# Is religious music real?



## millionrainbows

In other words, is, for example, Gregorian chant actually a form of worship, and a way of actually invoking God or the Holy Spirit, as well as being "just music?"

The Church fathers thought that it was, indeed, a form of worship; a form of "religious technology" designed to invoke God and create believers. 

In fact, on this very forum, I was criticized by a 'true believer' for saying that I could enjoy Gregorian chant without being a Christian. He said I was "missing it," compared to a believer who listens. What do you say?


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## PetrB

Of course singing long songs demanding of long sustained breathing is 'a path to the way,' a meditation, including upon the text: that is true whether you are Christian, Buddhist, or anyone whose religious practice includes such chanting.

I have yet to see any truly flip attitude toward those pieces which are religious or those things which used to be directly associated with matters of faith, devotion and spirituality -- BUT -- there is at least as much if not more an equal display of spiritual vanity in a number of postings, often made by those who claim / proclaim to be devout followers of one faith or another.

When such religious works are mentioned as pieces of music they are most often mentioned without any inflected judgement which could in any way provoke further comment about their religious content, yet we see the "one-upsmanship" sort of vanity post telling all the non-believers how much less they get or understand this music

About the rest, i.e. it can only have the true meaning if you are a believer, or the opposite, in my book at least, is all vanity.

It seems it is most often a believer who just has to chime in and either admonish the listeners that "they are not really getting the full monty unless they are a believer," or by saying so, are "informing" the rest of the readers the believer gets _so much more_ from the same piece, i.e. this is just a seriously unattractive smugness best left not responded to at all -- and that particular sort of smug unprovoked post as dropped in a thread does not take a Ziggy, Carl, and several doctorates to figure out what kind of display is being there made.


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## violadude

millionrainbows said:


> In other words, is, for example, Gregorian chant actually a form of worship, and a way of actually invoking God or the Holy Spirit, as well as being "just music?"
> 
> The Church fathers thought that it was, indeed, a form of worship; a form of "religious technology" designed to invoke God and create believers.
> 
> *In fact, on this very forum, I was criticized by a 'true believer' for saying that I could enjoy Gregorian chant without being a Christian. He said I was "missing it," compared to a believer who listens. What do you say?*


I wouldn't really know whether a Gregorian chant would be able to summon a god over from some spiritual dimension, personally not sure how that would work. But I certainly disagree with the bold text. Music is music, you can listen to it and enjoy it in whatever way you want, no matter what its original intention might have been.

There is a certain sect of the religious community that always want to claim special knowledge about something. It's like when a Christian or a Muslim says that you can't understand the Bible or the Quaran without being a Christian or a Muslim. Well, sorry, words are words. If I can read the text, and can study what the authors meant by the text, there's no reason to need to be a believer in order to "truly" understand it.


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## Whistler Fred

I too, am a Christian, and things like Gregorian chant or (more particularly) Bach's Cantatas or Part's Passion can speak to me as a believer, perhaps at a level deeper that the music could by itself. But I can also enjoy listening to Ravi Shankar as music, even of I'm not a Hindu by faith. And a suspect that Hindu believer would have a deeper spiritual connection to the Raga than I would. But to enjoy religious music as music - I can't see that as a bad thing. In the end, music's role is to edify, not to convert. And this can be true on other levels than religion.


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## Morimur

millionrainbows said:


> In other words, is, for example, Gregorian chant actually a form of worship, and a way of actually invoking God or the Holy Spirit, as well as being "just music?"
> 
> The Church fathers thought that it was, indeed, a form of worship; a form of "religious technology" designed to invoke God and create believers.
> 
> In fact, on this very forum, I was criticized by a 'true believer' for saying that I could enjoy Gregorian chant without being a Christian. He said I was "missing it," compared to a believer who listens. What do you say?


Of course it's real. I am sure J.S. Bach would agree. As for the 'true believer', you should have told him that words have the power build and destroy, and that he, as a 'true believer' should think before uttering such things.


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## Jobis

He who sings prays twice!

Every joyful sound is pleasing to the Lord, its not that he demands worship or somehow requires it, but rather all religious music is an expression of gratitude of sorts. This may be governed by the sense of obligation felt when we believe our talents are a gift from God. Many of us, believers or not would say Mozart (for example) had a 'God-given talent', however seriously you take the sentiment, and he was in a sense just fulfilling a duty by writing such beautiful music. 

I think religious music (like gregorian chant or hymns) exists on a purely practical level as say; marching band music does, but all 'holy' music (in the broadest sense) I think is defined by sentiments of good will and a respect for beauty or the transcendent on the part of the composer. 

Its nothing more for me than distinguishing between Monteverdi's sacred and secular works; they all reflect his love to create and reverence of beauty.


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## millionrainbows

Bach said, "Music's *only purpose *should be *the glory of God and the recreation of the human spirit." 
*
Is this true or not? Is it up to us? Can we listen to Bach validly and correctly if we do not recognize this intent on his part?

Why should our opinion, if we are non-believers, be relevant in assessing Bach's music if we, as non-believers, are missing its primary intent and purpose? That would be hubris, it seems to me.

Belief is irrelevant; what matters is the effect on our spirit. This music is a technology of religion, created to invoke the spirit of God IN US. Is it not?


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## Guest

PetrB said:


> Of course singing long songs demanding of long sustained breathing is 'a path to the way,' a meditation, including upon the text: that is true whether you are Christian, Buddhist, or anyone whose religious practice includes such chanting.


'a path to the way'? Perhaps a path to *a *'way'. Surely, each to his own way, and his own path. If you have a fellow traveller, so much the better, I'd say, but there will be those for whom company is not the right way.

I'm quite sure I can invest music of all kinds, with all kinds of significances, but I can't pretend to really know what significances music has for others. I have no problem with the idea that someone with religious convictions might well get (probably _should _get) something additional to and different from what I get out of, say, the St Matthew Passion. That doesn't diminish or invalidate _my _responses.

[add]




millionrainbows said:


> Bach said, "Music's*only purpose *should be *the glory of God and the recreation of the human spirit."
> *
> Is this true or not? Is it up to us? Can we listen to Bach validly and correctly if we do not recognize this intent on his part?
> 
> Why should our opinion, if we are non-believers, be relevant in assessing Bach's music if we, as non-believers, are missing its primary intent and purpose? That would be hubris, it seems to me.
> 
> Belief is irrelevant; what matters is the effect on our spirit. This music is a technology of religion, created to invoke the spirit of God IN US. Is it not?


But Bach could be wrong. Am I not entitled to use music for any purpose that I want? I don't see how to do so would be a matter of hubris.


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## Jobis

millionrainbows said:


> Bach said, "Music's *only purpose *should be *the glory of God and the recreation of the human spirit."
> *
> Is this true or not? Is it up to us? Can we listen to Bach validly and correctly if we do not recognize this intent on his part?
> 
> Why should our opinion, if we are non-believers, be relevant in assessing Bach's music if we, as non-believers, are missing its primary intent and purpose? That would be hubris, it seems to me.
> 
> Belief is irrelevant; what matters is the effect on our spirit. This music is a technology of religion, created to invoke the spirit of God IN US. Is it not?


We all believe in something, otherwise music would be meaningless noise to us. You might believe music is just a source of pleasure, but the fact that Bach's music can move you on a deeper level proves in a sense its power.

My answer; yes, 'non-believers' miss the point of music, because they don't even begin to confront the question of whether the universe has meaning or purpose. However once you believe in any concept of beauty or the meaningfulness of art you cannot call yourself a complete 'non-believer'.


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## millionrainbows

violadude said:


> I wouldn't really know whether a Gregorian chant would be able to summon a god over from some spiritual dimension, personally not sure how that would work. But I certainly disagree with the bold text. Music is music, you can listen to it and enjoy it in whatever way you want, no matter what its original intention might have been.
> 
> There is a certain sect of the religious community that always want to claim special knowledge about something. It's like when a Christian or a Muslim says that you can't understand the Bible or the Quaran without being a Christian or a Muslim. Well, sorry, words are words. If I can read the text, and can study what the authors meant by the text, there's no reason to need to be a believer in order to "truly" understand it.


Okay, then by default, you agree with the premise that "religion" or "spirit" is not the exclusive domain of any one religion or dogma; it is therefore a universal "given," and religion/dogma are simply after-the-fact tools which allow us to "invoke" and nurture our "spirit."

This leaves us with the music itself. Since it is designed to invoke God, or activate our "spirit," then it is a power which can "activate psychic forces within us," or as Jung said, to "activate the God archetype," which is a universal feature of all human psychology.

Do you think you're any different than all the rest of us? I say, there are archetypes within you which can be activated by this music, and this does not depend on belief or dogma in order to work its "magic."


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## Jobis

millionrainbows said:


> Okay, then by default, you agree with the premise that "religion" or "spirit" is not the exclusive domain of any one religion or dogma; it is therefore a universal "given," and religion/dogma are simply after-the-fact tools which allow us to "invoke" and nurture our "spirit."
> 
> This leaves us with the music itself. Since it is designed to invoke God, or activate our "spirit," then it is a power which can "activate psychic forces within us," or as Jung said, to "activate the God archetype," which is a universal feature of all human psychology.
> 
> Do you think you're any different than all the rest of us? I say, there are archetypes within you which can be activated by this music, and this does not depend on belief or dogma in order to work its "magic."


You seem to think the effect of religious music is exclusive to the religious. No; the entire effect is self contained within the beauty of the music itself; the sentiments expressed are intended as a giving back to God, not as sets of code to produce more joy in believers.


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## Guest

Jobis said:


> 'non-believers' miss the point of music, because they don't even begin to confront the question of whether the universe has meaning or purpose.


This doesn't follow .


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## PetrB

Whistler Fred said:


> I too, am a Christian, and things like Gregorian chant or (more particularly) Bach's Cantatas or Part's Passion can speak to me as a believer, perhaps at a level deeper that the music could by itself. But I can also enjoy listening to Ravi Shankar as music, even of I'm not a Hindu by faith. And a suspect that Hindu believer would have a deeper spiritual connection to the Raga than I would. But to enjoy religious music as music - I can't see that as a bad thing. In the end, music's role is to edify, not to convert. And this can be true on other levels than religion.


One glance at the religious music category, and multiple entries there talking about the music show that many who say those works have more meaning if you are a believer_ immediately start discussing the text the music is set to, and not the music itself._ Logical, of course, and to that degree only, those works have more 'meaning,' than to a listener who is not so raptly attentive to those texts. Maybe more accurately, those works have at least a more specific meaning as perceived by believers who do subscribe to that faith.

With my penchant belief in the non-literal being the base of music (i.e. somewhat discounting or excluding what text is set to music as being what is music's effect) and being more an adherent of the tenet, "The way is one the paths are many," I think it actually a bit presumptuous to assume that the non-subscriber could not have exactly the same import of feeling when hearing such works as the believer does.


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## starthrower

I was more of a true believer in my younger days than I am now. Does this mean my appreciation for sacred music no longer exists? In fact I, like Bach was raised in the Lutheran church, and I hated the church music of my youth. I would say that with age and experience, I'm hearing things in the music to a greater degree than when I was younger.

But ultimately, it's the degree of musical literacy that should be a determining factor, not one's religious beliefs.


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## Morimur

PetrB said:


> One glance at the religious music category, and multiple entries there talking about the music show that many who say those works have more meaning if you are a believer_ immediately start discussing the text the music is set to, and not the music itself._ Logical, of course, and to that degree only, those works have more 'meaning,' than to a listener who is not so raptly attentive to those texts. Maybe more accurately, those works have at least a more specific meaning as perceived through the believers who do subscribe to that faith.
> 
> With my anti literalism in music (including what the text set to music is) and being more an adherent of the tenet, "The way is one the path is many." I think it actually a bit presumptuous to assume that the non-subscriber could not have exactly the same import of feeling when hearing such works as the believer.


With regards to Christian music, the text has always been as important as the music itself, if not more so.

*John 1*
_King James Version (KJV)_
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.


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## violadude

Jobis said:


> *We all believe in something, otherwise music would be meaningless noise to us.* You might believe music is just a source of pleasure, but the fact that Bach's music can move you on a deeper level proves in a sense its power.
> 
> My answer; yes, 'non-believers' miss the point of music, because they don't even begin to confront the question of whether the universe has meaning or purpose. *However once you believe in any concept of beauty or the meaningfulness of art you cannot call yourself a complete 'non-believer'*.


What if music, arranged in a certain way, merely triggers hormones that have profound effects on your body and brain state, but any meaning you give music is still necessarily between you and the music? Not between you, the music, and something else that imbues the music with meaning.


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## violadude

millionrainbows said:


> Okay, then by default, you agree with the premise that "religion" or "spirit" is not the exclusive domain of any one religion or dogma; it is therefore a universal "given," and religion/dogma are simply after-the-fact tools which allow us to "invoke" and nurture our "spirit."
> 
> This leaves us with the music itself. Since it is designed to invoke God, or activate our "spirit," then it is a power which can "activate psychic forces within us," or as Jung said, to "activate the God archetype," which is a universal feature of all human psychology.
> 
> Do you think you're any different than all the rest of us? I say, there are archetypes within you which can be activated by this music, and this does not depend on belief or dogma in order to work its "magic."


I don't personally believe that what we call "spirituality" is something that comes to us from beyond, but is an emergent property in most of us. So yes, I would say the feeling of spirituality is relatively universal whether one attributes the feeling to something beyond the natural or not.

And yes, I do believe that music can have powerful mind altering effects on you, if that's what you mean by "awakening the God Archtype". I'm not very studied on the works of Jung so I'm not exactly sure what you mean.


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## mmsbls

A religious person may respond to music on two separate levels. The first is the pure response to the sounds - beauty, joy, longing, etc. This first response would be essentially the same as that of a non-religious person. That initial response (the beauty for example) may then trigger a further religious response - glory to God, meaning for reality, oneness of all in a religious sense, etc. The music doesn't directly trigger that response, but the response to the music does. The non-religious person presumably does not experience this religious response (although they may have some similar feelings not associated with God).

I view this as the experience of a scientist and non-scientist viewing a rainbow. Both would find the rainbow beautiful in basically the same way. A scientist may then experience the beauty of physics when thinking about light, refraction, and electromagnetic waves. So the scientist could have a secondary response that enhances their appreciation. 

To me it seems the non-religious person can experience the same feelings as the religious person at the first level. The trigger of the next level would be where the experiences differ.


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## KenOC

One of the main purposes of traditional religious music was to aid in the memorization of biblical texts, in an age when literacy was rare. Setting words to music is the easiest way to memorize them, as any grade-school teacher can tell you.

Joining in singing those texts in public was a highly visible attestation of faith. Skipping those sessions was likely unwise, unless you were known as a Mohammedan or a Jew. And then you'd often have other troubles.


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## Whistler Fred

PetrB said:


> One glance at the religious music category, and multiple entries there talking about the music show that many who say those works have more meaning if you are a believer_ immediately start discussing the text the music is set to, and not the music itself._ Logical, of course, and to that degree only, those works have more 'meaning,' than to a listener who is not so raptly attentive to those texts. Maybe more accurately, those works have at least a more specific meaning as perceived by believers who do subscribe to that faith.
> 
> With my anti literalism in music penchant (including somewhat discounting what the text set to music is) and being more an adherent of the tenet, "The way is one the paths are many," I think it actually a bit presumptuous to assume that the non-subscriber could not have exactly the same import of feeling when hearing such works as the believer does.


And yet, I don't think we can totally separate the text from the music, particularly in music designed to have a message by the composer. Of course, the music can transcend the text, and I suspect that these are the works that have the most universal appeal.

But I intentionally chose the Raga example because I know Hindus who have a deep spiritual connection with the Ragas that goes beyond what I feel in the music, as much as I enjoy it. I could say much the same thing for improv jazz, which bores me to tears but clearly deeply engrosses many jazz fans. I don't think it's too much to say that one's convictions, as well as background, influences, personal taste, etc. will shape their response to music. And, of course, I did say "perhaps..."


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## Carpentier

millionrainbows said:


> Bach said, "Music's *only purpose *should be *the glory of God and the recreation of the human spirit."
> *
> Is this true or not? Is it up to us? Can we listen to Bach validly and correctly if we do not recognize this intent on his part?
> 
> Why should our opinion, if we are non-believers, be relevant in assessing Bach's music if we, as non-believers, are missing its primary intent and purpose? That would be hubris, it seems to me.


I wonder if Bach maintained that his secular output had the same purpose?...

This is a really interesting question: is the intent of an artist of interest to what he actually achieves? Probably, if we're interested in a biographical account of Bach the man; however, if we're interested in Bach the composer, we need only really concern ourselves with the workings of his purely musical faculties, his instinctual musicality, the musical part of his mind -- a quality of mind that I think most would agree transcend the boundaries of religious interests. (evidence for this could be that composers of a wide variety of persuasions have all been able to draw influence from his work; and to be able to draw influence from someone's work I believe would entail that one responds with depth and maybe 'validity' and 'correctness')

I'm doubtful that an artist necessarily has the most lucid insight as to the proper intentions of his artistic produce; many often create works wildly different from what they intended, (maybe by channeling a propensity for artistic skill that is more instinctual than conscious) and if we surveyed much more mediocre composers than Bach we would maybe find that their intentions were flawless, but that this nevertheless didn't propel them any closer to the greatness of a Bach or a Mozart.


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## norman bates

Jobis said:


> My answer; yes, 'non-believers' miss the point of music, because they don't even begin to confront the question of whether the universe has meaning or purpose.


to be a non believer does not certainly means that one does not confront that question: it's just that we don't like simple and ready answers.


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## Winterreisender

As an atheist, I think I can enjoy Bach's Cantatas and other religious music perhaps more than a religious person can because my judgements are not skewed by extra-musical associations.

On the flip side, some Christians have a track record of liking some very bad music just because it mentions Jesus (e.g. all that Hillsong stuff)


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## PetrB

Lope de Aguirre said:


> With regards to Christian music, the text has always been as important as the music itself, if not more so.
> 
> *John 1*
> _King James Version (KJV)_
> 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.


For adherents, of course. I maintain that much music, even with its text, has a primal musical effect upon the listener as music alone regardless of the text -- and that would and does include religious musics and their texts -- and sometimes the primal effect, surely, could equal the effect on a listener "without religion" as the same music with its textual content could a effect the person "with religion."


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## starthrower

Winterreisender said:


> some Christians have a track record of liking some very bad music just because it mentions Jesus


C.S. Lewis was one of them. In his Christian writings he actually defended the bad music he once loathed because of the Jesus factor.


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## Morimur

starthrower said:


> C.S. Lewis was one of them. In his Christian writings he actually defended the bad music he once loathed because of the Jesus factor.


I loathe terrible music regardless of its allegiance. Most modern Christian music is downright terrible, but one would have a hard time convincing C.S. Lewis of it. The man's intellect was certainly not a thing to be taken lightly.


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## starthrower

Lope de Aguirre said:


> The man's intellect was certainly not a thing to be taken lightly.


No, but I question his judgement and good taste. But he argued in favor of bad music, because human souls needed to be saved.


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## SixFootScowl

One of my favorite works is Handel's Messiah and the main reason is that the words are right out of the Bible and it encompasses the three major themes of the church year: Christmas, Easter, and Resurrection. The music is wonderful and the voices are wonderful if you get the right mix of singers, but the real value to me is the text. Yet let some Christian contemporary band take the same words and put it to music and I will most likely not want to listen to it. I have heard great Christian hymns ruined by the renditions of contemporary Christian musicians. 

Some of the best modern non-classical Christian songs I have heard are the ones Bob Dylan did on his three early 1980s albums, produced after he had been born again: Slow Train Coming, Saved, and Shot of Love.


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## Whistler Fred

starthrower said:


> No, but I question his judgement and good taste. But he argued in favor of bad music, because human souls needed to be saved.


In all fairness, and as I recall from his writings, he didn't care much for hymns, which he once described as "fifth rate poems set to sixth rate music." But he conceded, even if he didn't like them, there were many to whom the hymns had meaning and, as long as they were edified, he would hold his tongue on the matter.

EDIT: Found it!

"I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on I saw the great merit of it. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren't fit to clean those boots."


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## hreichgott

Music is wonderful. It appeals to so many different people in so many different ways.

How about the phenomenon of the agnostic in the church choir, who goes to sing the music, first-rate and sixth-rate music depending on the day, and finds it deeply meaningful but has no problem informing her fellow altos that she doesn't actually believe this stuff.

