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Ray d'Entremont , Bio and Archives--August 31, 2026

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Music and religion go together like love and marriage used to. I never did well at retreats at St. FX--sometimes you had to maintain silence for three days. Agony. This list mixes themes of worship faith and encouragement.

At about 14, I began losing my religion, and by my twenties considered myself an atheist. Years later, as the human genome was being mapped, I started seriously studying biology, chemistry, physics, and philosophy. The more I learned, the more I realized how little we know for certain. “Trust the science” sounds reassuring, but science is not a fixed body of truth. Its theories are like bookmarks in an early chapter: useful until better evidence moves the story along. Science doesn’t hand us final proof; it tests explanations and discards those that fail.

What struck me most was the extraordinary information embodied in DNA--something Bill Gates famously compared to computer code. The deeper I dug, the more intelligent design made sense to me. Last year, I took a couple of university-level courses in philosophy and cosmology. That cemented my awakening. To me, an intelligence beyond our imagining creating existence and making us self-aware seems no greater miracle than insentient matter somehow randomly becoming alive, thinking, storing and transforming information, and communicating thoughts about its own existence.

Amazing Grace--Pentatonix:

A timeless anthem of redemption, hope and spiritual awakening, it appeals to many folks--religious or not. At the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo in Halifax, its celebratory message was conveyed by the skirl of pipes--it seems the more bagpipes, the more goosebumps! Most know the words were written by a former slave ship captain as a testimonial to his gradual conversion following a violent storm at sea, but few realize he became an Anglican clergyman who supported the abolitionist cause of William Wilberforce from 1788 onward. Here, it’s performed by Pentatonix, an a cappella group formed by high school friends in Texas. You’ll have no trouble believing they have earned several Grammys and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

You Raise Me Up--Josh Groban:

Few modern songs sound so much like a hymn without actually being one. The “you” is never identified: it may be God, a parent, a lover, a friend--or simply the human spirit strengthened by another. The listener gets to decide. That ambiguity helped the song travel effortlessly between churches, funerals, weddings, sporting events, and pop concerts. It is a big song that requires a big........

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