A put-up job?

Taiwanese-American hip-hop singer Stanley Huang's (黃立行) new album has triggered protests from the religious community because the title song is about atheism, a Chinese-language daily reported yesterday.

Since radio and TV started playing Atheists Like Me, the lead song in the album, Huang's record company has received more than 100 phone calls protesting the content of the new song, the local China Times newspaper reported.

Huang's record company said it was prepared for the controversy and Huang stressed the song was about love, and had nothing to do with religion, the paper said.

But the protests kept pouring in, via telephone and e-mail, forcing Huang's record company to shut its website for three days, the paper added.

In the song, Huang says he does not believe in god or reincarnation, but believes in love.

It's not clear who has been offended by the tune, but most Taiwanese are Buddhists or Daoists. A small number are Christians, Muslims and atheists.

In his song 無神論 (which is literally "atheism", Chinese not really having a word for "atheist"), he doesn't say anything about reincarnation; he says that that there is no eternity and that he does not believe in gods.

不存在一種永恆 不相信世界有神

Anyway, I suspect this is a manufactured controversy to drum up publicity