I think the traditions of music belong to humanity. We will absorb it each in our own ways. I'll hear Britten's Ceremony of Carols in a different way than someone on a different religious path, and I'll hear Bach and Beethoven from the perspective of a pianist instead of a singer. Are we sometimes understanding "more" or "less" than someone else? Probably. But I'd be hesitant to make any overly broad generalizations.


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## david johnson

speaking only for myself, Christian worship music must comply with Eph. 5:19 - speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord,
any qualities beyond that can be a plus to the participants' possible experiences.


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## Ingélou

You do not need to be a Christian to enjoy or revere or appreciate Christian music at a very high level. But obviously if you have a strong faith and feelings of love for the Lord, it will add both to enjoyment and appreciation. To say this is common sense, not spiritual pride. I can enjoy music from other religious traditions, but if a Hindu were to tell me that I could never reach the highest level of appreciation of some dawn hymns, say, because I didn't worship (or believe in) the goddess of the dawn, I would listen to his or her point with interest and agree - not start lambasting him for arrogance and insensitivity.

Edit: To answer another part of the OP, yes, singing, or listening to, Christian music with attention is a form of worship. So is looking at or listening to any part of God's creation with love & thankfulness to the Creator.


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## Carpentier

Ingélou said:


> You do not need to be a Christian to enjoy or revere or appreciate Christian music at a very high level. But obviously if you have a strong faith and feelings of love for the Lord, it will add both to enjoyment and appreciation. To say this is common sense, not spiritual pride. I can enjoy music from other religious traditions, but if a Hindu were to tell me that I could never reach the highest level of appreciation of some dawn hymns, say, because I didn't worship (or believe in) the goddess of the dawn, I would listen to his or her point with interest and agree - not start lambasting him for arrogance and insensitivity.


But would you say that applied the other way around as well? So that you have to be an atheist to really thoroughly enjoy Berlioz or Ravel or Shostakovitch?


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## Ingélou

Carpentier said:


> But would you say that applied the other way around as well? So that you have to be an atheist to really thoroughly enjoy Berlioz or Ravel or Shostakovitch?


Unfortunately, you are talking to a musical ignoramus; but in principle, yes.


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## violadude

I think we are talking about two different kinds of appreciation and enjoyment. Once one says that the Christian, Hindu or Atheists themes adds an extra level of enjoyment they're no longer talking about appreciation of the music but appreciation of the subject matter that the music carries.

I mean, let's take this out of the realm of religion and into the realm of rock. Could one, say, love the *music* of Rage Against the Machine but not care for the radical left ideologies they espouse in their lyrics? Then would you say that it was impossible for them to fully appreciate the *music* of RAM because they didn't care for the lyrics?

If not, then I don't see how the same could be said about religious music.


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## Carpentier

Ingélou said:


> Unfortunately, you are talking to a musical ignoramus; but in principle, yes.


Hey, you were questioned by one as well, so it's all good. xD



violadude said:


> I think we are talking about two different kinds of appreciation and enjoyment. Once one says that the Christian, Hindu or Atheists themes adds an extra level of enjoyment they're no longer talking about appreciation of the music but appreciation of the subject matter that the music carries.


This seems to me pretty damn correct!


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## Ingélou

I don't think it is possible to appreciate art/ music/ poetry, if you have ideological objections to it, *to the same level* as someone who totally shares *the world view of the artist*. By making an effort of imagination, it is certainly possible to admire & enjoy & appreciate it - just not *to the same level*. So, even if I admired a type of rock music, if I loathed the lyrics, I would not be appreciating it as much as someone who subscribed to them.

There is also the different question of 'belief'. At Christmas, I went to see my first Messiah, played by a consort directed by my violin teacher, a follower of Eastern philosophies. He can obviously appreciate Handel's music to a much higher level than me, and could be moved to tears by the beauty of the music, and by the beauty of the language too. But I was moved to tears not only by the music & the singing but because I felt the truth of the message and was grateful for what Christ did for me. It all came together for me. So *at a different level*, I got more out of it than him. If some other Christian were as musical as my teacher, he would have got *more* out of it than my teacher.

I adore Klezmer, and when I play the tunes on my fiddle, I 'put myself' into the cultural situation & try to feel what I should be feeling. But if a Jewish friend were to tell me that I could never appreciate the music to the same level as him, I wouldn't argue. Nor would I think that he was being smug, or claiming superiority. It's just common sense. We are all different, and what's wrong with celebrating the difference?

Then there is the third question of 'worship'. When a Christian listens to Christian music in a reverent way, focusing on the beauty that leads directly to God, then it becomes prayer or worship. The atheist presumably says there is no reality in this - it is just wishful thinking. But for the believer, it is prayer or worship.

(Edit: don't ask me where the 'Latin' reference came from in my original post, quoted by Violadude below . I was mixing up my 'Messiah' with another moving Norwich Baroque performance, Vivaldi's 'Stabat Mater', where my A-level Latin came back to me & the beauty of the language, the religious meaning, and the music all came together for me. Bah, senior moments!!! )


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## violadude

Ingélou said:


> I don't think it is possible to appreciate art/ music/ poetry, if you have ideological objections to it, *to the same level* as someone who totally shares *the world view of the artist*. By making an effort of imagination, it is certainly possible to admire & enjoy & appreciate it - just not *to the same level*. So, even if I admired a type of rock music, if I loathed the lyrics, I would not be appreciating it as much as someone who subscribed to them.
> 
> There is also the different question of 'belief'. At Christmas, I went to see my first Messiah, played by a consort directed by my violin teacher, a follower of Eastern philosophies. He can obviously appreciate Handel's music to a much higher level than me, and could be moved to tears by the beauty of the music, and if he had Latin, by the beauty of the language too. But I was moved to tears not only by the music & the singing but because I felt the truth of the message and was grateful for what Christ did for me. It all came together for me. So *at a different level*, I got more out of it than him. If some other Christian were as musical as my teacher, he would have got *more* out of it than my teacher.
> 
> I adore Klezmer, and when I play the tunes on my fiddle, I 'put myself' into the cultural situation & try to feel what I should be feeling. But if a Jewish friend were to tell me that I could never appreciate the music to the same level as him, I wouldn't argue. Nor would I think that he was being smug, or claiming superiority. It's just common sense. We are all different, and what's wrong with celebrating the difference?
> 
> Then there is the third question of 'worship'. When a Christian listens to Christian music in a reverent way, focusing on the beauty that leads directly to God, then it becomes prayer or worship. The atheist presumably says there is no reality in this - it is just wishful thinking. But for the believer, it is prayer or worship.


I see what you're saying. I guess I just naturally view the message of a piece of music and the music itself as two totally different things. This probably has something to do with my personal listening habits, as I often listen to vocal oriented music in the same way that I listen to instrumental music, without a care in the world as to what the words are. But that's just me 

As to the atheist/worship/music issue you addressed in the last paragraph, I believe that the feelings one experiences when they listen to music in a worshipful/reverent way are very real indeed! I just don't personally attribute those feelings to something outside of humans themselves, but I guess ultimately I could never say for sure what your experiences were with that.


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## Ingélou

You might be able to one day!


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## Taggart

millionrainbows said:


> In other words, is, for example, Gregorian chant actually a form of worship, and a way of actually invoking God or the Holy Spirit, as well as being "just music?"


Yes. He who sings prays twice



millionrainbows said:


> The Church fathers thought that it was, indeed, a form of worship; a form of "religious technology" designed to invoke God and create believers.


Yes and no. It invokes God who provides the gift of faith to those who wish to accept it and believe in Him.



millionrainbows said:


> In fact, on this very forum, I was criticized by a 'true believer' for saying that I could enjoy Gregorian chant without being a Christian. He said I was "missing it," compared to a believer who listens. What do you say?


You are, but they were not criticizing you merely commenting on your possible lack of understanding.

Let's take an analogy - Handel's Coronation Anthems - OK they're sort of religious but basically they are music for the anointing of a King or Queen. Can you fully appreciate them as a republican atheist? Can you "understand" something like Zadok the Priest without understanding the sources of the text and its relevance to the British monarchy at the time of writing.

Second point - it's not just music - it's pageantry, pomp and patriotism. Something like "Remember the Alamo" or "the line in the sand" is going to mean a lot more to a Texan especially one who is aware of his state's proud history than to anyone outside of Texas. In the same way, Handel's music played for a coronation is going to carry a lot more impact than just a performance. Similarly, Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance at the last night of the Proms (singularly British) will have a much larger emotional impact on the actual audience than on those listening on the wireless or even watching on television. It's the impact of a crowd sharing a common experience.



millionrainbows said:


> Bach said, "Music's *only purpose *should be *the glory of God and the recreation of the human spirit."
> *
> Is this true or not? Is it up to us? Can we listen to Bach validly and correctly if we do not recognize this intent on his part?


I know it's true. But it doesn't matter to the listener. Somebody asked if this also applied to Bach's secular work and I would suspect it does. I was taught at school to preface my work with the Latin tag - AMDG - to the greater glory of God - and to finish with LDS - praise God always. The point was that we should always try to make the best use of our God given talents and be aware that all good things come from God.

In terms of Bach's religious works, he was striving to do his best for his God. We are all aware of the zone that musicians can get into when they seem to achieve something really special. That's what Bach was aiming for. It doesn't matter if we believe in it, we can experience the results.

Final point, I think we need to distinguish between religious music as music - Gregorian chant or Russian Orthodox liturgy whether Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff - and religious music in the context of a liturgical act. Obviously, we can enjoy Bach's Passion (St Matthew or St John) as a musical experience but they also fulfill a religious purpose as part of the Holy Week liturgy leading from Palm Sunday through Maundy Thursday and then to the vespers of Good Friday when we contemplate the desolation of the death on the cross before the joys of the resurrection on Easter morning. If you do not fully share in that belief, then you will not fully experience the roller coaster of emotions that Holy Week can bring about. If you have experienced Holy Week, then that will inform your listening to Bach's passions. The same applies to all church music. I am a Catholic and although I can appreciate the beauty of Rachmaninoff's liturgy, I am aware that I lack an experience of it as a liturgy compared to Gregorian chant and hence that my enjoyment will always be less.


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## Ingélou

Taggart said:


> I know it's true. But it doesn't matter to the listener. Somebody asked if this also applied to Bach's secular work and I would suspect it does. I was taught at school to preface my work with the Latin tag - AMDG - to the greater glory of God - and to finish with LDS - praise God always. The point was that we should always try to make the best use of our God given talents and be aware that all good things come from God.
> 
> In terms of Bach's religious works, he was striving to do his best for his God. We are all aware of the zone that musicians can get into when they seem to achieve something really special. That's what Bach was aiming for. It doesn't matter if we believe in it, we can experience the results.


The metaphysical poet George Herbert puts this idea so well in his poem 'The Elixir':

Teach me, my God & King,
In all things Thee to see,
And what I do in anything,
To do it as for Thee.
~~~~
A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine;
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws
Makes that, and the action, fine.
~~~~~~~
This is the famous stone
That turneth all to gold:
For that which God doth have & own
Cannot for less be told.

I taught George Herbert to my A-level classes, sometimes because he was in our Metaphysical Anthology, and sometimes just as practical criticism. Though most of my students were not religious, they appreciated the wit, clarity, beauty & limpid sincerity of his poetry. But a Christian student could not help but get more out of it...


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## violadude

Ingélou said:


> You might be able to one day!


Well, I'm certainly open to being wrong about nearly anything that I currently believe.

Except for the fact of my own existence. I'm with Descartes on that one, it would be quite trippy if I was wrong about that.


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## PetrB

Sadly, it seems by textual context at least, it is a far deeper and more meaningful experience to those adherents of the religion which is manifest in the set texts.

That means when Stravinsky's Threni, or his Mass, are put up as the subject, those pieces as subject will then automatically be placed in this category, and many who would be otherwise pleased to discuss them won't participate.


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## Nereffid

So, if those of us who don't believe in God can't fully appreciate Bach, is it also true that those of us who haven't murdered our wives in a jealous rage can't fully appreciate Verdi's _Otello_?


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## PetrB

Nereffid said:


> So, if those of us who don't believe in God can't fully appreciate Bach, is it also true that those of us who haven't murdered our wives in a jealous rage can't fully appreciate Verdi's _Otello_?


Ditto finding your wife and her lover _in flagrante delicto_ and then murdering them both in a berserk rage as a necessary qualification to 'understanding' and 'truly feeling' Gesualdo... but hey, logic and faith are not mutually inclusive, I'm afraid (the very definition of "faith," ... 

But, Nereffid, I'll see you around the TC campus, my feeling of the moment is that I will never again drop in on this category.


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## violadude

Never mind, my comment was already thoroughly addressed.


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## Piwikiwi

Jobis said:


> We all believe in something, otherwise music would be meaningless noise to us. You might believe music is just a source of pleasure, but the fact that Bach's music can move you on a deeper level proves in a sense its power.
> 
> *My answer; yes, 'non-believers' miss the point of music, because they don't even begin to confront the question of whether the universe has meaning or purpose. *However once you believe in any concept of beauty or the meaningfulness of art you cannot call yourself a complete 'non-believer'.


This is ridiculous and unbelievably arrogant. What do you think physicists study?


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## Gilberto

Nereffid said:


> So, if those of us who don't believe in God can't fully appreciate Bach, is it also true that those of us who haven't murdered our wives in a jealous rage can't fully appreciate Verdi's _Otello_?


I think the "can't fully appreciate" phrase is making this topic fuzzy. The appreciation of the music and the text are two different things.

We can both listen to Ich folge dir gleichfalls mit freudigen Schritten and "appreciate" the music without quibbling about it. However, when it comes to the text or subject matter how could you, as a non-believer find it as deeply personal as I?

I'm sure I can't fully appreciate Helter Skelter as much as Charles Manson did and wouldn't argue with him about it.


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## Jobis

norman bates said:


> to be a non believer does not certainly means that one does not confront that question: it's just that we don't like simple and ready answers.


Certainly, but you have faith that your question has an answer, you just don't know it yet or perhaps it is unknowable to humans. That in my view is a belief in itself.


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## Jobis

Piwikiwi said:


> This is ridiculous and unbelievably arrogant. What do you think physicists study?


_How_ the universe works and not why. Everything regarding 'meaningfulness' is in the domain of philosophy imo.

I'm not trying to be arrogant, maybe a little sensationalist by deliberately using the term 'non-believer' but by it I meant someone who lacks all belief. Not in the sense of non-religious folk. You'll just have to trust i'm not some back-tracking arrogant fool.


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## millionrainbows

My premise is that 'sacred music' is sacred because of its *intent,* which is effective on listeners if he is a good composer and can convey this.

This *sacred intent *is *not* dependent on, or is not defined by_ text _or by _liturgical context _or setting. The *'effect'* on the listener, caused by the *well-expressed intent *of the composer, should be graspable and *experiencable* by any reasonably attentive and receptive listener.

Thus, my premise *does not *depend on *belief,* or by full understanding of the non-musical context of the art or music, but only upon the *effect of the music itself *on the listener.

Thus, sacred music is 'self-sufficient' unto itself as purely music, and its effect is direct, with no need for narrative content or belief system of either composer or listener.

This does *not* mean that we can 'fully understand' the sacred work in its full artistic context, which would mean specific understanding of texts or belief systems; nor does it mean that we can be in full agreement with the composer's full intent as a creator of art.

What it does mean is that the *musical intent *of the composer, being of *sacred nature,* whatever its context, is enough to convey this sense to listeners if they are receptive, and that this potentiality is *universal.

*Thus, music, or visual art, can convey a sacred intent and effect on a purely visceral level, without need for any non-musical context. This effect does not* invalidate *such contexts; but the sacred effect is conveyed regardless. Conversely, the textual content and belief system represented does not* invalidate *or diminish in any way the* sacred effect *of the music, even considered in its full context as specifically-directed religious art.

Why is this? This is possible because of universal similarities of being human. To exist is to be present in the sacred moment of now; to be alive is a sacred privilege.

Of course, my entire premise depends on the primacy of the human spirit, and that it 'came first,' and religion was subsequently adopted as a means of enhancing this.


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## norman bates

Jobis said:


> Certainly, but you have faith that your question has an answer, you just don't know it yet or perhaps it is unknowable to humans. That in my view is a belief in itself.


I don't think I have understood what you're saying.
But now I have to listen to Ives, a piece that a believer can't appreciate


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## millionrainbows

Jobis said:


> _How_ the universe works and not why. Everything regarding 'meaningfulness' is in the domain of philosophy imo.
> 
> I'm not trying to be arrogant, maybe a little sensationalist by deliberately using the term 'non-believer' but by it I meant someone who lacks all belief. Not in the sense of non-religious folk. You'll just have to trust i'm not some back-tracking arrogant fool.


I think that instead of slitting hairs on the subject of belief, that a recognition of the universal sense of the sacred in all humans would neatly solve the problem by placing human value and dignity before religion (which is merely a tool to enhance our universal sense of the sacred).

But I suspect that this would be too 'new-agey' to any hardcore traditionalist believers. But for me, I feel that "there is a place at...the...table for everyone."


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## Jobis

millionrainbows said:


> I think that instead of slitting hairs on the subject of belief, that a recognition of the universal sense of the sacred in all humans would neatly solve the problem by placing human value and dignity before religion (which is merely a tool to enhance our universal sense of the sacred).
> 
> But I suspect that this would be too 'new-agey' to any hardcore traditionalist believers. But for me, I feel that "there is a place at...the...table for everyone."


Something that Christianity already says? We're all made in the image and likeness of God and as humans share an inherent dignity - our lives are sacred. God wills that all men be saved; not just believers. Similarly He gives equal opportunity to all men to be saved, and by extension no one but yourself follows this notion that sacred music is only the reserve of the religious. Its beauty which is able to be perceived by anyone is there to inform us all of the beauty religion can offer. Call it propaganda if you like, but it is not exclusive; anyone can 'get' it just by listening and appreciating it for its own value as music.


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## Piwikiwi

Jobis said:


> _How_ the universe works and not why. Everything regarding 'meaningfulness' is in the domain of philosophy imo.
> 
> I'm not trying to be arrogant, maybe a little sensationalist by deliberately using the term 'non-believer' but by it I meant someone who lacks all belief. Not in the sense of non-religious folk. You'll just have to trust i'm not some back-tracking arrogant fool.


Point taken. 15 characters


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## Blake

I'd love to experience extra-dimensions of existence through music. Maybe we already are, but our strong beliefs in our intellect being the final say in reality is deluding things. Science is proving all the time how limited and illusive our current faculties of perception are. 

I'm not religious, but the questions of - who am I? why am I here? what's this about? - always cross my mind. And I'll be damned to say that a system to reach unknown territories is wrong when I myself don't understand the origins of the Universe… That would seem like utter arrogance to me. Who is anyone to say what anything is when they themselves don't know the origin of existence?


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## aleazk

I would say some believers are too concerned about the religious experience that they miss the music. 

This supposed extra-experience has nothing to do with the music. Religious people are going to experience religious experiences because they are... well, religious people... 

If I'm missing something in music because I'm not religious, then the same can be applied to other things, i.e., I'm not saying they can't experience things that they perceive as fundamental, but the discussion about this in music is just a subsidiary of the discussion about religious experiences in general, e.g., as a physicist, I understand the big bang model, etc., but I'm sure a religious person would say I don't have the same understanding that they have because I'm unable to experience the religious experience they have in relation to this topic. See, it's the same argument. 

So, the religious experience component is something that religious people add to a lot of different things. They say that experience is actually intrinsic to the thing to which they are adding it. I don't think that's the case, I think the religious experience is just their thing and their way to see the world, and that it says more about them than about the actual intrinsic properties of the music.

So, the enjoyment I'm missing is not musical, it's a religious enjoyment, and yeah, it's tautological to say that religious people will experience religious enjoyment and that non-religious people will not do it. But because of this, it's nonsensical to extrapolate religious enjoyment to non-religious people and to interpret the lack of it in this group as something that lessens the experience. It may lessen my religious experience, but that's something that belongs to another discussion.


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## Jobis

Piwikiwi said:


> Point taken. 15 characters


I'm sorry if I came across conceited, its easy to spout an opinion without consideration for others on the internet, but I am loath to offend anyone.


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## Guest

Jobis said:


> _How_ the universe works and not why. Everything regarding 'meaningfulness' is in the domain of philosophy imo.
> 
> I'm not trying to be arrogant, maybe a little sensationalist by deliberately using the term 'non-believer' but by it I meant someone who lacks all belief. Not in the sense of non-religious folk. You'll just have to trust i'm not some back-tracking arrogant fool.


