I’m a 69-year-old white guy who doesn’t understand the “music” part of rap but is sometimes transported by its raw lyrics.

Case in point: the rap song “Ill Mind of Hopsin 7” by Hopsin (birth name Marcus Jamal Hopson), a Los Angeles rapper songwriter, record producer, music video director and actor. I believe the “III” in the title is wordplay, representing both “ill,” the state of the rapper’s mind wrestling with religious doubt, and “I’ll,” the acknowledgement of his personal agency in an apparently godless world. (Watch video of song above, and full lyrics, here.)

Although the title at first glance revealed nothing to me except that Mr. Hopsin is vaguely troubled, the lyrics of his rap song laments the trauma of religious doubt in stark clarity, even if the street poetry is gratuitously and aggressively profane, as rap often is. (So, if such coarse language offends you, you might want to stop reading here, although the message is powerful.)

Sick of this bullshit, niggas call me a sell-out ‘Cause I hopped to Christianity so strongly, then I fell out Now I’m avoidin’ questions like a scared dog with his tail down Feelin’ so damn humiliated ‘Cause they lookin’ at me like I’m hellbound What story should I tell now? I’ll just expose the truth I’m so close to the fuckin’ edge, I should be close to you. But who the fuck are you? You never showed the proof And I’m only fuckin’ human, yo, what am I supposed to do?! There’s way too many different religions with vivid descriptions Beggin’ all fuckin’ men and women to listen

What he’s raging about here is a painful phenomenon immediately familiar to anyone who once embraced a faith — and, perhaps more importantly, a faith community of family and lifelong friends — that once apostate, newly minted nonbelievers are shamed, judged and rejected by those they love and trust most.

It happens in strongholds of white Christian devotion, as well as in black communities, as Topsin’s song details.

The key phrases in the snippet above are “You never showed me the proof … What am I supposed to do?” He doubles down on that idea further into the song:

I look at the Earth and Sun and I can tell a genius man designed it It’s truly mind-blowin’, I can’t deny it Is Heaven real? Is it fake? Is it really how I fantasize it? Where’s the Holy Ghost at? How long’s it take a man to find it? My mind’s a nonstop tape playin’ and I can’t rewind it You gave me the Bible and expect me not to analyze it?! I’m frustrated and you provoked it I’m not readin’ that motherfuckin’ book, because a human wrote it I have a fuckin’ brain, you should know it You gave it to me to think, to avoid every useless moment It was a mission that I had to abort ‘Cause humans be lyin’, we’re such an inaccurate source It’s gon’ be hard to put me back on the course

This is a powerful manifesto of religious doubt verging on atheism and the resignation that, without the familiarities, the ostensible certainties, of religion, the way forward is ferociously unlighted.

It’s instructive to know that many if not most religious dissidents face the same wrenching tribulations in every historical age and human group, up to and including burning at the stake. The inherent injustice is that heretics are the ones who are rational, and right.

You haven’t been chattin’ with me like you did Adam and Eve And I ain’t seen no fuckin’ talkin’ snake unravel from trees With an apple to eat, that shit never happens tome I don’t know if you do or don’t exist

In fact, Hopsin’s is a humanist rap.

We are you, and you’re us — stop playin’ games! My life’s all I got, and Heaven is all in my brain And when I feel I’m in Hell, my ideas are what get me through pain Do as you please, and I’ll just do me. I’m a human. I’ll stay I my lane: Ill mind.

What this means to me is that doubters and nonbelievers have powerful, eloquent intellectual allies in places they might never think to look.

Already, surveys consistently indicate a quarter of the U.S. population does not affiliate with any religious tradition or community. I’m confident it’s probably a much larger group, including those who may not necessarily trust or participate in surveys conducted by the white establishment.

Video/YouTube

Please sign up (top right) to receive new Godzooks posts via email, Facebook or Twitter