Geddy Lee

Bassist/Singer

Geddy Lee (born Gary Lee Weinrib; July 29, 1953), bassist, singer, and front man of the band Rush, talks about the song "Faithless" (lyrics by Neil Peart) in a video documentary from the MVI edition of their album Snakes & Arrows (2007). He clearly identifies with the lyrics and seems to be okay with being described as an atheist for it.

"If you look at the chorus, which to me is the most important part of the song, it talks about life. It talks about life when you're not a very religious person, when you're not a church goer, when you're just a person. I mean, you can call it being an atheist, you can call it whatever you want to call it but there's many people who don't identify with a practice of a particular religion and there're many people who find their own road, and find their own spirituality in themselves and find things to believe in that relate to the way they live. And that's what the song is really about. You know, believing in hope, believing in love; those are two things you can count on believing in and there are not many other things you can really count on in this world. Others find it great comfort to find a religion and to get their strength from that, and that's fine, and many people don't and I think that song is about the ones that don't."

For context, here is one verse from the song, "Faithless":

          I don't have faith in faith
          I don't believe in belief
          You can call me faithless
          I still cling to hope
          And I believe in love
          And that's faith enough for me

In a Heeb magazine interview from March of 2009, Lee explicitly states that he is an atheist: "I consider myself a Jew as a race, but not so much as a religion. I’m not down with religion at all. I’m a Jewish atheist, if that’s possible… I celebrate the holidays in the sense that my family gets together for the holidays and I like being a part of that. So I observe the 'getting together' aspect."