Are 'how' and 'why' really such different questions that they belong to different domains? Or is 'how' the only valid question? The Universe is here, and we are in it, so there seems little point in challenging the idea of 'how'. But 'why'? There doesn't have to be a why at all, except as an adjunct to 'how': "Why is there a Universe?" "Because of the Big Bang."


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## Blake

MacLeod said:


> Are 'how' and 'why' really such different questions that they belong to different domains? Or is 'how' the only valid question? The Universe is here, and we are in it, so there seems little point in challenging the idea of 'how'. But 'why'? There doesn't have to be a why at all, except as an adjunct to 'how': "Why is there a Universe?" *"Because of the Big Bang.*"


Any scientist worth his salt will admit that this is simply a shot in the dark to give us some foundation to explain what we really don't understand. What is the Big Bang? A sudden explosion of existence from an infinite point of density? Are you sure? If so, why and how? I really don't think there's any satisfying answer.


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## aleazk

Vesuvius said:


> Any scientist worth his salt will admit that this is simply a shot in the dark to give us some foundation to explain what we really don't understand. What is the Big Bang? A sudden explosion of existence from an infinite point of density? Are you sure? If so, why and how? I really don't think there's any satisfying answer.


I'm a scientist worth his salt and I don't think it's a "shot in the dark". Instead, it's the result of decades of investigation and observation. Its theoretical and empirical foundations are quite solid. Now, of course it does not explain all the big questions related to the topic, but certainly it's something, it does gives clues and hints. Science is interested in the mechanisms, that's true, but in the search of these mechanisms we encountered a lot of insights into more "philosophical" problems (if you are interested in a more detailed epistemological discussion about this, PM me, it's not my intention to derail this thread).

So, I encourage you to see the glass as half full instead of half empty.


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## Blake

aleazk said:


> I'm a scientist worth his salt and I don't think it's a "shot in the dark". Instead, it's the result of decades of investigation and observation. Its theoretical and empirical foundations are quite solid. Now, of course it does not explain all the big questions related to the topic, but certainly it's something, it does gives clues and hints. Science is interested in the mechanisms, that's true, but in the search of these mechanisms we encountered a lot of insights into more "philosophical" problems (if you are interested in a more detailed epistemological discussion about this, PM me, it's not my intention to derail this thread).
> 
> So, I encourage you to see the glass as half full instead of half empty.


It's surely a shot in the dark. An educated shot in the dark. I love science, by the way. So, this isn't some emotional dismissal. At any moment something can be found and break the foundations of this theory. Over 90% of the Universe is virtually indescribable material we call dark matter and energy. The theories are certainly interesting, but they are just that… theories. We really don't understand this Universe. Now, even quantum theories' pointing to spontaneous and illogical movements of energies that we call life. Spontaneity can't be described by the intellect. The intellect slices and labels… you can't do that to illogical and spontaneous movements.

I don't think we've derailed this too bad….


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## aleazk

Vesuvius said:


> It's surely a shot in the dark. An educated shot in the dark. I love science, by the way. So, this isn't some emotional dismissal. At any moment something can be found and break the foundations of this theory. Over 90% of the Universe is virtually indescribable material we call dark matter and energy. The theories are certainly interesting, but they are just that… theories. We really don't understand this Universe. Now, even quantum theories' pointing to spontaneous and illogical movements of energies that we call life. Spontaneity can't be described by the intellect. The intellect slices and labels… you can't do that to illogical and spontaneous movements.
> 
> I don't think we've derailed this too bad….


But, you see, the self-correction capacity of science that you mention is precisely the thing that allows you to infer philosophical data. I will speak of physics only, since it's my field, but can be applied to most sciences.

A physical-mathematical theory is a mathematical model of certain idealized concept you find in reality. So, the first step is to choose the concept in reality that you want to model. This is a key point, since, as we don't know all about reality, it's very likely that this concept will be a simplification of something more complex (and worse, sometimes we don't even know how much we are simplifying it). A lot of philosophical preconceptions are loaded to the concept. Once you have the concept, you search for a mathematical structure that allows you to model it. And that's basically the theory. You can, using the math, make predictions about the system. All of the currently accepted theories make predictions that have been validated to high accuracy (of course, this doesn't "prove" the theory, a physical theory cannot be "proven", but points to its accuracy in certain domains).

Now, in certain moments of history, some of the theories they had gave incorrect predictions when compared to the actual reality. And in _all_ of those cases, what ended to be wrong was the initial concept in which the theory was based!: it was too simple and some of the philosophical assumptions were simply wrong.

For example, in classical physics, you can make propositions about a system (for example, P="the particle is in the position x=5"). These propositions have "truth values", i.e., they can be true or false. A key assumption in classical physics was that these propositions are distributive (i.e., (P or Q) and R= (P and R) or (Q and R) ). Now, that assumption seems more philosophical than physical, and indeed that's what all the classical guys thought ("you can't measure that, it's just a fundamental philosophical tenet"). In any case, these basic propositions are some of the basic physical concepts of the theory I was talking about. If the distributive property holds, then it forms what's called a "Boolean algebra". This Boolean algebra can be modeled mathematically as a thing called the Borel sigma-algebra of a thing called phase-space (which is a symplectic manifold). That models forms, as a physical-mathematical theory, what we call classical mechanics.

Incredibly enough, all of quantum mechanics can be derived from the assumption that this distributive property is wrong (as can be verified in the famous double slit experiment, for example). In that case, the algebra is called "non-Boolean", and can be modeled mathematically as the lattice of orthogonal projectors in a Hilbert space. That models forms, as a physical-mathematical theory, what we call quantum mechanics. Note how that slight change in the basic concept implies a drastic change of mathematical model. In fact, a lot of new things, like spin and discrete energy levels, arise in this new model using Hilbert spaces.

The point of this is that you can gain great insights into profound things about reality when physics evolves. Other examples are the way in which the classical notions of space and time had to be changed with the relativity theories. In the process of changing to a more advanced theory, we gain a lot of hints and knowledge about reality. Of course, the process is slow and indirect. The Big Bang theory is the accumulation of all these things we discovered about reality. If it's wrong, that fact will only serve to sharpen even more our understanding of reality.

You are using yourself in your comment things about reality that were discovered by science (the stochastic nature of reality according to quantum mechanics). And, btw, this stochastic nature can be handled fine in the formalism. Stochastic doesn't means random chaos that is impossible to analyse. In quantum mechanics, the stochastic part means that you cannot predict in a determinist way if something is going to happen, the only thing you can predict in a determinist way is the probability for that event. In fact, that's the definition of a stochastic system. Stochastic systems are well understood as well as probability theory. The nature of quantum mechanics is so _logical_ that even, under certain axiomatic approaches to the theory, you can actually prove as a theorem that the theory has to be stochastic! (via Gleason's theorem and related; elementary books often say that the stochastic nature is a postulate of the theory, that's incorrect).


----------



## SixFootScowl

There is no discovery in science regarding the origins of the universe. There is a lot of data and there are interpretations of that data, but in all that, nothing is proved about the origins of the universe.


----------



## hreichgott

Nereffid said:


> So, if those of us who don't believe in God can't fully appreciate Bach, is it also true that those of us who haven't murdered our wives in a jealous rage can't fully appreciate Verdi's _Otello_?


You can't deny that someone who murdered his wife would have a very different experience of Otello than the rest of us do!


----------



## Blake

aleazk said:


> But, you see, the self-correction capacity of science that you mention is precisely the thing that allows you to infer philosophical data. I will speak of physics only, since it's my field, but can be applied to most sciences.
> 
> A physical-mathematical theory is a mathematical model of certain idealized concept you find in reality. So, the first step is to choose the concept in reality that you want to model. This is a key point, since, as we don't know all about reality, it's very likely that this concept will be a simplification of something more complex (and worse, sometimes we don't even know how much we are simplifying it). A lot of philosophical preconceptions are loaded to the concept. Once you have the concept, you search for a mathematical structure that allows you to model it. And that's basically the theory. You can, using the math, make predictions about the system. All of the currently accepted theories make predictions that have been validated to high accuracy (of course, this doesn't "prove" the theory, a physical theory cannot be "proven", but points to its accuracy in certain domains).
> 
> Now, in certain moments of history, some of the theories they had gave incorrect predictions when compared to the actual reality. And in _all_ of those cases, what ended to be wrong was the initial concept in which the theory was based!: it was too simple and some of the philosophical assumptions were simply wrong.
> 
> For example, in classical physics, you can make propositions about a system (for example, P="the particle is in the position x=5"). These propositions have "truth values", i.e., they can be true or false. A key assumption in classical physics was that these propositions are distributive (i.e., (P or Q) and R= (P and R) or (Q and R) ). Now, that assumption seems more philosophical than physical, and indeed that's what all the classical guys thought ("you can't measure that, it's just a fundamental philosophical tenet"). Incredibly enough, all of quantum mechanics can be derived from the assumption that this distributive property is wrong (as can be verified in the famous double slit experiment, for example).
> 
> The point of this is that you can gain great insights into profound things about reality when physics evolves. Other examples are the way in which the classical notions of space and time had to be changed with the relativity theories. In the process of changing to a more advanced theory, we gain a lot of hints and knowledge about reality. Of course, the process is slow and indirect. The Big Bang theory is the accumulation of all these things we discovered about reality. If it's wrong, that fact will only serve to sharpen even more our understanding of reality.
> 
> You are using yourself in your comment things about reality that were discovered by science (the stochastic nature of reality according to quantum mechanics). And, btw, this stochastic nature can be handled fine in the formalism. Stochastic doesn't means random chaos that is impossible to analyse. In quantum mechanics, the stochastic part means that you cannot predict in a determinist way if something is going to happen, the only thing you can predict in a determinist way is the probability for that event. In fact, that's the definition of a stochastic system. Stochastic systems are well understood as well as probability theory. The nature of quantum mechanics is so _logical_ that even, under certain axiomatic approaches to the theory, you can actually prove as a theorem that the theory has to be stochastic! (via Gleason's theorem and related; elementary books often say that the stochastic nature is a postulate of the theory, that's incorrect).


You sound well-educated, that's for sure. However, this doesn't solidify anything. The very foundation of these discoveries is unstable; therefore, everything that comes out of it will inherently be unstable. We want to understand the explanations of the entire cosmos through the personal intellect, which is vastly limited - That's like trying to put the entire ocean into an 8 oz. cup. It won't happen.

Our minds are illusion-making machines. To understand the Universe we must fully understand ourself. Otherwise we're looking out trying to describe the wonders of existence without being fully conscious of the incredible limitations of our tools of perception. This tells why we have all these beautiful theories with no real satisfactory understanding of reality.


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## aleazk

Florestan said:


> There is no discovery in science regarding the origins of the universe.


The Big Bang theory is a scientific theory about the origins of the universe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

It basically says that spacetime at the big scale contains a "space-like" singularity in the past, which can be detected because every causal path ends there at a finite time when we retrodirect the evolution. Since time evolves, observers in that spacetime interpret this singularity as the origin of time and of the universe. It's very similar to a black hole, where the singularity is in the future. Here it's in the past. In the black hole, every causal path crossing the event horizon has a singularity in his future. In that singularity, time ends for this observer.

The nature of the singularity can be debated, since it's based on classical general relativity, which more or less breaks at those scales. But to me, certainly indicates a break down of time as we know it, since general relativity actually models time as we know it.



Florestan said:


> There is a lot of data and there are interpretations of that data, but in all that, nothing is proved about the origins of the universe.


The data support this model to high accuracy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang#Observational_evidence


----------



## Blake

aleazk said:


> The Big Bang theory is a scientific theory about the origins of the universe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang
> 
> It basically says that spacetime at the big scale contains a "space-like" singularity in the past, which can be detected because every causal path ends there at a finite time when we retrodirect the evolution. Since time evolves, observers in that spacetime interpret this singularity as the origin of time and of the universe. It's very similar to a black hole, where the singularity is in the future. Here it's in the past. In the black hole, every causal path crossing the event horizon has a singularity in his future. In that singularity, time ends for this observer.
> 
> The nature of the singularity can be debated, since it's based on classical general relativity, which more or less breaks at those scales. But to me, certainly indicates a break down of time as we know it, since general relativity actually models time as we know it.
> 
> The data support this model to high accuracy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang#Observational_evidence


Yes, it's a great theory. But it's under the huge assumption that the Universe has been playing the same way since it's inception.


----------



## aleazk

Vesuvius said:


> You sound well-educated, that's for sure. However, this doesn't solidify anything. The very foundation of these discoveries is unstable; therefore, everything that comes out of it will inherently be unstable. We want to understand the explanations of the entire cosmos through the personal intellect, which is vastly limited - That's like trying to put the entire ocean into an 8 oz. cup. It won't happen.
> 
> Our minds are illusion-making machines. To understand the Universe we must fully understand ourself. Otherwise we're looking out trying to describe the wonders of existence without being fully conscious of the incredible limitations of our tools of perception. This tells why we have all these beautiful theories with no real satisfactory understanding of reality.


Of course it's always provisional and not definitive. But the key point is that it's _accumulative_. We know more today than we knew yesterday. And not only in quantity, but in quality also (both conceptual and experimentally). Nobody is claiming that we know everything and things like that. We only say that, based on intense research through centuries, we have arrived at these models and that these models correlate well with data. Also, that these models may have something to say about certain topics that were considered "philosophical" in the past. At the very moment in which it can be measured, then it becomes scientific.

Knowledge about reality is not going to come that easy. As I mentioned, it comes tangentially and in small drops. Of course, we don't know the "true" nature of reality, and it's an open problem if this has an answer. And yes, no scientist worth his salt is going to say the opposite. I never said it, for instance. The point I was trying to make is that it's more complex and interesting than that. We know some things, we don't know some others. And that's what makes it exciting.


----------



## aleazk

Vesuvius said:


> Yes, it's a great theory. But it's under the huge assumption that the Universe has been playing the same way since it's inception.


Well, yes, as I said, all theories have implicit philosophical assumptions. And all physicists are more or less aware of them. If you want to object science, then go to the core: yes, science is great, but it's under the huge assumption that the Universe is logical.

But you have to see the full picture, the two sides of the coin: it also matches perfectly some of the observed phenomena.

As they say, you're throwing the baby with the bathtub.


----------



## Blake

aleazk said:


> Of course it's always provisional and not definitive. But the key point is that it's _accumulative_. We know more today than we knew yesterday. And not only in quantity, but in quality also (both conceptual and experimentally). Nobody is claiming that we know everything and things like that. We only say that, based on intense research through centuries, we have arrived at these models and that these models correlate well with data. Also, that these models may have something to say about certain topics that were considered "philosophical" in the past. At the very moment in which it can be measured, then it becomes scientific.
> 
> Knowledge about reality is not going to come that easy. As I mentioned, it comes tangentially and in small drops. Of course, we don't know the "true" nature of reality, and it's an open problem if this has an answer. And yes, no scientist worth his salt is going to say the opposite. I never said it, for instance. The point I was trying to make is that it's more complex and interesting than that. We know some things, we don't know some others. And that's what makes it exciting.


I can dig this. But I would say we know very little, and we don't know a whole lot... And that does make it exciting.


----------



## Blake

aleazk said:


> Well, yes, as I said, all theories have implicit philosophical assumptions. And all physicists are more or less aware of them. If you want to object science, then go to the core: yes, science is great, but it's under the huge assumption that the Universe is logical.
> 
> But you have to see the full picture, the two sides of the coin: it also matches perfectly some of the observed phenomena.
> 
> As they say, you're throwing the baby with the bathtub.


Even science has it's foundations in assumptions… But as I said, I'm still a fan. I've been an "intellectual" my entire life, and I've seen the limitations of being strictly this way. The Universe may not be logical.


----------



## BurningDesire

Well since there are no gods, it is just music. Plenty of it is good music too.


----------



## Rhythm

aleazk said:


> Of course it's always provisional and not definitive. But the key point is that it's _accumulative_. We know more today than we knew yesterday. And not only in quantity, but in quality also (both conceptual and experimentally). Nobody is claiming that we know everything and things like that. We only say that, based on intense research through centuries, we have arrived at these models and that these models correlate well with data. Also, that these models may have something to say about certain topics that were considered "philosophical" in the past. At the very moment in which it can be measured, then it becomes scientific.
> 
> Knowledge about reality is not going to come that easy. As I mentioned, it comes tangentially and in small drops. Of course, we don't know the "true" nature of reality, and it's an open problem if this has an answer. And yes, no scientist worth his salt is going to say the opposite. I never said it, for instance. The point I was trying to make is that it's more complex and interesting than that. We know some things, we don't know some others. And that's what makes it exciting.


If only I had been a theoretical cosmologist. Thank You, aleazk.

aleazk, are you familiar with sonification, or sonifiers' work with physicists and astrophysicists, or asteroseismology? I'm not a scientist, but you could say I'm profoundly interested in hearing sounds from objects in space; thus, in a way, its music. I'm not prepared right now for posting various sonifiers' productions, but one day I will in the appropriate thread.

R.


----------



## SixFootScowl

aleazk said:


> The data support this model to high accuracy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang#Observational_evidence


The assumptions involved preclude high accuracy.


----------



## PetrB

hreichgott said:


> You can't deny that someone who murdered his wife would have a very different experience of Otello than the rest of us do!


I imagine that murdered wife would have yet another perspective on that opera.


----------



## BurningDesire

Ingélou said:


> You do not need to be a Christian to enjoy or revere or appreciate Christian music at a very high level. But obviously if you have a strong faith and feelings of love for the Lord, it will add both to enjoyment and appreciation. To say this is common sense, not spiritual pride. I can enjoy music from other religious traditions, but if a Hindu were to tell me that I could never reach the highest level of appreciation of some dawn hymns, say, because I didn't worship (or believe in) the goddess of the dawn, I would listen to his or her point with interest and agree - not start lambasting him for arrogance and insensitivity.
> 
> Edit: To answer another part of the OP, yes, singing, or listening to, Christian music with attention is a form of worship. So is looking at or listening to any part of God's creation with love & thankfulness to the Creator.


I would totally lambaste him for the arrogance XD

It would be like me saying to somebody not from America that they will never appreciate Ives the way I do because I'm American. Its extremely presumptuous and arrogant to say stuff like that. I won't argue that the experience of a religious person listening to religious music is probably different, at least in the thoughts they have while listening, but its rude to say its better.


----------



## Guest

Vesuvius said:


> Any scientist worth his salt will admit that this is simply a shot in the dark to give us some foundation to explain what we really don't understand. What is the Big Bang? A sudden explosion of existence from an infinite point of density? Are you sure? If so, why and how? I really don't think there's any satisfying answer.


I was using Big Bang as an illustration. I could have said that the Universe was caused by the hand of God. My point is still made: that there is less difference between 'how' and 'why' than is claimed. Or, perhaps, to put it another way, theists get stuck, when they try to explain 'why', on advancing their 'how', and shy away from explaining 'why' by saying we don't know why God created the Universe - no-one can know his mind!

A fat lot of good philosophy is!


----------



## Piwikiwi

Florestan said:


> There is no discovery in science regarding the origins of the universe. There is a lot of data and there are interpretations of that data, but in all that, nothing is proved about the origins of the universe.


We basically know how the universe expanded from a really really really short time after the big bang and how that made the universe what it is today but I doubt that we can ever know what "triggered" the big bang. The same way that the theory of evolution only describes how life evolved and says nothing about how the first life form was formed.



Vesuvius said:


> It's surely a shot in the dark. An educated shot in the dark. I love science, by the way. So, this isn't some emotional dismissal. At any moment something can be found and break the foundations of this theory. Over 90% of the Universe is virtually indescribable material we call dark matter and energy.* The theories are certainly interesting, but they are just that… theories.* We really don't understand this Universe. Now, even quantum theories' pointing to spontaneous and illogical movements of energies that we call life. Spontaneity can't be described by the intellect. The intellect slices and labels… you can't do that to illogical and spontaneous movements.
> 
> I don't think we've derailed this too bad….


I don't think you know what the word theory means. A lot of people seem to confuse theory with hypothesis.

Also quantum physics only applies to sub atomic particles so it wouldn't have that much of an effect on life anyway.



Vesuvius said:


> Yes, it's a great theory. But it's under the huge assumption that the Universe has been playing the same way since it's inception.


No it doesn't. I suggest you watch this:








Vesuvius said:


> Even science has it's foundations in assumptions… But as I said, I'm still a fan. I've been an "intellectual" my entire life, and I've seen the limitations of being strictly this way. The Universe may not be logical.


Quantum physics and relativity sure aren't logical. They are completely counter intuitive.


