Shirley Manson

Recording Artist

Shirley Manson is the lead singer in the alternative/rock band Garbage.

In a September 1998 Rolling Stone article titled "Spirit In The Sky" by Elissa Blake, Manson talks about growing up in a religious family:

Growing up in Scotland, did you have a strict Presbyterian upbringing?

The perverse thing about my spiritual growth as a child was that my father was my Sunday school teacher. We grew up very much under Scottish Presbyterian schooling. I went to church every Sunday and when I was about 12, I had a huge fight with my father over the dinner table. I'm screaming at him that religion's a sham, it's crazy and I'm not going to church anymore, it's just bullshit. I stopped going after that but I used to have theological debates with him every Sunday until I went mental at him one day and said, "How could Jesus have fed the 5000, it's impossible, it's bullshit." And he looked at me and laughed. He said, "Of course it's not to be taken literally" and I stopped dead in my tracks. He said, "You must look at the Bible almost like Aesop's Fables, it's just fundamental truths that the Bible discusses, it's not to be taken word for word." And ever since then I loosened up my view of organised religion.

Do you believe in God?

No, not at all.

The article is located at http://www.garbage.net/articles/@rolling98.htm.