggles in recent years, including her 2022 battle with breast cancer. She shared that she was declared cancer-free following surgery to remove a tumor.

[Via Blabbermouth]

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