----------



## Blake

Piwikiwi said:


> I don't think you know what the word theory means. A lot of people seem to confuse theory with hypothesis.
> 
> Also quantum physics only applies to sub atomic particles so it wouldn't have that much of an effect on life anyway.
> 
> No it doesn't. I suggest you watch this:
> 
> Quantum physics and relativity sure aren't logical. They are completely counter intuitive.


Don't take your intellect so seriously. The mind is a master of distortion. As I've stated, I think it's a great theory. And I know exactly what theory means, I've been through science 101. Yes, there are plenty of equations and logical explanations to support this theory, and we can look back in time many eons ago. But it's still based on subtle assumptions and the hope that things have and will continue to unfold logically. We're looking at the fruit and the branches and automatically assuming we know where the roots are.


----------



## Piwikiwi

Vesuvius said:


> Don't take your intellect so seriously. The mind is a master of distortion. As I've stated, I think it's a great theory. And I know exactly what theory means, I've been through science 101. Yes, there are plenty of equations and logical explanations to support this theory, and we can look back in time many eons ago. But it's still based on subtle assumptions and the hope that things have and will continue to unfold logically. We're looking at the fruit and the branches and automatically assuming we know where the roots are.


It's not about my intellect. I have a really hard time understanding how this all works.

Sorry but discussion with someone who basically is denying causality is impossible.


----------



## Blake

Piwikiwi said:


> It's not about my intellect. I have a really hard time understanding how this all works.
> 
> Sorry but discussion with someone who basically is denying causality is impossible.


Maybe repetition creates the illusion of causality. Maybe memory creates the illusion of continuity. Has anyone really questioned this? To me, this is a much more behemoth exploration.


----------



## Mahlerian

Vesuvius said:


> Maybe repetition creates the illusion of causality. Maybe memory creates the illusion of continuity. Has anyone really questioned this?


Hume.
Really, no more needed to be said.


----------



## Nereffid

Vesuvius said:


> Maybe repetition creates the illusion of causality. Maybe memory creates the illusion of continuity. Has anyone really questioned this? To me, this is a much more behemoth exploration.


This sort of discussion is way outside my pay grade, but it seems to me that operating on the assumption that causality and continuity might be illusions is probably not the best way to conduct any research or, indeed, make any decisions.


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## Blake

Mahlerian said:


> Hume.
> Really, no more needed to be said.


Wonderful guy. Maybe more should investigate….


----------



## Blake

Nereffid said:


> This sort of discussion is way outside my pay grade, but it seems to me that operating on the assumption that causality and continuity might be illusions is probably not the best way to conduct any research or, indeed, make any decisions.


I don't think it's much more of a stretch than the arrogance that our intellect is the sole hammer of reality.


----------



## Piwikiwi

Vesuvius said:


> Maybe repetition creates the illusion of causality. Maybe memory creates the illusion of continuity. Has anyone really questioned this? To me, this is a much more behemoth exploration.


Cogito ergo sum.


----------



## millionrainbows

I'm interested in 'sacred' music which conveys the sense of the sacred in a universal manner, not dependent on particulars such as dogma, text, or religion.


----------



## Sonata

BurningDesire said:


> I would totally lambaste him for the arrogance XD
> 
> It would be like me saying to somebody not from America that they will never appreciate Ives the way I do because I'm American. Its extremely presumptuous and arrogant to say stuff like that. I won't argue that the experience of a religious person listening to religious music is probably different, at least in the thoughts they have while listening, but its rude to say its better.


Nobody said better. They said "deeper". And for a really devout person, their faith and spirituality may be the most important aspect of their existence. Why is it offensive to suggest that the music may resound with them deeper spiritually than one who doesn't even believe in the deeper level of the music?

It's one thing to not like the idea of religion, and/or spirituality (noting that they aren't always related). it's another thing to be bothered by the idea that it provides value to other people's lives.


----------



## Nereffid

Vesuvius said:


> I don't think it's much more of a stretch than the arrogance that our intellect is the sole hammer of reality.


But if our brains are all we can use to perceive reality, what choice have we got?
Might as well criticise the arrogance of bacteria for not being aware of music.


----------



## Blancrocher

Vesuvius said:


> Wonderful guy. Maybe more should investigate….


"The Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion"? Might make this conversation a bit too tense.

*p.s.* I just had a peak at Hume's essay, "Of the Standard of Taste." Not much to say about "religious music," except to say that religious biases shouldn't affect one's appreciation of art:



> Of all speculative errors, those, which regard religion, are the most excusable in compositions of genius; nor is it ever permitted to judge of the civility or wisdom of any people, or even of single persons, by the grossness or refinement of their theological principles. The same good sense, that directs men in the ordinary occurrences of life, is not harkened to in religious matters, which are supposed to be placed altogether above the cognizance of human reason. On this account, all the absurdities of the pagan system of theology must be overlooked by every critic, who would pretend to form a just notion of ancient poetry; and our posterity, in their turn, must have the same indulgence to their forefathers. No religious principles can ever be imputed as a fault to any poet, while they remain merely principles, and take not such strong possession of his heart, as to lay him under the imputation of bigotry or superstition. Where that happens, they confound the sentiments of morality, and alter the natural boundaries of vice and virtue. They are therefore eternal blemishes, according to the principle above mentioned; nor are the prejudices and false opinions of the age sufficient to justify them.


http://www.csulb.edu/~jvancamp/361r15.html


----------



## Celloman

millionrainbows said:


> I'm interested in 'sacred' music which conveys the sense of the sacred in a universal manner, not dependent on particulars such as dogma, text, or religion.


Isn't most "sacred" music dependent on the credo of a particular religion? Does this mean you don't listen to Bach?


----------



## millionrainbows

Celloman said:


> Isn't most "sacred" music dependent on the credo of a particular religion? Does this mean you don't listen to Bach?


The problem is neatly solved if we see that good art has both specific contextual/cultural aspects, as well as universal meanings. Art should not have to be tied to specifics if it is indeed universal in its appeal.

Conversely, I should be able to listen and enjoy Bach's Cantatas without feeling "left out" because I'm a trans-gender Buddhist.


----------



## Blancrocher

Bach was of course a Christian--but the history of his Mass in B minor suggests he didn't get hung up on specific doctrinal controversies between Catholics, Lutherans, and the like. 

Shostakovich was an atheist materialist, but he seems to have been emotionally (and spiritually?) overwhelmed when he first heard Tatiana Nikolaeva playing the WTC, an experience that eventually resulted in his op.87.


----------



## Celloman

millionrainbows said:


> The problem is neatly solved if we see that good art has both specific contextual/cultural aspects, as well as universal meanings. Art should not have to be tied to specifics if it is indeed universal in its appeal.


I see what you mean. Music can make use of a specific credo, yet at the same time it can appeal to people of many different faiths/beliefs. One does not have to accept its particular worldview in order to appreciate it from a spiritual standpoint.


----------



## millionrainbows

Celloman said:


> I see what you mean. Music can make use of a specific credo, yet at the same time it can appeal to people of many different faiths/beliefs. One does not have to accept its particular worldview in order to appreciate it from a spiritual standpoint.


Yes, exactly, thank you Celloman. Unfortunately, this simple fact is often refuted because of textual content or other context. These critics are unwilling to see that Man's sacred essence is universal, and came before it was manifest as a particular dogma.


----------



## millionrainbows

Blancrocher said:


> Bach was of course a Christian--but the history of his Mass in B minor suggests he didn't get hung up on specific doctrinal controversies between Catholics, Lutherans, and the like.
> 
> Shostakovich was an atheist materialist, but he seems to have been emotionally (and spiritually?) overwhelmed when he first heard Tatiana Nikolaeva playing the WTC, an experience that eventually resulted in his op.87.


Well, of course, I think we all love Shostakovich, and would have given him a great big hug, just like Lenny did.


----------



## millionrainbows

Blancrocher said:


> Bach was of course a Christian--but the history of his Mass in B minor suggests he didn't get hung up on specific doctrinal controversies between Catholics, Lutherans, and the like.


Bach wasn't gay, either, and didn't want to marry a man.

Had he married a female and had been in poverty, I'm sure he would have wanted his wife to get good pre-natal care as well.

I guess Bach had no specific need to get "hung up on specific doctrinal controversies between Catholics, Lutherans, and the like" because he lived back a long time ago, before these things became politicized by religion.

I'm talking about *now, *and how *we* can be more inclusive about "sacred" music in our approach to it as art.


----------



## millionrainbows

Blancrocher said:


> Bach was of course a Christian--but the history of his Mass in B minor suggests he didn't get hung up on specific doctrinal controversies between Catholics, Lutherans, and the like.
> 
> Shostakovich was an atheist materialist, but he seems to have been emotionally (and spiritually?) overwhelmed when he first heard Tatiana Nikolaeva playing the WTC, an experience that eventually resulted in his op.87.


...But this is not the place to discuss whether or not Bach let his religious beliefs "hang him up" regarding his music; that would be a topic for the "Politics and Religion" forum, because: 
_ 
This_ forum, "Religious Music," is properly concerned with:_ Discussions about religious/sacred music. Discussions about the religious aspect of the music belong in the "Politics and Religion" sub-forum.

My opening post, and subsequent premise, questions if religious music or 'sacred music' is *'real,'* meaning *"does religious or sacred music have an actual effect on its listeners, in the sense of it being a 'religious technology' using music, which has* *a real dimension of spiritual transformation on the listener.

*_I think that's a reasonable question. It ideally concerns the music itself, and you also seem to be saying that "the music transcends religious dogma." I agree.


----------



## Blancrocher

Sorry for the digression--I was corroborating the statement that Bach's music has both specific contextual aspects and universal meanings. Unnecessary, I agree.


----------



## millionrainbows

Blancrocher said:


> Sorry for the digression--I was corroborating the statement that Bach's music has both specific contextual aspects and universal meanings. Unnecessary, I agree.


That's fine, Blancrocher. What is the challenge, I think, for 'believers' as well as others, is that we acknowledge the specifics, as well as the universals, without letting it impede our approach to the great Western art we have before us.

Bach's is a great example of music whose power as 'just music' is obvious to anyone who encounters it.

Likewise, if we are Christian, I don't think we should be 'scared off' by Terry Riley, Philip Glass, John Cage, or Mahler's Eighth.


----------



## PetrB

Mahlerian said:


> Hume.


If you must clear your throat, it is polite to cover your mouth with a handkerchief.


----------



## millionrainbows

I think that 'religious' or 'sacred' music is real, in that its effect on the brain/mind is real. The brain operates on frequencies, which can resonate with music of larger multiple frequencies, creating 'phase patterns' similar to Moire patterns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moire_patterns

Do these patterns 'exist?' Who knows, but there they are. Like Hume's collection of parts, they constitute what appears to be an effect which appears to be just as real as real seems to seem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hologram

Also, this is the way holograms are created. If examined, the hologram is a collection of single-angle still images; but when stimulated by a laser, these become a corporate whole. Holographic cosmology, anyone?

Who knows!


----------



## Blake

What in the hell was the Universe doing before our mighty brains came along?


----------



## science

Vesuvius said:


> What in the hell was the Universe doing before our mighty brains came along?


Waiting impatiently, no doubt.


----------



## tahnak

Like Johann Sebastian Bach, I feel that the sole purpose of music is glorification of God. It is the best language that we can use as a medium to express our gratitude to the Creator in our own individual ways. This is to say that you can pray to God in million different ways and not just through the prescribed `Lord's Prayer' or the `Namaz' of Muslims or the Gregorian Chant or sacred music of Bach and others. The discerning measure is whether the music is worthy of being accepted by God and is it full of spirit and does it have something to say that praises the human spirit and by doing that, it is praising the spirit of God. Dvorak's Third Symphony or Beethoven's Pastoral or Eroica or Choral could be as religious and real as Bach's St. John's Passion or Buxtehude's Organ chorales.


----------



## millionrainbows

Just to exist is sacred.


----------



## Blake

Existence is the miracle.


----------



## millionrainbows

Hey, after some of the stuff I've been through, it's a miracle I exist. Especially after that last soul-destroying job I had, processing car titles.


----------



## millionrainbows

Yes, Philip Glass' Koyannisqatsi, and that trilogy of movies, was definitely sacred in its intent. Yet, it was in no way overtly "religious." I think it had a sacred purpose, which I guess you could call a "religious" purpose, but that sort of transcends the idea of dogma, doesn't it? Unless you consider "the sacred nature of all existence" to be a 'dogma' or 'religious directive.' That sort of over-stretches the idea of 'religion' for me.


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> Hey, after some of the stuff I've been through, it's a miracle I exist. Especially after that last soul-destroying job I had, processing car titles.


After the stuff our ancestors went through, it's a miracle any of us exist!


----------



## Blake

After the destructive debauchery of our current line-up, it's a miracle the cosmos didn't squash this infection.


----------



## Morimur

The world's been a mess ever since man began to walk upon it. It's only matter of time before we destroy ourselves. My name is Captain Obvious. :tiphat:


----------



## aleazk

Jeez people!... listen to this marvelous religious music for regaining faith in humanity!: 




:tiphat:


----------



## Blake

A faith in a race that's obsessed with the futile pursuit of object-based happiness. A journey initiated on the background of pain.



Nahh, I'm kidding… maybe.


----------



## millionrainbows

I have faith in Man...in his darkness as well. Ahh, the darkness!


----------



## Blake

Except when it leads to murdering and raping… we don't seem to like that kind of stuff.


----------



## millionrainbows

Vesuvius said:


> Except when it leads to murdering and raping… we don't seem to like that kind of stuff.


But killing in war is ok, even honorable. And the death penalty is ok to many. What is darkness?


----------



## Headphone Hermit

millionrainbows said:


> But killing in war is ok, even honorable. And the death penalty is ok to many. What is darkness?


death penalty - No, not OK to me

killing in war - No, I will (very reluctantly) concede that it has been an necessary evil for some of those involved, including my 90 year old friend at whose birthday party I was earlier today, but I don't think even he would have said it was 'OK'


----------



## Blake

millionrainbows said:


> But killing in war is ok, even honorable. And the death penalty is ok to many. *What is darkness*?


That should be clarified. Darkness as the absence of things, or darkness as ignorance?


----------



## millionrainbows

Vesuvius said:


> That should be clarified. Darkness as the absence of things, or darkness as ignorance?


I don't see how that question creates a credible dialectic, so I will not address it, but clarify further the doctrine of *Privatio Boni *(which you can simply go to WIK and read about); since my own thoughts (a result of pondering) might help clarify.

We have flashlights, which shine a beam of light. But we do not have "flashdarks," which shine a beam of darkness. Darkness is simply the absence of light, not a thing in itself. In this sense, it is without substance. It is a condition created by the absence of something else.

Man is a creature of "being." He is not inanimate. So the conditions of normal, healthy being are the criteria against which 'darkness' in Man can be seen and understood.

The normal state of Man is love. The absence of love is fear. This explains it all.

In this sense, "sin" or darkness is a separation from our sacred nature, according to Christians. It is a condition of darkness, because it causes separation from our inner spirit, which is connected to the sacred.

Darkness is an aberration of the ideal normal state, which is our given birthright.

Darkness, in the context of being, can also be seen as a 'disease' model, like a virus. A virus is not actually a living thing; it requires a host in order to be what it is. In this model, 'sin' or darkness is seen as a diseased state of what should otherwise be a healthy, thriving organism or being.

Also, it should be noted that 'sin' or darkness is something that affects everyone, regardless. We are all part of the same matrix of being, so no one gets a 'free ride' or can claim innocence. This darkness can be 'induced' into a vulnerable (or ignorant) being, so ignorance is more like a vulnerability than a conscious act.

We can actively "seek the light" by listening to music which reinforces our innate, universal sense of sacred being. Here are some examples of Terry Riley's work, which exemplify a positive state of being. This is sacred music in the best sense of the term.


----------



## Blake

Nice write up. However, I will say that we can go a bit deeper and say that the darkness is perceived by something which feels self-radiating - Awareness, our Being, Absolute… there are many different names for It. So darkness is really only of the mind, since there is perception of this darkness means that there is a radiant intelligence beyond it and embracing it. 

I think it's more important to investigate that source of perception rather the object being perceived… because anything perceived is transient, but the perceiving being doesn't seem to change. Of course this is something that should be eagerly pursued and not dryly intellectualized on a forum.


----------



## millionrainbows

Vesuvius said:


> Nice write up. However, I will say that we can go a bit deeper and say that the darkness is perceived by something which feels self-radiating - Awareness, our Being, Absolute… there are many different names for It. So darkness is really only of the mind, since there is perception of this darkness means that there is a radiant intelligence beyond it and embracing it.


Hmm, it sounds like you are postulating a radiant intelligence.

But 'darkness' is a lack, a deficiency. So the 'self radiating' is cut-off. So the 'darkness' is an illusion, a result of a separation from the 'radiant.' This is not really 'of the mind,' although the perception seems to be something the mind deals with as if it were real.

The 'being' is the real problem. Without that, there is no radiance.



Vesuvius said:


> I think it's more important to investigate that source of perception rather the object being perceived… because anything perceived is transient, but the perceiving being doesn't seem to change.


But the 'perceiving being' is what is 'blocked' or deficient. We need to focus on the being, not the mind's perceptions. Those are just reflections of being. The true radiance lies within, as we are connected to it from within. This is not 'outer' perception, belief, or anything other than 'pure being.'

But ironically, if there is a blockage, it exists as a false perception, so it needs to be dealt with on its own terms, but fear can be a formidable and terrifying enemy, although it is essentially illusory.

Like you said, it's easy to sit back after the fact and say that 'being,' not mind, is the key. But in practice, there is darkness everywhere, but no one seems to see anything but its effect. That's why we must be patient, and see beyond this, especially in those most affected by this.


----------



## Blake

millionrainbows said:


> Hmm, it sounds like you are postulating a radiant intelligence.
> 
> But 'darkness' is a lack, a deficiency. So the 'self radiating' is cut-off. So the 'darkness' is an illusion, a result of a separation from the 'radiant.' This is not really 'of the mind,' although the perception seems to be something the mind deals with as if it were real.
> 
> The 'being' is the real problem. Without that, there is no radiance.
> 
> But the 'perceiving being' is what is 'blocked' or deficient. We need to focus on the being, not the mind's perceptions. Those are just reflections of being. The true radiance lies within, as we are connected to it from within. This is not 'outer' perception, belief, or anything other than 'pure being.'
> 
> But ironically, if there is a blockage, it exists as a false perception, so it needs to be dealt with on its own terms, but fear can be a formidable and terrifying enemy, although it is essentially illusory.
> 
> Like you said, it's easy to sit back after the fact and say that 'being,' not mind, is the key. But in practice, there is darkness everywhere, but no one seems to see anything but its effect. That's why we must be patient, and see beyond this, especially in those most affected by this.


We're pretty close in scope here. But I would say that the being is never hindered or blocked. It only seems that way because the mirror of the mind is incredibly clouded with delusion, so it distorts what's really there. It's the mind that get's "enlightened" or cleared, not the being. For the being is already the light shining on the deranged mind. The mind is the experiential realm... it needs dissolution. The being doesn't need a thing, as it's simply being.


----------



## millionrainbows

Vesuvius said:


> We're pretty close in scope here. But I would say that *the being is never hindered or blocked.* It only seems that way because the mirror of the mind is incredibly clouded with delusion, so it distorts what's really there. It's the mind that get's "enlightened" or cleared, not the being. For the being is already the light shining on the deranged mind. The mind is the experiential realm... it needs dissolution. The being doesn't need a thing, as it's simply being.


The natural state of being, which is connected to the sacred, is what gets blocked by delusion, or as Christians say, Man becomes separated from God by sin.

I disagree that the being cannot be blocked. It can not be 'touched,' but its natural state is as the center of being, to which the mind is secondary adjunct. When this 'false self' or delusional mind becomes too strong, as in cases of induced sin, it blocks the natural state of being from shining through like an overgrowth of clutter, or 'sin.'


----------



## Blake

millionrainbows said:


> The natural state of being, which is connected to the sacred, is what gets blocked by delusion, or as Christians say, Man becomes separated from God by sin.
> 
> I disagree that the being cannot be blocked. It can not be 'touched,' but its natural state is as the center of being, to which the mind is secondary adjunct. When this 'false self' or delusional mind becomes too strong, as in cases of induced sin, it blocks the natural state of being from shining through like an overgrowth of clutter, or 'sin.'


"Blocked" is just an idea in the mind, and it's energy is felt in the body. This is perceived by an embracing being that's not itself blocked.


