"With God on Our Side" is a song by Bob Dylan, released as the third track on his 1964 album The Times They Are A-Changin'. Dylan first performed the song during his debut at The Town Hall in New York City on April 12, 1963. Dylan is known to sing the song only rarely in concert.
The lyrics generally address the notion of humans that God or some other higher power invariably sides with them and opposes those with whom they disagree, and thus they don't question the morality of wars fought and atrocities committed by their country. Dylan mentions several historical events, including the slaughter of Native Americans in the nineteenth century, the Spanish–American War, the American Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Holocaust, the Cold War and the betrayal of Jesus Christ by Judas Iscariot; the song made no explicit reference to the Vietnam War until live renditions in the 1980s, when an additional verse ran thus:
In the nineteen-sixties came the Vietnam War
Can somebody tell me what we're fightin' for?
So many young men died
So many mothers cried
Now I ask the question
Was God on our side?
With God On Our Side is a quote from the Bible (Psalm 108:13). The verse goes
The quotation was used, often ironically, for the title of a number of works.
With God On Our Side is a 2009 film by Porter Speakman Jr. and Kevin Miller (filmmaker), the latter of whom is the co-creator of the documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. The documentary criticizes the theology behind Christian Zionism and the attitude toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict taken by many American evangelicals, as well as the indifference by many Westerners toward the plight of Palestinian Christians. The film argues that Christians who take the Bible seriously should not "take either side" in the conflict, but rather be peacemakers and stand up for the rights of all people in the region. In the film, Palestinian Christians are interviewed and share their families' stories. Leading evangelical supporters (such as John Hagee) and critics of Christian Zionism (Stephen Sizer) are also given the opportunity to share their views.
Jürgen Bühler of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem said that the views expressed in the film are "unfortunately colored by a strong sense of Palestinian nationalism.”
Side (Greek: Σίδη) is an ancient Greek city on the southern Mediterranean coast of Turkey, a resort town and one of the best-known classical sites in the country. It lies near Manavgat and the village of Selimiye, 78 km from Antalya in the province of Antalya.
It is located on the eastern part of the Pamphylian coast, which lies about 20 km east of the mouth of the Eurymedon River. Today, as in antiquity, the ancient city is situated on a small north-south peninsula about 1 km long and 400 m across.
Strabo and Arrian both record that Side was founded by Greek settlers from Cyme in Aeolis, a region of western Anatolia. This most likely occurred in the 7th century BC. Its tutelary deity was Athena, whose head adorned its coinage.
Dating from the tenth century B.C., its coinage bore the head of Athena (Minerva), the patroness of the city, with a legend. Its people, a piratical horde, quickly forgot their own language to adopt that of the aborigines.
Possessing a good harbour for small-craft boats, Side's natural geography made it one of the most important places in Pamphylia and one of the most important trade centres in the region. According to Arrian, when settlers from Cyme came to Side, they could not understand the dialect. After a short while, the influence of this indigenous tongue was so great that the newcomers forgot their native Greek and started using the language of Side. Excavations have revealed several inscriptions written in this language. The inscriptions, dating from the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, remain undeciphered, but testify that the local language was still in use several centuries after colonisation. Another object found in the excavations at Side, a basalt column base from the 7th century BC and attributable to the Neo-Hittites, provides further evidence of the site's early history. The name Side may be Anatolian in origin, meaning pomegranate.
Cue sports techniques (usually more specific, e.g., billiards techniques, snooker techniques) are a vital important aspect of game play in the various cue sports such as carom billiards, pool, snooker and other games. Such techniques are used on each shot in an attempt to achieve an immediate aim such as scoring or playing a safety, while at the same time exercising control over the positioning of the cue ball and often the object balls for the next shot or inning.
In carom games, an advanced player's aim on most shots is to leave the cue ball and the object balls in position such that the next shot is of a less difficult variety to make the requisite carom, and so that the next shot is in position to be manipulated in turn for yet another shot; ad infinitum.
Similarly, in many pocket billiards games, an advanced player's aim is to manipulate the cue ball so that it is in position to pocket (pot) a chosen next object ball and so that that next shot can also be manipulated for the next shot, and so on. Whereas in the carom games, manipulation of the object ball's position is crucial as well on every shot, in some pool games this is not as large a factor because on a successful shot the object ball is pocketed. However, many shots in one-pocket, for example, have this same added object ball control factor for most shots.
The terms A-side and B-side refer to the two sides of 78 and 45 rpm phonograph records, whether singles or extended plays (EPs). The A-side usually featured the recording that the artist, record producer, or the record company intended to receive the initial promotional effort and then receive radio airplay, hopefully, to become a "hit" record. The B-side (or "flip-side") is a secondary recording that has a history of its own: some artists, notably Elvis Presley, Little Richard, the Beatles, Chuck Berry, and Oasis, released B-sides that were considered as strong as the A-side and became hits in their own right. Creedence Clearwater Revival had hits, usually unintentionally, with both the B-sides of their A-side releases. Others took the opposite track: producer Phil Spector was in the habit of filling B-sides with on-the-spot instrumentals that no one would confuse with the A-side. With this practice, Spector was assured that airplay was focused on the side he wanted to be the hit side.
Oh, my name, it is nothing, my age, it means less
The country I come from is called the Midwest
I was taught and brought up there, the laws to abide
And the land that I live in has God on its side
Oh the history books tell it, they tell it so well
The cavalries charged, the Indians fell
The cavalries charged and the Indians died
Oh the country was young with God on its side
The Spanish-American war had its day
And the Civil War too was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes I was taught to memorize
With guns in their hands and God on their side
The First World War, boys, it came and it went
The reason for fighting, I never did get
But I learned to accept it and accept it with pride
Or you don't count the dead when God's on your side
When the Second World War came to an end
We forgave the Germans and then we were friends
Though they murdered six million in the ovens they fried
The Germans now too have God on their side
I've learned to hate Russians all through my whole life
If another war comes, it's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them to run and to hide
And accept it all bravely with God on my side
But now we got weapons of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to, then fire them we must
One push of the button and a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions when God's on your side
In a many dark hour, I've been thinking about this
That Jesus Christ was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you, you'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot had God on his side
So now as I'm leaving, I'm weary as hell
The confusion I'm feeling ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head and fall to the floor