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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFrank Sinatra views on religion--decades ahead of its time (Playboy Interview, 1963)
Playboy: Are you a religious man? Do you believe in God?
Sinatra: Well, thatll do for openers. I think I can sum up my religious feelings in a couple of paragraphs. First: I believe in you and me. Im like Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein in that I have a respect for life in any form. I believe in nature, in the birds, the sea, the sky, in everything I can see or that there is real evidence for. If these things are what you mean by God, then I believe in God. But I dont believe in a personal God to whom I look for comfort or for a natural on the next roll of the dice. Im not unmindful of mans seeming need for faith; Im for anything that gets you through the night, be it prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle of Jack Daniels. But to me religion is a deeply personal thing in which man and God go it alone together, without the witch doctor in the middle. The witch doctor tries to convince us that we have to ask God for help, to spell out to him what we need, even to bribe him with prayer or cash on the line. Well, I believe that God knows what each of us wants and needs. Its not necessary for us to make it to church on Sunday to reach Him. You can find Him anyplace. And if that sounds heretical, my source is pretty good: Matthew, Five to Seven, The Sermon on the Mount.
http://deadstate.org/frank-sinatras-views-on-organized-religion-were-decades-ahead-of-his-time/
enlightenment
(8,830 posts)But hardly ahead of its time, unless you count history as starting in 1900.
WI_DEM
(33,497 posts)GeorgeGist
(25,321 posts)Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)But that's still a great interview as a whole...
Sinatra gave another awesome one to GQ or Esquire(?) in the mid-60s