----------



## millionrainbows

Vesuvius said:


> "Blocked" is just an idea in the mind.


Yes, that's what I mean by 'blocked.' Pardon my shorthand.



Vesuvius said:


> ...This is perceived by an embracing being that's not itself blocked.


Yes, exactly; that's what I mean by 'blocked.' The net result is a 'blockage.'


----------



## Blake

millionrainbows said:


> Yes, that's what I mean by 'blocked.' Pardon my shorthand.
> 
> Yes, exactly; that's what I mean by 'blocked.' The net result is a 'blockage.'


Like I said, I think our scope is similar. Our semantics vary a bit.


----------



## millionrainbows

Vesuvius said:


> Like I said, I think our scope is similar. Our semantics vary a bit.


Ahh, so you are one of the radiant ones.


----------



## Blake

millionrainbows said:


> Ahh, so you are one of the radiant ones.


Not in the morning.


----------



## millionrainbows

Anyway, back to the original post:



millionrainbows said:


> In other words, is, for example, Gregorian chant actually a form of worship, and a way of actually invoking God or the Holy Spirit, as well as being "just music?"
> 
> The Church fathers thought that it was, indeed, a form of worship; a form of "religious technology" designed to invoke God and create believers.
> 
> In fact, on this very forum, I was criticized by a 'true believer' for saying that I could enjoy Gregorian chant without being a Christian. He said I was "missing it," compared to a believer who listens. What do you say?


 I suppose a case could be made that if one intends to "evoke the spirit of God" that one must believe specifically in that particular God in order for the 'evocation' to be valid.

Perhaps the believers think that the reason that "this particular spirit of God gets invoked" is dependent on the belief of the listener; I don't.

I think the reverse is true; that this spiritual essence exists in Man as an innate connection, before any theology or religion is developed from it, as a gateway to the sacred, and that this universal sense of connection with the sacred existed before any religion was developed.

You can see for yourself that this is a 'dangerous' idea to most dogmatist Christians and monotheists, as they tend to 'objectify" God as a projected "other," outside ourselves. The idea of "going within" to find an inner connection with God is therefore seen as diametrically opposed to the idea of a 'constant' objective God.

The existence of an "inner" connection to the sacred, without an accompanying "objectified" belief in God, is too subjective, too dependent on each individual's intuitions, feelings, and ideas about "God" or the sacred.

Therefore, my approach to 'sacred' music as a universal thing, existing in all Men, reveals my paradigm and mindset which is, as a whole, seen as opposed to traditional notions of objectified belief systems.

Although, might I say, that Beethoven and Mahler both had this sense of the innate sacred in all Men. Beethoven's sense of this was due at least in part to his sympathy and interest in Freemasonry, and its 18th century revival of interest in the Upanishads, and perhaps the rest of it due to good old suffering, transcendence of the senses, and the wisdom of old age; Mahler's due to the fact of his great intellect (always the enemy of belief), his love of Mankind, and his heritage as an 'outsider.'


----------



## millionrainbows

I just got through watching the *Steve Reich *DVD which contains the video collaborations _Hindenburg_ and_ Bikini _and _Dolly. _Unlike *Glass,* who has taken a decidedly Eastern path, Reich seems to have remained true to his Jewish heritage. All three of these videos concern Man's hubris, and what God might have to say about it, with scriptural verses frequently flashing down the screen which pertain to these incidents. This is definitely a 'sacred' statement, and it has specifically religious content and concern. This is because it was Reich's intent to create sacred art.

It's a very good offering, and the religious content is general enough, and relevantly inclusive enough, to be of value to all who see it.

Sacred music is happening right under the noses of us, right now, and in Reich's case, is a valuable commentary on current events. The critics who disparage the 'minimalist' composers are really blind, and missing out on some excellent art.


----------



## ArtMusic

millionrainbows said:


> In other words, is, for example, Gregorian chant actually a form of worship, and a way of actually invoking God or the Holy Spirit, as well as being "just music?"
> 
> The Church fathers thought that it was, indeed, a form of worship; a form of "religious technology" designed to invoke God and create believers.
> 
> In fact, on this very forum, I was criticized by a 'true believer' for saying that I could enjoy Gregorian chant without being a Christian. He said I was "missing it," compared to a believer who listens. What do you say?


Anyone, religious or not, can enjoy a Bach cantata. Just the same that religious people can also enjoy opera or a concerto or whatever.


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> I think ... that this spiritual essence exists in Man as an innate connection, before any theology or religion is developed from it, as a gateway to the sacred, and that this universal sense of connection with the sacred existed before any religion was developed.


Regardless of what organized religion would think of that, the point is that this itself is a theological statement, and you understand it as such when you say things like:



millionrainbows said:


> ... this is a 'dangerous' idea to most dogmatist Christians and monotheists, as they tend to 'objectify" God as a projected "other," outside ourselves. The idea of "going within" to find an inner connection with God is therefore seen as diametrically opposed to the idea of a 'constant' objective God.
> 
> The existence of an "inner" connection to the sacred, without an accompanying "objectified" belief in God, is too subjective, too dependent on each individual's intuitions, feelings, and ideas about "God" or the sacred.
> 
> Therefore, my approach to 'sacred' music as a universal thing, existing in all Men, reveals my paradigm and mindset which is, as a whole, seen as opposed to traditional notions of objectified belief systems.


That's as dogmatic an anything else.

I'm ordinarily no defender of organized Christianity or any other religious tradition - I actually love the religious traditions, but as I am not a believer I usually don't find myself on their sides in most discussions - and for me it is no thing if this is a dangerous idea to them, though I doubt it is. All of the organized religions have been celebrating subjective spiritual (albeit usually strongly controlled or circumscribed) experience throughout their entire histories.

But that is no thing in any case. The main thing important to me is that I'd be flabbergasted if any of these ideas affect our appreciation of any music in more than a superficial way. As I've been listening to the "Music of Islam" box that I've referred to several times during these discussions, I've been enjoying the music as music without a single thought to whether the musicians have some inner connection to some subjective god or anything like that. Having a thought like that might've given me a warm fuzzy feeling akin to, "Aw, ain't it sweet that everyone can love God?" but that doesn't seem to add much value to me. I understand that they made the music to praise and enjoy their God, and I don't mean that such a thing doesn't or shouldn't have value to them - I'm indifferent to that and they can do what they want, and in fact knowing that is important to me because I want to understand the cultural context and meaning of the music as much as I can.

But in all this I stick to the concrete reality: they are making it to praise God, yes; but whether God is being praised is more than I know; they are enjoying an experience that they understand to be an experience of God, yes; that their experience really is of God is more than I know. And I cannot imagine how asserting any theological doctrine - yours or theirs - is going to change my experience of their music.


----------



## millionrainbows

science said:


> Regardless of what organized religion would think of that, the point is that this itself is a theological statement, and you understand it as such when you say things like (that)...
> That's as dogmatic an anything else.


I don't think the Eastern subjectivity is 'dogmatic' or assertive, like an 'objectified' belief system is.

I think that it is two diametrically directed ways of thinking, feeling, and being. I think objective religion, is more 'social' in nature, and Eastern subjectivity is more individual.

The subjective is innate, and came first, and the experience of the sacred connection to the sacred is to be found by looking within.

It does not exist* only *by projecting an assertive, objectified dogma based on belief.



science said:


> ...I'm ordinarily no defender of organized Christianity or any other religious tradition - I actually love the religious traditions, but as I am not a believer I usually don't find myself on their sides in most discussions...


I am defending my right to experience sacred music, esp. Christian music, against those who insist it is area exclusive to believers. Plenty of them pop up, as you have seen.



science said:


> ...-and for me it is no thing if this is a dangerous idea to them, though I doubt it is.


It is dangerous, as is demonstrated by the way the Nicene Creed is written, and the way in 300 a.d. the Church officials removed and destroyed the Gnostic gospels. These apocrapha came from that part of Christianity's spread which was further East than Rome, and the main point of contention was the 'nothing is real' idea, gotten from eastern thought, which was that the spirit is the only real thing, and the material world is a degraded thing. The "redeeming" of Mankind via the sacrifice of the lamb, i.e. the crucifixion, would not have been 'valid' if the material world and physical body were not really 'real.' Christ had to be an actual human, in a human body, in order for his death to have real effect as a redeeming sacrifice.

Thus, not just this idea of non-materialism, but the insistence on a whole belief system based on objective physical realities is the real difference. To me, this turns metaphysics into literalism. Just as fundamentalist Christians see the Bible as historic record, which is absurd on many levels.



science said:


> ... I've been enjoying the music as music without a single thought to whether the musicians have some inner connection to some subjective god or anything like that. Having a thought like that might've given me a warm fuzzy feeling akin to, "Aw, ain't it sweet that everyone can love God?" but that doesn't seem to add much value to me.


I'm not as concerned with them as I am with validating my own experience in the face of fundamentalists who would invalidate mine, by insisting it is an exclusive area.



science said:


> ...I understand that they made the music to praise and enjoy* their *God, and I don't mean that such a thing doesn't or shouldn't have value to them - I'm indifferent to that and they can do what they want, and in fact knowing that is important to me because I want to understand the cultural context and meaning of the music as much as I can.


_Their _God? No, _their subjective connection to the sacred,_ no matter how it is manifest after the fact, is just as valid and just as experience-able as any other sacred music.



science said:


> ... they are making it to praise God, yes; but whether God is being praised is *more than I know;* they are enjoying an experience that they understand to be an experience of God, yes;* that their experience really is of God is more than I know. *


I think everybody intuitively shares this knowledge of the sacred connection, which is inner-directred. Yes, we all know this, that's my point. None of us need to 'prove'.



science said:


> ......And I cannot imagine how asserting any theological doctrine - yours or theirs - is going to change my experience of their music.


I'm not asserting a doctrine; sacred music, regardless of doctrine, is valid universally.


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> I don't think the Eastern subjectivity is 'dogmatic' like an objectified belief system is. I think that it is two diametrically directed ways of thinking, feeling, and being. I think objective religion, is more 'social' in nature, and Eastern subjectivity is more individual.
> 
> I am defending my right to experience sacred music, esp. Christian music, against those who insist it is area exclusive to believers. Plenty of them pop up, as you have seen.
> 
> It is dangerous, as is demonstrated by the way the Nicene Creed is written, and the way in 300 a.d. the Church officials removed and destroyed the Gnostic gospels. These apocrapha came from that part of Christianity's spread which was further East than Rome, and the main point of contention was the 'nothing is real' idea, gotten from eastern thought, which was that the spirit is the only real thing, and the material world is a degraded thing. The "redeeming" of Mankind via the sacrifice of the lamb, i.e. the crucifixion, would not have been 'valid' if the material world and physical body were not really 'real.' Christ had to be an actual human, in a human body, in order for his death to have real effect as a redeeming sacrifice.
> 
> I'm not as concerned with them as I am with validating my own experience in the face of fundamentalists who would invalidate mine, by insisting it is an exclusive area.
> 
> _Their _God? No, _their subjective connection to the sacred,_ no matter how it is manifest after the fact, is just as valid and just as experience-able as any other sacred music.
> 
> I think everybody intuitively shares this knowledge of the sacred connection, which is inner-directred. Yes, we all know this, that's my point. None of us need to 'prove'.
> 
> I'm not asserting a doctrine; sacred music, regardless of doctrine, is valid universally.


You're making a lot of assertions here about "East" and "West" and I'm simply skeptical that they would hold up under scrutiny. There're other devils in other details there, and as a former theology student I could enjoy discussing them in greater detail and more specificity, but I think there is a simpler, bigger point:

Why do you need to construct this intellectual edifice merely to vindicate your experience of the music? The Nicene Creed? Eastern subjectivity? Seems to me like you're trying to win a paint-ball game with an aircraft carrier.

I prefer to vindicate my experience in a simpler, more direct way: our experiences must be different, but I'm fully human and my experiences are fully legitimate. Full stop.


----------



## millionrainbows

science said:


> You're making a lot of assertions here about "East" and "West" and I'm simply skeptical that they would hold up under scrutiny.


I think these are very valid points which would hold up under scrutiny. After all, I didn't just make all this up; I read a lot of other thinkers who saw this.



science said:


> There're other devils in other details there, and as a former theology student I could enjoy discussing them in greater detail and more specificity...


I don't need to prove this approach, and that's not why I'm here. I'm just dispelling the fundamentalists who feel this is their exclusive turf, and inviting other like-minded listeners to esteem Philip Glass and others as truly 'sacred' music composers. Also, I want to listen to Bach cantatas without feeling like I am an outsider.



science said:


> ...but I think there is a simpler, bigger point:
> 
> Why do you need to construct this intellectual edifice merely to vindicate your experience of the music?


I want to publicly validate my experience of sacred music to those who would invalidate it, and to invite discussion of a wider spectrum of music which I consider to be just as sacred as anything Bach wrote.



science said:


> The Nicene Creed? Eastern subjectivity? Seems to me like you're trying to win a paint-ball game with an aircraft carrier.


Well, the Nicene Creed insists that we believe in one God, and that Jesus Christ is the son of God, and is the one true savior. This mindset is invoked every time Philip Glass or Terry Riley or Steve Reich's or John Cage's names are mentioned, conjuring-up fearful visions of "gods," trance-like meditation states, and excluding Steve Reich's Jewish perspective.

I'm not using an aircraft-carrier, I'm just swatting mosquitos. :lol:



science said:


> ...I prefer to vindicate my experience in a simpler, more direct way: our experiences must be different, but I'm fully human and my experiences are fully legitimate. Full stop.


I'm in agreement with that. I prefer to emphasize the commonalities rather than the differences.


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> I think these are very valid points which would hold up under scrutiny. After all, I didn't just make all this up; I read a lot of other thinkers who saw this.


Maybe from the sixties. Hopefully any _scholar_ had learned not to say such things by the 1980s. Most of that East vs. West stuff was simply Western projection on the East, as it appears to be in your case. These generalizations of yours don't appear to me to have been spawned from careful study of Ramanuja, Dogen, Zhu Xi, Kabir, Buddhaghosa, Burmese "nat" worship, Korean shamanism, and Chinese offerings to "hungry ghosts." For that matter, your thoughts on the Western tradition don't seem to me to reflect Dionysius the Areopagite, Seraphim of Sarov, Rumi, Mani, Isaac Luria, Francis of Assisi, Schleiermacher, George Fox, the Yezidis, the Druze, the Byzantine Hesychasts, the Renaissance Hermeticists.

I know it's not nice of me to talk like that, but the problem is that you're lumping such wild diversities and depths of thought from so many ages and cultures into this strong, simple, and convenient generalization -

But it would be an overwhelmingly amazing work of scholarship to show that those generalizations are valid - a project far, far, far more difficult than just simply asserting the legitimacy of your own musical experience with Bach and Glass. In that sense, you are trying to swat a fly with an aircraft carrier, and for that matter an aircraft carrier built of shoddy material that should've been scrapped forty years ago.

I think there's got to be an element of "just relax" here. Your generalization probably isn't valid, and any ideology built on it is going to have trouble in a storm; but your experience of the music certainly is valid and wonderful.


----------



## Blake

science said:


> Maybe from the sixties. Hopefully any _scholar_ had learned not to say such things by the 1980s. Most of that East vs. West stuff was simply Western projection on the East, as it appears to be in your case. These generalizations of yours don't appear to me to have been spawned from careful study of Ramanuja, Dogen, Zhu Xi, Kabir, Buddhaghosa, Burmese "nat" worship, Korean shamanism, and Chinese offerings to "hungry ghosts." For that matter, your thoughts on the Western tradition don't seem to me to reflect Dionysius the Areopagite, Seraphim of Sarov, Rumi, Mani, Isaac Luria, Francis of Assisi, Schleiermacher, George Fox, the Yezidis, the Druze, the Byzantine Hesychasts, the Renaissance Hermeticists.
> 
> I know it's not nice of me to talk like that, but the problem is that you're lumping such wild diversities and depths of thought from so many ages and cultures into this strong, simple, and convenient generalization -
> 
> But it would be an overwhelmingly amazing work of scholarship to show that those generalizations are valid - a project far, far, far more difficult than just simply asserting the legitimacy of your own musical experience with Bach and Glass. In that sense, you are trying to swat a fly with an aircraft carrier, and for that matter an aircraft carrier built of shoddy material that should've been scrapped forty years ago.
> 
> I think there's got to be an element of "just relax" here. Your generalization probably isn't valid, and any ideology built on it is going to have trouble in a storm; but your experience of the music certainly is valid and wonderful.


Well, for a while there has certainly been a great difference in perception of life with the West and East. The West being roughly parts of Europe and North America… The West has long been a prime exponent of - "let's explore the outward world," while the East has been of - "let's explore the inward world." However, there are quite a few brilliant minds who combine these two ways of looking, as they don't have to be separate.


----------



## science

Vesuvius said:


> Well, for a while there has certainly been a great difference in perception of life with the West and East. The West being roughly parts of Europe and North America… The West has long been a prime exponent of - "let's explore the outward world," while the East has been of - "let's explore the inward world." However, there are quite a few brilliant minds who combine these two ways of looking, as they don't have to be separate.


To be frank, I don't think there's any validity to this at all. It's just Orientalism as far as I can tell.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you can direct me to a good, strong, recent academic vindication for these generalizations. I'd love that!


----------



## Blake

science said:


> To be frank, I don't think there's any validity to this at all. It's just Orientalism as far as I can tell.
> 
> But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you can direct me to a good, strong, recent academic vindication for these generalizations. I'd love that!


I'm quite amazed that this is a foreign object to you. Type in Eastern and Western philosophies/religions/cultures in google and countless of examples come up. I have faith in your intelligence.


----------



## science

Vesuvius said:


> I'm quite amazed that this is a foreign object to you. Type in Eastern and Western philosophies/religions/cultures in google and countless of examples come up. I have faith in your intelligence.


Oh, I'm very familiar with the old stereotypes about "the mystic East" and all that. And as recently as fifty years ago, I might've taken those ideas for granted too. But really, these ideas should've been tossed out thirty years ago at the latest. They were useful to Gandhi and D. T. Suzuki and to the Beats and hippies, but they just aren't correct. Or, if they are correct, they evidently aren't intellectually defensible. I don't know of any contemporary scholars with relevant expertise who would defend them. Do you? If you do, I'd be really interested!


----------



## Blake

science said:


> Oh, I'm very familiar with the old stereotypes about "the mystic East" and all that. And as recently as fifty years ago, I might've taken those ideas for granted too. But really, these ideas should've been tossed out thirty years ago at the latest. They were useful to Gandhi and D. T. Suzuki and to the Beats and hippies, but they just aren't correct. Or, if they are correct, they evidently aren't intellectually defensible. I don't know of any contemporary scholars with relevant expertise who would defend them. Do you? If you do, I'd be really interested!


I don't have utter faith in scholars, but I trust my own experience. I think there's still tremendous validity... Especially in places like India - Tiruvannamalai, Mumbai, Rishikesh, etc… with sages such as Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj (died 30+ years ago, but their words are still as strong as ever) - exploring the inward being in ways I've never come across in the West. Your standard religion in the West is fine with going to mass on Sundays and reading a few bible versus with hardly any introspection or contemplation. It's a world of difference really.


----------



## science

Vesuvius said:


> I don't have utter faith in scholars, but I trust my own experience. I think there's still tremendous validity... Especially in places like India - Tiruvannamalai, Mumbai, Rishikesh, etc… with sages such as Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj (died 30+ years ago, but their words are still as strong as ever) - exploring the inward being in ways I've never come across in the West. Your standard religion in the West is fine with going to mass on Sundays and reading a few bible versus with hardly any introspection or contemplation. It's a world of difference really.


Ok, well, we're not going to have a meeting of the minds on this. It appears you've got "the plural of anecdote," but it's also a really impressive selection effect, comparing "standard religion in the West" with two sages from India; it's like an Indian romanticizing Western spirituality by comparing Thomas Merton and Thomas Keating to taxi drivers hanging Ganesha statues from their rear-view mirrors.

I am not saying this to defend Western spirituality, as I hope is obvious. That is meaningless to me, and I would be really interested in any generalizations so broad that could be defended; for a good example, you might check out Nisbett's _The Geography of Thought_. It's just that religion used to be "my field" and I'm pretty sure the most well-informed scholars, who would be if anyone were qualified to hazard such a generalization about "the East," would not endorse this one.

If you want to begin to think about this sort of thing more systematically, a good start that I can recommend, besides of course Said's _Orientalism_ (many particulars of which I find problematic though the main thesis itself is basically sound), is Clarke's _Oriental Enlightenment_, and, especially if these thoughts indicated that you or millionrainbows have been influenced by Perennialist (or "Traditionalist") perspectives, _Against the Modern World_ by Mark Sedgwick - a phenomenal book! Along similar lines, a corrective to the standard "comparative religion" of the Huston Smith sort is Masuzawa's _The Invention of World Religions_.

Richard King's _Orientalism and Religion_ sounds like it could be quite stimulating for you because it deals specifically with Western attitudes specifically to Indian "mysticism" and "spirituality," but I haven't read it; it looks good from the reviews, but there's a chance that there's too much Said in it, though that's in any case better than too much Blavatsky.


----------



## Blake

science said:


> Ok, well, we're not going to have a meeting of the minds on this. It appears you've got "the plural of anecdote," but it's also a really impressive selection effect, comparing "standard religion in the West" with two sages from India; it's like an Indian romanticizing Western spirituality by comparing Thomas Merton and Thomas Keating to taxi drivers hanging Ganesha statues from their rear-view mirrors.
> 
> I am not saying this to defend Western spirituality, as I hope is obvious. That is meaningless to me, and I would be really interested in any generalizations so broad that could be defended; for a good example, you might check out Nisbett's _The Geography of Thought_. It's just that religion used to be "my field" and I'm pretty sure the most well-informed scholars, who would be if anyone were qualified to hazard such a generalization about "the East," would not endorse this one.
> 
> If you want to begin to think about this sort of thing more systematically, a good start that I can recommend, besides of course Said's _Orientalism_ (many particulars of which I find problematic though the main thesis itself is basically sound), is Clarke's _Oriental Enlightenment_, and, especially if these thoughts indicated that you or millionrainbows have been influenced by Perennialist (or "Traditionalist") perspectives, _Against the Modern World_ by Mark Sedgwick - a phenomenal book! Along similar lines, a corrective to the standard "comparative religion" of the Huston Smith sort is Masuzawa's _The Invention of World Religions_.
> 
> Richard King's _Orientalism and Religion_ sounds like it could be quite stimulating for you because it deals specifically with Western attitudes specifically to Indian "mysticism" and "spirituality," but I haven't read it; it looks good from the reviews, but there's a chance that there's too much Said in it, though that's in any case better than too much Blavatsky.


I appreciate the recommendations, for sure. I'm not trying to be a bigot or 'shallow,' but I'm really not interested in dry intellectualisms, and I've found that to be a big sum of what a lot of these western scholars do when expounding on spiritual explorations. I'm not new to this stuff either. I've been around the block in my short years, and have gone through intellectualizing and formalizing the spiritual that simply doesn't fit well into these categories.

And of course the West and East aren't as distant as they used to be, but a heavy part of that is because the West has taken a lot of spiritual influence from the East, but only beyond the Western 'pop' religions - as the majorities are still quite different. Compare Eastern Hindu to Western Catholicism. Huge difference in practice and perspective.


----------



## science

Vesuvius said:


> Compare Eastern Hindu to Western Catholicism. Huge difference in practice and perspective.


That part is absolutely true, and one thing that we have to keep in mind more often is that there are even huge differences among Catholics and huge differences among Hindus. There are very nearly no valid, non-tautological generalizations we could make about either group.

That's especially true with "Hinduism," itself a category that was a creation of outsiders (originally the Islamic conquerors and then the British) rather than anything that had been traditionally unified. "Taoism" used to work that way in China but fortunately it's becoming common to distinguish between "religious Taoism" and "Chinese traditional religions."

But even Catholicism, for all its attempts to be a centralized, organized, disciplined community, has huge variations within it. Leonardo Boff is not Francis Acharya is not Hans Kung is not Ross Douthat is not Sviatoslav Shevchuk - and that's just considering the white males with powerful voices. You count all the diverse others and, sure, they're all humans with noses and toes and loneliness and joy, but it's almost impossible to make meaningful generalizations about them that don't apply about as well to many "Hindus" or atheists or communists or philosophy professors too.


----------



## DavidA

There's a lot of words being written here. But of course someone non-religious can appreciate sacred music, whether it be The St Matthew Passion or Amazing Grace. Like people can like a love song without themselves being in love. But there's a whole lot more meaning comes into it when you believe!


----------



## science

DavidA said:


> There's a lot of words being written here. But of course someone non-religious can appreciate sacred music, whether it be The St Matthew Passion or Amazing Grace. Like people can like a love song without themselves being in love. But there's a whole lot more meaning comes into it when you believe!


Maybe because we have distinct experiences with the music. I'll guess that a Machaut mass doesn't mean any more to you than it does to me, while "The Old Rugged Cross" or the Russian version of the "Christ is Risen" Paschal hymn mean more to me than they do to you even though I don't literally believe the words. But there must be some hymns that mean more to you than to me.


----------



## Blake

science said:


> That part is absolutely true, and one thing that we have to keep in mind more often is that there are even huge differences among Catholics and huge differences among Hindus. There are very nearly no valid, non-tautological generalizations we could make about either group.
> 
> That's especially true with "Hinduism," itself a category that was a creation of outsiders (originally the Islamic conquerors and then the British) rather than anything that had been traditionally unified. "Taoism" used to work that way in China but fortunately it's becoming common to distinguish between "religious Taoism" and "Chinese traditional religions."
> 
> But even Catholicism, for all its attempts to be a centralized, organized, disciplined community, has huge variations within it. Leonardo Boff is not Francis Acharya is not Hans Kung is not Ross Douthat is not Sviatoslav Shevchuk - and that's just considering the white males with powerful voices. You count all the diverse others and, sure, they're all humans with noses and toes and loneliness and joy, but it's almost impossible to make meaningful generalizations about them that don't apply about as well to many "Hindus" or atheists or communists or philosophy professors too.


You're right. There are many fringes/branches/variations of all religions. I was trying to quantify what is seen in the mainstream pop-culture, but that wouldn't be an interesting conversation anyway.


----------



## millionrainbows

Originally Posted by *millionrainbows*  I think these are very valid points which would hold up under scrutiny. After all, I didn't just make all this up; I read a lot of other thinkers who saw this.



science said:


> Maybe from the sixties. Hopefully any _scholar_ had learned not to say such things by the 1980s. Most of that East vs. West stuff was simply Western projection on the East, as it appears to be in your case. These generalizations of yours don't appear to me to have been spawned from careful study of Ramanuja, Dogen, Zhu Xi, Kabir, Buddhaghosa, Burmese "nat" worship, Korean shamanism, and Chinese offerings to "hungry ghosts." For that matter, your thoughts on the Western tradition don't seem to me to reflect Dionysius the Areopagite, Seraphim of Sarov, Rumi, Mani, Isaac Luria, Francis of Assisi, Schleiermacher, George Fox, the Yezidis, the Druze, the Byzantine Hesychasts, the Renaissance Hermeticists.


Okay, so you think I'm just a hippie.



science said:


> ...I know it's not nice of me to talk like that...


...that's okay; I've learned to expect such attitudes from the new crop of 'coffee-achievers' who are so well-prepared for this brave new Amerika, yet seem to have lots of spare time on their hands.



science said:


> ...but the problem is that you're lumping such wild diversities and depths of thought from so many ages and cultures into this strong, simple, and convenient generalization...


I make no apologies or excuses about that; I tend to need the bird's eye view of things. That's why my knowledge of music is so thorough; I start from square one, with no assumptions. I question everything, starting at zero.



science said:


> But it would be an overwhelmingly amazing work of scholarship to show that those generalizations are valid - a project far, far, far more difficult than just simply asserting the legitimacy of your own musical experience with Bach and Glass. In that sense, you are trying to swat a fly with an aircraft carrier, and for that matter an aircraft carrier built of shoddy material that should've been scrapped forty years ago.


I'm not here to solve mankind's problems in detail, on an internet forum; nor do I feel the need to prove to you that my position is valid.



science said:


> ...I think there's got to be an element of "just relax" here. Your generalization probably isn't valid, and any ideology built on it is going to have trouble in a storm...


I'm not 'building ideologies; if anything, I'm dismantling them in order to achieve a pure artistic experience of sacred music & its benefits.



science said:


> ...but your experience of the music certainly is valid and wonderful.


Well, thank you...I think.


----------



## millionrainbows

science said:


> To be frank, I don't think there's any validity to this at all. It's just Orientalism as far as I can tell.
> 
> But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you can direct me to a good, strong, recent academic vindication for these generalizations. I'd love that!


Well, I hate to take you back to the 60's, but *Marshall McLuhan *understood this very well way back then, and he is no 'legend-has-been'burn-out;' he has great cred with *Wired* magazine, who did a tribute, and he was an advanced cybernetic thinker, who tried to make *IBM *see that their future was in computers, not business machines. Read his book *Through the Vanishing Point.
*I've applied these ideas of 'inner' and 'outer' to Bartok and modern music as well.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa










"Orientalism" was just a stylistic, faddish fascination with 'things Eastern', or exotic, like Debussy's references and the French in general, with their Spanish fascinations (Ravel's Bolero, etc.)

What I'm talking about is a whole different way of thinking: a diametrically opposite converse perspective, which is already upon us, as McLuhan predicted the computer would usher in. we have gone 'through the vanishing point.' This verges on poetics, though, so your need to 'prove' everything is going to be a great obstacle. I'm an artist; a poet. When I read McLuhan, I read him as I would poetry. He was not 'defining' things, he was 'probing' and exploring.

That's the main misconception with McLuhan; he is taken too literally by literalists. He was a very well-educated Catholic, and was interested in Shakespeare, John Donne, and art history. He was very artistically oriented. (pardon the pun)


----------



## millionrainbows

DavidA said:


> There's a lot of words being written here. *But of course someone non-religious can appreciate sacred music,* whether it be The St Matthew Passion or Amazing Grace. *Like people can like a love song without themselves being in love. *But there's a whole lot more meaning comes into it when you believe!


Man, that's condescending! I don't want to just 'appreciate' sacred music; I want to fully experience it, like love! Ans since I'm in touch with my innate, sacred being, I do!

You "extra meaning" is only useful if it helps you get there. I'm there with you, but you talk as if I am an outsider.

As somebody said earlier, "We are all brothers in Christ," so we will wait for you to come to this realization with us.


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> I think these are very valid points which would hold up under scrutiny. After all, I didn't just make all this up; I read a lot of other thinkers who saw this.
> 
> Okay, so you think I'm just a hippie.
> 
> ...that's okay; I've learned to expect such attitudes from the new crop of 'coffee-achievers' who are so well-prepared for this brave new Amerika, yet seem to have lots of spare time on their hands.
> 
> I make no apologies or excuses about that; I tend to need the bird's eye view of things. That's why my knowledge of music is so thorough; I start from square one, with no assumptions. I question everything, starting at zero.
> 
> I'm not here to solve mankind's problems in detail, on an internet forum; nor do I feel the need to prove to you that my position is valid.
> 
> I'm not 'building ideologies; if anything, I'm dismantling them in order to achieve a pure artistic experience of sacred music & its benefits.
> 
> Well, thank you...I think.





millionrainbows said:


> Well, I hate to take you back to the 60's, but *Marshall McLuhan *understood this very well way back then, and he is no 'legend-has-been'burn-out;' he has great cred with *Wired* magazine, who did a tribute, and he was an advanced cybernetic thinker, who tried to make *IBM *see that their future was in computers, not business machines. Read his book *Through the Vanishing Point.
> *I've applied these ideas of 'inner' and 'outer' to Bartok and modern music as well.
> 
> aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "Orientalism" was just a stylistic, faddish fascination with 'things Eastern', or exotic, like Debussy's references and the French in general, with their Spanish fascinations (Ravel's Bolero, etc.)
> 
> What I'm talking about is a whole different way of thinking: a diametrically opposite converse perspective, which is already upon us, as McLuhan predicted the computer would usher in. we have gone 'through the vanishing point.' This verges on poetics, though, so your need to 'prove' everything is going to be a great obstacle. I'm an artist; a poet. When I read McLuhan, I read him as I would poetry. He was not 'defining' things, he was 'probing' and exploring.
> 
> That's the main misconception with McLuhan; he is taken too literally by literalists. He was a very well-educated Catholic, and was interested in Shakespeare, John Donne, and art history. He was very artistically oriented. (pardon the pun)


Although my posts were quoted at the beginning of these posts, I can't tell that any of this is really a response to anything I've said. For example, I don't know why you think I think you're a hippie, that wouldn't matter to me anyway, I like lots of old hippies. But being an old hippie is no excuse for having old Orientalist (it means more than you think it does) ideas about "the East."

In case you still intend to build your ideology of sacred music on the East/West dichotomy, maybe you want to check out some of the books I mentioned in my post for Vesuvius:



science said:


> I am not saying this to defend Western spirituality, as I hope is obvious. That is meaningless to me, and I would be really interested in any generalizations so broad that could be defended; for a good example, you might check out Nisbett's _The Geography of Thought_. It's just that religion used to be "my field" and I'm pretty sure the most well-informed scholars, who would be if anyone were qualified to hazard such a generalization about "the East," would not endorse this one.
> 
> If you want to begin to think about this sort of thing more systematically, a good start that I can recommend, besides of course Said's _Orientalism_ (many particulars of which I find problematic though the main thesis itself is basically sound), is Clarke's _Oriental Enlightenment_, and, especially if these thoughts indicated that you or millionrainbows have been influenced by Perennialist (or "Traditionalist") perspectives, _Against the Modern World_ by Mark Sedgwick - a phenomenal book! Along similar lines, a corrective to the standard "comparative religion" of the Huston Smith sort is Masuzawa's _The Invention of World Religions_.
> 
> Richard King's _Orientalism and Religion_ sounds like it could be quite stimulating for you because it deals specifically with Western attitudes specifically to Indian "mysticism" and "spirituality," but I haven't read it; it looks good from the reviews, but there's a chance that there's too much Said in it, though that's in any case better than too much Blavatsky.


----------



## millionrainbows

science said:


> Although my posts were quoted at the beginning of these posts, I can't tell that any of this is really a response to anything I've said.


I take that as a lack of desire to communicate.



science said:


> For example, I don't know why you think I think you're a hippie, that wouldn't matter to me anyway, I like lots of old hippies. But being an old hippie is no excuse for having old Orientalist (it means more than you think it does) ideas about "the East."


"Orientalism" was a shallow approach, just a stylistic fascination. When anybody gets serious about Oriental thought, like John Cage's ideas, people tend to freak out.



science said:


> In case you still intend to build your ideology of sacred music on the East/West dichotomy, maybe you want to check out some of the books I mentioned in my post for Vesuvius:


I'm not building an ideology.


----------



## Vaneyes

Skipping to The End. Was there a Gregorian Chant consensus here? I don't wanna hafta read everything.


----------



## millionrainbows

Vaneyes said:


> Skipping to The End. Was there a Gregorian Chant consensus here? I don't wanna hafta read everything.


No consensus on anything yet. However, I certainly consider the later post-Gregorian works of Hildegard von Bingen to be very, very conducive to sacred states of awareness. Her works just drip with transcendence.

This track, especially:


----------



## Majed Al Shamsi

Replying to the OP:



millionrainbows said:


> In other words, is, for example, Gregorian chant actually a form of worship, and a way of actually invoking God or the Holy Spirit, as well as being "just music?"


Well, I can tell you that God most probably does not exist. At least, not the Christian God.
I'd say it's just music, really.



millionrainbows said:


> In fact, on this very forum, I was criticized by a 'true believer' for saying that I could enjoy Gregorian chant without being a Christian. He said I was "missing it," compared to a believer who listens. What do you say?


You can definitely enjoy it, but probably not as much as a Christian would.
From a psychological point of view, experience and belief can have a major effect on the outcome.
For example, Placebo pills (pills that don't actually do anything) have consistently worked in bringing about a change, for no other reason than the fact that most people trust their doctors. And if a doctor prescribes some pills for you, you generally believe they'll work.


----------



## Morimur

Majed Al Shamsi said:


> Replying to the OP:
> 
> Well, I can tell you that God most probably does not exist. At least, not the Christian God.
> I'd say it's just music, really.


I'd say that you need to do some serious, objective research before coming to such a flippant conclusion on a potentially life altering subject. 'Probably doesn't exist' leaves plenty of room for error and if you're wrong, you're in for a bad time.

:tiphat:


----------



## Guest

Lope de Aguirre said:


> I'd say that you need to do some serious, objective research before coming to such a flippant conclusion on a potentially life altering subject. 'Probably doesn't exist' leaves plenty of room for error and if you're wrong, you're in for a bad time.


Pascal's Wager suggests that Lope might be right. And keeping an eye out for the Almighty can do you no harm, provided that you don't at the same time tie yourself in to living in accordance with such a tight set of religious rules that you bump up unpleasantly against someone else's religious rules.

Living your life as if God exists is one thing. Telling others how to live their lives as if only _your _god exists is quite another!


----------



## Majed Al Shamsi

Lope de Aguirre said:


> I'd say that you need to do some serious, objective research before coming to such a flippant conclusion on a potentially life altering subject.


I have.
The hypothesis of a God who created the universe fails miserably, mainly because it is neither testable, nor falsifiable.
The same goes for the multiverse theory, by the way.
There isn't a shred of respectable evidence to support the claim of a universe-creating, supernatural being. And, as I'm sure you know, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Furthermore, the Abrahamic religions were wrong on so many 'life altering' subjects (evolution being chief among them), hence, even if there is a God, it probably isn't the one most of you believe in.



Lope de Aguirre said:


> 'Probably doesn't exist' leaves plenty of room for error and if you're wrong, you're in for a bad time.
> 
> :tiphat:


MacLeod mentioned Pascal's Wager. I am familiar with it.
But can you imagine being resurrected, standing in front of God, and telling him 'I only believed in you on the off chance you might exist'? What is that, if not hypocrisy.
A just, fair God should appreciate more a person who did not believe in him, not because of arrogance and whatnot, but because God himself didn't leave much evidence for his existence. And if he did, then clearly he did not give us the means to come across that evidence.

EDIT: Also, I said '*most* probably'. Less room for error, you see. :lol:


----------



## Morimur

Majed Al Shamsi said:


> I have.
> The hypothesis of a God who created the universe fails miserably, mainly because it is neither testable, nor falsifiable.
> The same goes for the multiverse theory, by the way.
> There isn't a shred of respectable evidence to support the claim of a universe-creating, supernatural being. And, as I'm sure you know, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
> Furthermore, the Abrahamic religions were wrong on so many 'life altering' subjects (evolution being chief among them), hence, even if there is a God, it probably isn't the one most of you believe in.
> 
> MacLeod mentioned Pascal's Wager. I am familiar with it.
> But can you imagine being resurrected, standing in front of God, and telling him 'I only believed in you on the off chance you might exist'? What is that, if not hypocrisy.
> A just, fair God should appreciate more a person who did not believe in him, not because of arrogance and whatnot, but because God himself didn't leave much evidence for his existence. And if he did, then clearly he did not give us the means to come across that evidence.
> 
> EDIT: Also, I said '*most* probably'. Less room for error, you see. :lol:


Have you looked into the field of Apologetics? You sound like humble fellow, so I am sure your research was done with an open mind, but I'd give it a second go.


----------



## Guest

Majed Al Shamsi said:


> The hypothesis of a God who created the universe fails miserably, mainly because it is neither testable, nor falsifiable.
> The same goes for the multiverse theory, by the way.
> There isn't a shred of respectable evidence to support the claim of a universe-creating, supernatural being. And, as I'm sure you know, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
> Furthermore, the Abrahamic religions were wrong on so many 'life altering' subjects (evolution being chief among them), hence, even if there is a God, it probably isn't the one most of you believe in.


The hypothesis of a universe that spawned itself "fails" just as miserably. Atheism requires just as much faith as theism, because neither makes any sense on paper.

Christianity and modern theories of evolution were never mutually exclusive. They fit together just fine, unless you take the creation myth to be 100% literal - and we all know taking things too literally could appear to debunk a lot of ideas, not just Christianity.

Edit: I do, however, agree with you somewhat regarding Pascal's Wager. If you don't believe in something that you choose to "put faith in" - it's not faith at all. However, once you dove back into this "evidence" stuff, I lost you again.


----------



## Guest

As far as the thread goes - I would say that sacred music and opera have something in common. Neither requires full context to appreciate, but an understanding of the true beauty of the Passion, etc. would obviously contribute to an understanding of the work, just like a full display of Der Ring might give more clues than a pair of earbuds.


----------



## Chrythes

millionrainbows said:


> Man, that's condescending! I don't want to just 'appreciate' sacred music; I want to fully experience it, like love! Ans since I'm in touch with my innate, sacred being, I do!
> 
> You "extra meaning" is only useful if it helps you get there. I'm there with you, but you talk as if I am an outsider.
> 
> As somebody said earlier, "We are all brothers in Christ," so we will wait for you to come to this realization with us.


But isn't one of the points of religion is to provide one with framework of belief which is contentiously validated through personal experience? I doubt you can become a believer by listening to music. Music is one of the mediums that accomplishes the confirmation of belief. But again, maybe not for all, and not at all times and places.


----------



## Chrythes

arcaneholocaust said:


> The hypothesis of a universe that spawned itself "fails" just as miserably. Atheism requires just as much faith as theism, because neither makes any sense on paper.
> 
> Christianity and modern theories of evolution were never mutually exclusive. They fit together just fine, unless you take the creation myth to be 100% literal - and we all know taking things too literally could appear to debunk a lot of ideas, not just Christianity.
> 
> Edit: I do, however, agree with you somewhat regarding Pascal's Wager. If you don't believe in something that you choose to "put faith in" - it's not faith at all. However, once you dove back into this "evidence" stuff, I lost you again.


Well it does make sense if you consider quantum fluctuation. It does make much more sense on the paper because it adheres to physical phenomenon that can be measured and relatively understood. Overall, I believe that the explanation that is most valuable is the one that could actually provide insight without pure speculation.


----------



## Majed Al Shamsi

arcaneholocaust said:


> The hypothesis of a universe that spawned itself "fails" just as miserably. Atheism requires just as much faith as theism, because neither makes any sense on paper.


As Chrythes pointed out, the two hypotheses are not equally ridiculous. One is more plausible than the other.

But, putting that aside, let me correct a few of your misconceptions.

First of all, being an atheist requires no faith at all. Atheism is not a belief system. Please do not follow up on this by saying "But you believe that you don't believe." That would be silly.

Second, not all atheists believe in a universe spawning itself. Some prefer to tick the third option where it says 'I don't know.'
I myself wrote in my initial comment that the multiverse theory (universes spawning themselves) fails as a hypothesis.



arcaneholocaust said:


> Christianity and modern theories of evolution were never mutually exclusive.


Well, they were for quite some time, until Christians found no way out of it, and had to conform.
But of course, now the argument is, 'God managed the whole evolutionary process. He didn't tell us about it, but left the evidence for us to pick up. He truly moves in mysterious ways.'
Laughable, really.


----------



## Guest

Edit: Should never have posted in the first place. Internet discussions of God vs. atheism are the single most futile thing out there. It's more likely that a mystical wind will blow through the land and turn us all into twinkies before anyone actually considers the opinion of another.


----------



## Majed Al Shamsi

arcaneholocaust said:


> Agnosticism, not atheism, no?


Not quite.
To be an agnostic, you must neither believe nor disbelieve in the existence of a supernatural deity.
As in, 50% chance God exists, 50% he doesn't.
Atheists' figures would read 1% and 99% respectively.

'I don't know' was in reference to how the universe came about.


----------



## Blake

Atheism is a belief system. You don't know for sure that there isn't a god, but you believe that there isn't anyway. I have no problem with atheism or theism, but don't be ridiculous and think that they both aren't beliefs. Agnostic is probably the closest to being outside of any belief.


----------



## Blake

Chrythes said:


> Well it does make sense if you consider quantum fluctuation. It does make much more sense on the paper because it adheres to physical phenomenon that can be measured and relatively understood. Overall, I believe that the explanation that is most valuable is the one that could actually provide insight without pure speculation.


But this is believing that the physical existence is the actual reality, when it's the most transient and unreliable level of existence….


----------



## Majed Al Shamsi

Vesuvius said:


> Atheism is a belief system. You don't know for sure that there isn't a god, but you believe that there isn't anyway. I have no problem with atheism or theism, but don't be ridiculous and think that they both aren't beliefs.


So basically, you're saying I believe that I don't believe God exists... 
Let's try this again, only this time, take the word "believe" out, and replace it with "have faith in".
The religious have faith in God. Meaning, they 100% know he's there.
Atheists don't have faith in God's absence. They do not know 100% he isn't there.
Atheists simply say there's no evidence for it, and there's no reason to believe in it, especially now that we know a lot more than we did back when religion was invented. In other words, there's a 99% chance God doesn't exist.
The only ridiculous thing is to equate a doubtful position (atheism) with a certain one (Christianity and the hundreds of thousands of religions that make similar claims, and yet beg to differ.)


----------



## Guest

The religious do not claim to "100% *know*" - it's basically just the reverse of your atheism figures - 99% God, 1% No God. We all have doubts (I hope).

Before you try to cite evidence to the contrary, I should point out that, yes, people DO say they "KNOW" God exists. This is not an expression of proof so much as an expression of faith. It is just like saying "There is no God" - hopefully neither person is foolish enough to think such things literally, but when you're swinging towards the 99% end of the scale, you might show some passion once in a while.

So yes:
Your claim that Christianity claims certainty: Wrong
99% Chance God Doesn't Exist: Are...you...kidding?


----------



## Guest

You pointed out some bits about atheism that perhaps needed clearing up, though I was generally aware of the "99%" idea. Now, please, consider that you, likewise, don't know everything about the other side.


----------



## Majed Al Shamsi

arcaneholocaust said:


> The religious do not claim to "100% *know*"


Unless, by coincidence, I have met the wrong religious person every single time I've had the pleasure of doing so, I'd have to say... Yes. They do. And they mean it literally; not just as an expression.
Even if it were the reverse, and you only believed 99% that God existed - where does the 99% come from? What extraordinary evidence do you have to support that claim?



arcaneholocaust said:


> 99% Chance God Doesn't Exist: Are...you...kidding?


I never kid.
How could I, when the only reason I breathe is to defend the Atheism League, which is a non-prophet organisation?!!
Okay, maybe I kid sometimes...


----------



## millionrainbows

Majed Al Shamsi said:


> Replying to the OP:
> 
> Well, I can tell you that God most probably does not exist. At least, not the Christian God.
> I'd say it's just music, really.


I'm sure there are people who would believe what you say. Religion is metaphysics, though, and nobody can prove anything; only believe.



Majed Al Shamsi said:


> ...You can definitely enjoy it, but probably not as much as a Christian would.
> From a psychological point of view, experience and belief can have a major effect on the outcome.
> For example, Placebo pills (pills that don't actually do anything) have consistently worked in bringing about a change, for no other reason than the fact that most people trust their doctors. And if a doctor prescribes some pills for you, you generally believe they'll work.


You think so? Gee, that's a very persuasive argument.

That doesn't apply to my criteria of valid sacred experience, however. My experience of the sacred is not based on belief or religious ideology, but on the innate, universal inner connection to the sacred that we all share.

Any 'sacred effects' from music that one might get from being a believer are 'after this fact,' and are belief-based and ideology-based. Experiences based on objective beliefs and dogma are not direct, but are by their very nature 'non-intuitive' and indirect, being more cerebral and ideological.


----------



## science

These days I try not to _believe_ anything - that is, not to suppose anything with greater confidence than evidence and reason alone justify. I try to simply accept whatever _appears_ to be true, and to proportion the strength of my acceptance to the apparent strength of the evidence.

From that point of view, it appears that religion and religious experience is a phenomenon of human psychology, usually of human social psychology. All religious traditions appear in specific social and historical contexts, change over time as long as they survive, adapting fairly freely to new ideas and new contexts. None of them predicted modern scientific ideas with remarkable accuracy. That is the original context of all the beliefs about any of the gods whose existence we might consider; none of them from this point of view appear very plausible.

Sometimes apologists for one or another of the religious traditions asks things like, "Well, what is beyond the multiverse? What was before the original origin of all the universes, and what will be after them?" I don't know, but apparently it's not the "great goddess" of the Minoans, Zeus of the Mycenaeans, Indra of the Aryans, Ptah of Memphis, or any of the other apparently human creations that constitute the litany of our religious traditions.

Now, perhaps there is actually some being out there with a human-ish consciousness and human-ish desires that made this entire universe (or all these universes) exclusively so that he could reveal himself ambiguously to some privileged few members of a single species on a single planet floating through that vast creation, and maybe he will even sentence the rest of us to eternal torture because we failed to correctly guess which of those religious traditions we were supposed to join and surrender our judgement to.

But since that doesn't appear to be true... since in fact that whole story appears to be one of thousands of stories that have been pasted together ad hoc over several thousand years, albeit by some truly brilliant people, and generally at least in part for political purposes... I will be extremely surprised if I find myself suffering that punishment, and I'm not going to live my life in fear that it might happen. Instead, I'll go on just accepting whatever appears to be true, hoping that if there are some supernatural beings who intend to judge and maybe to punish me, my fidelity to truth and reason will impress them more than a lucky bet at the roulette wheel of religious traditions.

So, sorry to Pascal!


----------



## millionrainbows

MacLeod said:


> Pascal's Wager suggests that Lope might be right. And keeping an eye out for the Almighty can do you no harm, provided that you don't at the same time tie yourself in to living in accordance with such a tight set of religious rules that you bump up unpleasantly against someone else's religious rules.
> 
> Living your life as if God exists is one thing. Telling others how to live their lives as if only _your _god exists is quite another!


But I'm telling others that we all share the same sacred state, which existed before any outward conception of God or religion existed, so there can be no conflict in this intuitive, pre-ideological state.

You see potential conflict because you are too attached to your ideas about what 'your' God is. Do you see how selfish that sounds?


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> My experience of the sacred is not based on belief or religious ideology, but on the innate, universal inner connection to the sacred that we all share.


The idea that we all share the innate, universal inner connection to the sacred is a religious belief and an ideology.

Thus I paraphrase your post, "My experience of the sacred is not based on belief or religious ideology, but on a religious belief and an ideology."

The fact that it is an ideology would be more obvious if you were in, say, contemporary Saudi Arabia or Habsburg Spain or Byzantium or Abbasid Persia: you would be silenced if your ideas became known because they contradict alternative religious ideologies.

The fact that it is an ideology doesn't mean it's wrong, but that fact is something you've got to admit to yourself if you want to continue your theoretical project with critical self-awareness.


----------



## Majed Al Shamsi

millionrainbows said:


> I'm sure there are people who would believe what you say. *Religion is metaphysics, though, and nobody can prove anything;* only believe.


How convenient, wouldn't you say?



millionrainbows said:


> You think so? Gee, that's a very persuasive argument.


Wish I could say the same about yours, but I'd be lying.



millionrainbows said:


> That doesn't apply to *my criteria* of valid sacred experience, however. *My experience* of the sacred is not based on belief or religious ideology, but on the innate, universal inner connection to the sacred that we all share.


I'm sorry, who are you again..?

Don't pretend to know how others feel.
I, for one, don't have that 'innate, universal inner connection to the scared' you babble about, so clearly, it isn't universal, nor is it innate.

But if it's your word against mine, then I can tell you, as a lapsed Muslim, I enjoyed Islamic songs (Nasheed) more as a Muslim than I do now as an atheist. In fact, I can't stand them now.
How do you account for that?


----------



## science

Majed Al Shamsi said:


> I can tell you, as a lapsed Muslim, I enjoyed Islamic songs (Nasheed) more as a Muslim than I do now as an atheist. In fact, I can't stand them now.
> How do you account for that?


I wonder whether part of your distaste for them is related to your feelings about their traditional religious context rather than exclusively about the music itself?


----------



## millionrainbows

science said:


> The idea that we all share the innate, universal inner connection to the sacred* is a religious belief and an ideology. [/*QUOTE]
> 
> No, I disagree. I think we all share *the same sacred state, which existed before any outward conception of God or religion existed, and that this truth is self-evident,* just as other characteristics of being human are: needing love, hunger, playing, etc.
> 
> 
> 
> science said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...The fact that it is an ideology would be more obvious if you were in, say, contemporary Saudi Arabia or Habsburg Spain or Byzantium or Abbasid Persia: you would be silenced if your ideas became known because they contradict alternative religious ideologies.
> 
> 
> 
> No; the reason it would 'be more obvious' in contemporary Saudi Arabia or Habsburg Spain or Byzantium or Abbasid Persia would be because these cultures have outward, objective, ideological systems of religion, which they would be prompted to create conflict about. The innate sacred state is universal to all men, and came before any of that, so it is not in conflict, unless an ideology tries to 'appropriate' this state as exclusive to itself, which is a basic error.
> 
> 
> 
> science said:
> 
> 
> 
> The fact that (this innate sacred state) is an ideology doesn't mean it's wrong, but that fact is something you've got to admit to yourself if you want to continue your theoretical project with critical self-awareness.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> The innate sacred state is by nature not ideological, but innate and universal, so your statement is a contradiction in this context. But if it makes you happy, go for it. T
> 
> hat reminds me of the Spanish who declared all the Indians to be Catholic.
> 
> My system of receptive universality would have worked in dealing with the Indians, and the Indians would be free to maintain their beliefs and culture;
> 
> ...instead, you have chosen the side of the Spanish conquerers, who made everyone conform to their exclusive, objective ideology, or else!
> 
> My universal, innate belief in the sacred nature of Man's connection to God would have accommodated and respected the Indians.
> 
> Ahh. but my way is not 'the conquerer's way.' America was founded on Bibles and guns. That's ideology at work, as scripture. The gun? That's a 'religious technology' designed to 'promote and inject' ideology into non-believers.
> 
> :lol:
Click to expand...


----------



## Majed Al Shamsi

science said:


> I wonder whether part of your distaste for them is related to your feelings about their traditional religious context rather than exclusively about the music itself?


A bit of both, actually.
The context and lyrics inevitably excludes all outsiders, and the topics of the songs are now meaningless to me.
Add to that that certain musical instruments in Islam are forbidden, so strictly Islamic songs (Nasheed) is mainly vocals with a bit of drums and synthesisers.
You'd be pleased to know, however, that Arabic songs (sung and listened to by Muslims and others) ignore the Islamic ban on musical instruments, and it isn't a ban that is taken very seriously.
I wonder if you (or anyone else here) have ever heard of Umm Kulthum?


----------



## millionrainbows

Majed Al Shamsi said:


> I'm sorry, who are you again..?


I'm a human, just like you.



Majed Al Shamsi said:


> I, for one, don't have that 'innate, universal inner connection to the scared' *you babble *about, so clearly, it isn't universal, nor is it innate.


Yes, you *do* have an innate connection to the sacred, as we all do, but I'm not going to call you an 'infidel' if you don't acknowledge that.



Majed Al Shamsi said:


> But if it's your word against mine, then I can tell you, as a lapsed Muslim, I enjoyed Islamic songs (Nasheed) more as a Muslim than I do now as an atheist. In fact, I can't stand them now.
> How do you account for that?


Well, it must have more to do with *you *than the songs.

Perhaps I would enjoy the songs more than you ever did,_ because I never knew any of the ideological baggage attached to them, a_nd saw them as 'pure music.'


----------



## millionrainbows

science said:


> I wonder whether part of your distaste for them is related to your feelings about their traditional religious context rather than exclusively about the music itself?


Yes, exactly, *science!

*So you appear, by this statement, to agree that ideology is not necessary, and can even be an impediment, to experiencing 'the sacred' through music!

I think this statement of yours proves that we are in agreement.

Welcome to the innate, universal sacred, my brother!


----------



## millionrainbows

Majed Al Shamsi said:


> A bit of both, actually.
> The context and lyrics inevitably excludes all outsiders, and the topics of the songs are now meaningless to me.
> Add to that that certain musical instruments in Islam are forbidden, so strictly Islamic songs (Nasheed) is mainly vocals with a bit of drums and synthesisers.
> You'd be pleased to know, however, that Arabic songs (sung and listened to by Muslims and others) ignore the Islamic ban on musical instruments, and it isn't a ban that is taken very seriously.
> I wonder if you (or anyone else here) have ever heard of Umm Kulthum?


Turn us on to this music, Majed! Post a YouTube video!

You are sacred, my brother! All men are equal in the realm of sacred existence!


----------



## Majed Al Shamsi

millionrainbows said:


> I'm a human, just like you.


It's good you admit that.
Remember it next time you make universal claims for which you have no evidence.



millionrainbows said:


> Yes, you *do* have an innate connection to the sacred, as we all do, but I'm not going to call you an 'infidel' if you don't acknowledge that.


No, I don't.
We can keep going back and forth on this one. I have all the time in the world.
It is so easy to shrug off anything you have to say.
Wasn't it the late Christopher Hitchens who said: "That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."
So, good luck.



millionrainbows said:


> Well, it must have more to do with *you *than the songs.


It does. That's what I've been saying. Appreciation of the sacred is neither innate, nor universal.

EDIT: This is to avoid posting multiple times.



millionrainbows said:


> Turn us on to this music, Majed! Post a YouTube video!


Haha! I'd be damned if I assisted in the spread of such awful music! :lol:
If you really are interested though, the phrase to search for on Youtube should Islamic Nasheed.



millionrainbows said:


> You are sacred, my brother! All men are equal in the realm of sacred existence!


I am no such thing.


----------



## millionrainbows

Now, if *that* ain't universal appeal, I don't know what is! I never knew that the experience of sacred music could be so enthralling!


----------



## Blake

Majed Al Shamsi said:


> So basically, you're saying I believe that I don't believe God exists...
> Let's try this again, only this time, take the word "believe" out, and replace it with "have faith in".
> The religious have faith in God. Meaning, they 100% know he's there.
> Atheists don't have faith in God's absence. They do not know 100% he isn't there.
> Atheists simply say there's no evidence for it, and there's no reason to believe in it, especially now that we know a lot more than we did back when religion was invented. In other words, there's a 99% chance God doesn't exist.
> The only ridiculous thing is to equate a doubtful position (atheism) with a certain one (Christianity and the hundreds of thousands of religions that make similar claims, and yet beg to differ.)


I think I should make this clear first - I'm not part of any faith or doctrine, so I'm not trying to defend or degrade anything. I don't have religious beliefs as they do nothing for me.

But the very definition of atheism is the belief that no deities exist. As long as you hold an idea without absolute, unmoving and undeniable knowledge of its correctness then it's a belief.

To say that I'm implying that you "believe that you don't believe there is a god" is simply playing clever semantic games, and I'm sorry - my intellect is a bit sharper than that.


----------



## Morimur

The blinding, stupefying power of human _pride_ never ceases to amaze me. We are all tainted by it without exception, but some of us are terminally ill. Alas, one only sees what one _wishes_ to see.


----------



## Blake

Lope de Aguirre said:


> The blinding, stupefying power of human _pride_ never ceases to amaze me. We are all tainted by it without exception, *but some of us are terminally ill*. Alas, one only sees what one _wishes_ to see.


Of course, the ego is a serpentine force in all men, but I hope the bold isn't aimed at me. I can come off quite arrogant sometimes, but it's not my intention. I'm genuinely trying to convey my experience in life. It's the ideas I'm confronting, nothing personal to me. I love you all.


----------



## PetrB

Lope de Aguirre said:


> The blinding, stupefying power of human _pride_ never ceases to amaze me. We are all tainted by it without exception, but some of us are terminally ill. Alas, one only sees what one _wishes_ to see.


When it is a matter of faith, rather than belief in what is thought 'fact,' therein is a matter of antithetical approaches.

But to say something with clear intent that it be a stinging or condescending reply simply because one person's statement is evidence which denies that in which you have faith -- or perhaps threatens the security of that faith -- that too, is a matter of lashing out in extreme pride, ego very much at the center.


----------



## Majed Al Shamsi

millionrainbows said:


> Now, if *that* ain't universal appeal, I don't know what is! I never knew that the experience of sacred music could be so enthralling!


Haha! I'm impressed! :lol:
Sure, the love for good music is universal, I'm with you on that.
It's the love for anything sacred, or the existence of anything sacred for that matter, that I can't seem to be able to buy into.



Vesuvius said:


> To say that I'm implying that you "believe that you don't believe there is a god" is simply playing clever semantic games, and I'm sorry - my intellect is a bit sharper than that.


It's not playing games. I mean it.
If you don't believe in one thing, then that means you believe it isn't so.
Imagine three layers.
In the first layer, we have the subject of the debate.
In the second, we have belief or disbelief.
In the third, we believe whatever it is we chose in the second layer. So, really, this third layer is meaningless.
The idea of atheism (disbelief in a deity) is as absolute as anything could get. Just like the disbelief in the existence of unicorns, even though it cannot be disproven, is as absolute as anything could get.



Lope de Aguirre said:


> The blinding, stupefying power of human _pride_ never ceases to amaze me. We are all tainted by it without exception, but some of us are terminally ill. Alas, one only sees what one _wishes_ to see.


There's no pride involved.
In fact, if you like, I can tell you in advance what you need to do to change my mind about, say, evolution, the Christian God, or anything.


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> No, I disagree. I think we all share *the same sacred state, which existed before any outward conception of God or religion existed, and that this truth is self-evident,* just as other characteristics of being human are: needing love, hunger, playing, etc.
> 
> No; the reason it would 'be more obvious' in contemporary Saudi Arabia or Habsburg Spain or Byzantium or Abbasid Persia would be because these cultures have outward, objective, ideological systems of religion, which they would be prompted to create conflict about. The innate sacred state is universal to all men, and came before any of that, so it is not in conflict, unless an ideology tries to 'appropriate' this state as exclusive to itself, which is a basic error.
> 
> The innate sacred state is by nature not ideological, but innate and universal, so your statement is a contradiction in this context. But if it makes you happy, go for it. T
> 
> hat reminds me of the Spanish who declared all the Indians to be Catholic.
> 
> My system of receptive universality would have worked in dealing with the Indians, and the Indians would be free to maintain their beliefs and culture;
> 
> ...instead, you have chosen the side of the Spanish conquerers, who made everyone conform to their exclusive, objective ideology, or else!
> 
> My universal, innate belief in the sacred nature of Man's connection to God would have accommodated and respected the Indians.
> 
> Ahh. but my way is not 'the conquerer's way.' America was founded on Bibles and guns. That's ideology at work, as scripture. The gun? That's a 'religious technology' designed to 'promote and inject' ideology into non-believers.
> 
> :lol:


Yeah, um, whatever.

Evidently part of your ideology is that your ideology is not an ideology, so that's where we're stuck. Good luck, man. Maybe your aircraft kills the mosquito, after all.



millionrainbows said:


> Yes, exactly, *science!
> 
> *So you appear, by this statement, to agree that ideology is not necessary, and can even be an impediment, to experiencing 'the sacred' through music!
> 
> I think this statement of yours proves that we are in agreement.
> 
> Welcome to the innate, universal sacred, my brother!


Does this do something for you? As long as you're having fun, I suppose, all things are good. But I'm more into understanding things, and that means reasoning together rather than playing these kinds of games.


----------



## Morimur

Vesuvius said:


> Of course, the ego is a serpentine force in all men, but I hope the bold isn't aimed at me. I can come off quite arrogant sometimes, but it's not my intention. I'm genuinely trying to convey my experience in life. It's the ideas I'm confronting, nothing personal to me. I love you all.


You're about as arrogant as most people, including myself. No, it wasn't aimed at you. You're _alright._ Anyway, who cares what others think. :cheers:


----------



## science

Majed Al Shamsi said:


> Umm Kulthum?


Of course I have. I've had a CD by her on the wish list for a long time.

On a different matter, I've been working my way through the "Sacred Music of Islam" box set for the past few weeks. I don't know whether that would interest you, but I'm enjoying it very much.


----------



## Majed Al Shamsi

science said:


> Of course I have. I've had a CD by her on the wish list for a long time.
> 
> On a different matter, I've been working my way through the "Sacred Music of Islam" box set for the past few weeks. I don't know whether that would interest you, but I'm enjoying it very much.


I have a feeling it isn't mainstream Islamic music, rather, the Sufi sect's music. I've heard great reviews on it, and the spiritual dance that goes with it.
Not my cup of tea, to be honest, but I'm a bit curious. Could you refer me to their Youtube version?


----------



## Morimur

Majed Al Shamsi said:


> There's no pride involved.
> In fact, if you like, I can tell you in advance what you need to do to change my mind about, say, evolution, the Christian God, or anything.


There are plenty of good resources out there, friend. But since you seem to have all the 'right' answers (according to you at least), no amount of evidence will ever convince you otherwise. You've already decided what you wish to believe in. Good on you, at least you're not lukewarm.


----------



## Majed Al Shamsi

Lope de Aguirre said:


> There are plenty of good resources out there, friend. But since you seem to have all the 'right' answers (according to you at least), no amount of evidence will ever convince you otherwise. You've already decided what you wish to believe in. Good on you, at least you're not lukewarm.


Of the two of us, I'm the one who's already been convinced to change his position once (lapsed Muslim).
You really can't accuse me of being stubborn.

On a side note, look at your posts count...
The irony.


----------



## Morimur

Majed Al Shamsi said:


> Of the two of us, I'm the one who's already been convinced to change his position once (lapsed Muslim).
> You really can't accuse me of being stubborn.
> 
> On a side note, look at your posts count...
> The irony.


*I am a 'lapsed Atheist'. Yes, the irony.*


----------



## Majed Al Shamsi

Lope de Aguirre said:


> I am a 'lapsed Atheist'.


What went wrong? :lol:


----------



## Morimur

Majed Al Shamsi said:


> What went wrong? :lol:


A good job, family and financial security was not good enough. Emptiness, you see. :lol: Yes, it's hilarious!

Look at us, having a good laugh after a such a rocky start.


----------



## Majed Al Shamsi

Lope de Aguirre said:


> A good job, family and financial security was not good enough. Emptiness, you see. :lol: Yes, it's hilarious!
> 
> Look at us, having a good laugh after a such a rocky start.


My sarcasm senses are tingling... :lol:
If religion provides comfort for you, then it really isn't any of my business to try to take it away from you.
All the best.


----------



## Morimur

Majed Al Shamsi said:


> My sarcasm senses are tingling... :lol:
> If religion provides comfort for you, then it really isn't any of my business to try to take it away from you.
> All the best.


_My_ sarcasm senses were set off long ago. And don't worry, you couldn't take it away from me even if you tried your damnedest. All the best. :lol:


----------



## Blake

This ended rather cheerfully.


----------



## Blake

Majed Al Shamsi said:


> It's not playing games. I mean it.
> If you don't believe in one thing, then that means you believe it isn't so.
> Imagine three layers.
> In the first layer, we have the subject of the debate.
> In the second, we have belief or disbelief.
> In the third, we believe whatever it is we chose in the second layer. So, really, this third layer is meaningless.
> The idea of atheism (disbelief in a deity) is as absolute as anything could get. Just like the disbelief in the existence of unicorns, even though it cannot be disproven, is as absolute as anything could get.


I think our problem is with labels here. Because I don't believe in religion/deities either (although some can be rather beautiful), but I also don't consider myself an atheist. I don't consider myself anything, actually. I am here, and that's all I'm really sure of.


----------



## Morimur

Vesuvius said:


> This ended rather cheerfully.


All's well that ends well.


----------



## Majed Al Shamsi

Vesuvius said:


> I think our problem is with labels here. Because I don't believe in religion/deities either (although some can be rather beautiful), but I also don't consider myself an atheist. I don't consider myself anything, actually. I am here, and that's all I'm really sure of.


I concur. The labelling can be a bit confusing.
The term atheist, from a dictionary, meaning someone who does not believe in a deity/religion, means something else entirely within society, and it isn't usually a pleasant meaning.
Oh well.
How about we call a truce? :tiphat:


----------



## aleazk

*Bertrand Russell* in _Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?_:

"_As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God.

On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods._"


----------



## science

Majed Al Shamsi said:


> I have a feeling it isn't mainstream Islamic music, rather, the Sufi sect's music. I've heard great reviews on it, and the spiritual dance that goes with it.
> Not my cup of tea, to be honest, but I'm a bit curious. Could you refer me to their Youtube version?


Yes, a lot of it is Sufi. There's a lot of variety, from Morocco to Indonesia.

I don't youtube music, so you're on your own for that. Good luck!


----------



## science

Lope de Aguirre said:


> A good job, family and financial security was not good enough. Emptiness, you see. :lol: Yes, it's hilarious!
> 
> Look at us, having a good laugh after a such a rocky start.


Really? I've never heard one of these stories that panned out.

Why were you an atheist in the first place, and what convinced you that a God exists?


----------



## science

aleazk said:


> *Bertrand Russell* in _Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?_:
> 
> "_As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God.
> 
> On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods._"


An argument like that persuaded me to start calling myself an atheist. I could still hold out if I wanted to, since I acknowledge that in the most abstract sense some kind of deity (albeit not the ordinary ones of human religious practice) could exist.

But really, I feel that's just splitting hairs. I don't believe in the gods or other spirits of actual human religious practice, those are the gods in question; with respect to all of those I am an atheist. I may be an agnostic with respect to some super-abstract impossible-to-conceive not-anythingness beyond all universes, but for practical purposes that is not in question.

If I did hold out and call myself an agnostic, it'd be because "atheist" is such a harsh term. I mean, I actually don't like being associated with Richard Dawkins definitely not with Sam Harris. So I could call myself something like "scientific pantheist" or "religious naturalist" (both of which are very close to my actual attitude) but it'd be semi-dishonest, and I can't live with myself doing that. I don't want to slide around trying to make nice rhetoric. So I just bit the bullet and acknowledged myself as an atheist. That feels good too, another liberation just to say things the simple, straightforward way.


----------



## Morimur

PetrB said:


> When it is a matter of faith, rather than belief in what is thought 'fact,' therein is a matter of antithetical approaches.
> 
> But to say something with clear intent that it be a stinging or condescending reply simply because one person's statement is evidence which denies that in which you have faith -- or perhaps threatens the security of that faith -- that too, is a matter of lashing out in extreme pride, ego very much at the center.


*Ego is very much a part of everyone's being, to varying degrees. I'll admit that I am not a terribly mature Christian (yet) and so I was irked by Majed Al Shamsi's comments and attitude, therefore I responded with an equally condescending tone. That was wrong. I cannot help but to be clear in my intent, as I don't like to mince my words. That aside, this man's comments do not threaten the security of my faith.

PetrB, Christians are not faultless, healthy creatures, otherwise we would not need a 'Surgeon' (Christ). This doesn't mean that SIN is excusable, but rather that one, as a Christian must sacrifice the 'Self' on a daily basis; one must die to oneself, continuously and be on constant guard. I sin and fail daily, and even as I repent and am forgiven, I still reap the consequences of my actions. And so, forgiveness is not a loophole by which one can spit upon the Cross and be forgiven without paying.

In any case, I thank you for exposing my mistake, though I was all too aware of it already.*


----------



## Majed Al Shamsi

...









Just messing with ya! :lol:


----------



## hpowders

science said:


> An argument like that persuaded me to start calling myself an atheist. I could still hold out if I wanted to, since I acknowledge that in the most abstract sense some kind of deity (albeit not the ordinary ones of human religious practice) could exist.
> 
> But really, I feel that's just splitting hairs. I don't believe in the gods or other spirits of actual human religious practice, those are the gods in question; with respect to all of those I am an atheist. I may be an agnostic with respect to some super-abstract impossible-to-conceive not-anythingness beyond all universes, but for practical purposes that is not in question.
> 
> If I did hold out and call myself an agnostic, it'd be because "atheist" is such a harsh term. I mean, I actually don't like being associated with Richard Dawkins definitely not with Sam Harris. So I could call myself something like "scientific pantheist" or "religious naturalist" (both of which are very close to my actual attitude) but it'd be semi-dishonest, and I can't live with myself doing that. I don't want to slide around trying to make nice rhetoric. So I just bit the bullet and acknowledged myself as an atheist. That feels good too, another liberation just to say things the simple, straightforward way.


I'm agnostic. Seeing JC in a dish of rice pudding isn't proof enough to convert me to a "True Believer" even if it gets $10,000 on EBay.

Too many random bad things happening to innocent people in the world. Where's the intervention? Where's the miracles to help all those poor starving people drinking poisoned water, suffering devastation from floods, hurricanes, tornados and tsunamis?

True Believers, praying every day- some have wonderful things happen to them; others get cancer and die painful deaths.

Atheists and agnostics-some have wonderful things happen to them; others get cancer and die painful deaths.


----------



## Morimur

science said:


> Really? I've never heard one of these stories that panned out.
> 
> Why were you an atheist in the first place, and what convinced you that a God exists?


_I was an atheist because I didn't know any better. What convinced me of God's existence? In order of appearance..._

*(01) Personal experience (Continuous)
(02) The Holy Bible
(03) C.S. Lewis (His various works on the subject)
(04) Charles Colson (Formerly known as Nixon's "Hatchet Man")
(05) R.C. Sproul (An American Calvinist theologian, author, and pastor.)
(06) Francis of Assisi (His various works on the subject)
(07) Augustine of Hippo (His various works on the subject)
(08) John Calvin (His various works on the subject)
(09) Alistair Begg (Senior Pastor of Cleveland's Parkside Church)
(10) William Lane Craig (American philosopher and theologian)
(11) Ravi Zacharias (Canadian-American Christian Apologist)*


----------



## DavidA

Lope de Aguirre said:


> _I was an atheist because I didn't know any better. What convinced me of God's existence? In order of appearance..._
> 
> *(01) Personal experience (Continuous)
> (02) The Holy Bible
> (03) C.S. Lewis (His various works on the subject)
> (04) Charles Colson (Formerly known as Nixon's "Hatchet Man")
> (05) R.C. Sproul (An American Calvinist theologian, author, and pastor.)
> (06) Francis of Assisi (His various works on the subject)
> (07) Augustine of Hippo (His various works on the subject)
> (08) John Calvin (His various works on the subject)
> (09) Alistair Begg (Senior Pastor of Cleveland's Parkside Church)
> (10) William Lane Craig (American philosopher and theologian)
> (11) Ravi Zacharias (Canadian-American Christian Apologist)*


Studying the Book of Romons with a group of young people who had what I hadn't.


----------



## Blake

Lope de Aguirre said:


> (06) Francis of Assisi


There's a quote I really love by Francis of Assisi - "What you're looking for is already where you're looking from."

It's in a very similar vein to the Rumi quote I have in my signature.


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## science

hpowders said:


> I'm agnostic. Seeing JC in a dish of rice pudding isn't proof enough to convert me to a "True Believer" even if it gets $10,000 on EBay.
> 
> Too many random bad things happening to innocent people in the world. Where's the intervention? Where's the miracles to help all those poor starving people drinking poisoned water, suffering devastation from floods, hurricanes, tornados and tsunamis?
> 
> True Believers, praying every day- some have wonderful things happen to them; others get cancer and die painful deaths.
> 
> Atheists and agnostics-some have wonderful things happen to them; others get cancer and die painful deaths.


Sounds atheist to me!


----------



## science

Lope de Aguirre said:


> _I was an atheist because I didn't know any better. What convinced me of God's existence? In order of appearance..._
> 
> (01) Personal experience (Continuous)
> (02) The Holy Bible
> (03) C.S. Lewis (His various works on the subject)
> (04) Charles Colson (Formerly known as Nixon's "Hatchet Man")
> (05) R.C. Sproul (An American Calvinist theologian, author, and pastor.)
> (06) Francis of Assisi (His various works on the subject)
> (07) Augustine of Hippo (His various works on the subject)
> (08) John Calvin (His various works on the subject)
> (09) Alistair Begg (Senior Pastor of Cleveland's Parkside Church)
> (10) William Lane Craig (American philosopher and theologian)
> (11) Ravi Zacharias (Canadian-American Christian Apologist)


So, not much of an atheist actually. It's not like there was a strong conviction backed up by years of study, and then you changed your mind.

That almost never happens.

But it happens fairly often for religious people, having believed sincerely and studied deeply for many years, to lose their faith. I'm one of 'em, and there are lots of us.


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## Morimur

science said:


> So, not much of an atheist actually. It's not like there was a strong conviction backed up by years of study, and then you changed your mind.
> 
> That almost never happens.
> 
> But it happens fairly often for religious people, having believed sincerely and studied deeply for many years, to lose their faith. I'm one of 'em, and there are lots of us.


I am saddened to hear that. The more I study, the stronger my faith. Of course, my experiences are just as important.


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## science

Lope de Aguirre said:


> I am saddened to hear that. The more I study, the stronger my faith. Of course, my experiences are just as important.


Do you mean you're saddened to hear that I lost my faith? If so, me too! It wasn't easy.

Some of the painful aspects of losing faith will never go away: I will always miss the sense of belonging that I once shared with my family, and I will always miss the belief that in the end there would be justice in the universe. But some of them get better with time: I now feel my life is at least as meaningful as I felt it was before.

But really, for a skeptically inclined person like me, it is so refreshing (earlier we said "liberating") to just embrace doubt! Besides that, it is also liberating to be able to embrace my own moral sense rather than trying to fit it into the commands of Christian tradition, though I do have a lot of respect for the Judeo-Christian prophetic tradition's moral teachings (such as those of Isaiah, Jesus, James, Paul... and carried on by great teachers like John Chrysostom and Francis of Assisi and Leonardo Boff).

On balance, I wouldn't want to go back. Now if a lot of new evidence emerged... such that scientists and skeptics around the world began to endorse Eastern Orthodox Christianity as the worldview most likely to be true in view of all the evidence... I wouldn't be very saddened! I'd very happily dust off my icons and prayer books, rush right back to church, and spend the rest of my life repenting!


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## science

Lope de Aguirre said:


> I am saddened to hear that. The more I study, the stronger my faith. Of course, my experiences are just as important.


By the way, given that your atheism didn't have much in the way of conviction behind it, don't you think it's a little asymmetrical to compare yourself to a devout believer who loses their faith?


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## Morimur

science said:


> By the way, given that your atheism didn't have much in the way of conviction behind it, don't you think it's a little asymmetrical to compare yourself to a devout believer who loses their faith?


Yes, now that you mention it.

Did you not experience God, when you were a Christian? Was there not a palpable sense that he was orchestrating things; pleasant and painful alike?


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## science

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Yes, now that you mention it.
> 
> Did you not experience God, when you were a Christian? Was there not a palpable sense that he was orchestrating things; pleasant and painful alike?


Of course there was. I don't know about "orchestrating" - that wouldn't be my word for it, but I believed I heard God's "voice" at least once, experienced near-miraculous answers to prayer, and so on. I could tell at least one really powerful story of that... my belief in God sort of helped save my life when I was a child. I'm really grateful that I had it at that time.

I just don't think that kind of experience is a very reliable guide to what was actually happening in the world beyond my brain. Other people experience the goddess Kali in very real ways... and all the other gods and goddesses and spirits and so on....

I felt I could not arbitrarily discount human religious experience outside of my own tradition. At best, I needed to be able to say, "This religious experience is an accurate revelation of the supernatural world, but that one is misleading because..." and have something really good to say at that point. Or, if that was asking too much, at least I needed some way to explain all the religious beliefs and experiences outside of my tradition.

Perhaps you're aware that many early Christians believed that the gods of Roman and other non-Christian traditions were actually demons. At least some Christians would have had personal experience with those gods and many others would have witnessed those rituals and experiences, so they needed some kind of explanation for why their Christian experiences were valid but the experiences of other religions were not, and demonology provided a way for them to do that. Presumably they would happily extend that explanation to the full range of non-Christian religious experience. (Given that they'd probably be enormously surprised by a lot of modern Christian traditions, they'd probably apply to that a lot of modern Christian experience too!)

That was an option, and it is certainly internally consistent, and on most issues my preference would have been to follow the earliest Christians; but I simply couldn't find it persuasive because it begins with the assumption that my spot on the roulette wheel was right. Unless we can know how to tell which experiences are demonic and which are not, claiming that other traditions' experiences are demonic is simply a circular argument, not to mention special pleading, which I couldn't persuade myself to do.

This is of course one approach to the question of God's relationship to non-Christians (or for an Orthodox Christian, of God's relationship to non-Orthodox Christians). This was a thing that I never really figured out to my own satisfaction; I lost my faith before I could do so, although I read many theologians' opinions on it.

Now I suppose that should be very relevant to me in the sense that I'm on the wrong side of Pascal's Wager (or that I haven't chosen his pocket on the roulette wheel). But as I basically said in some post a few days ago, at this point I suspect that if there is a god or some other spirit who is going to punish us for our beliefs, my best bet isn't to pick a pocket on the roulette wheel but to bet on that god's valuing a sincere search for truth rather than a lucky guess.


----------



## millionrainbows

Majed Al Shamsi said:


> Haha! I'm impressed! :lol:
> Sure, the love for good music is universal, I'm with you on that.
> It's the love for anything sacred, or the existence of anything sacred for that matter, that I can't seem to be able to buy into.
> 
> It's not playing games. I mean it.
> If you don't believe in one thing, then that means you believe it isn't so.
> Imagine three layers.
> In the first layer, we have the subject of the debate.
> In the second, we have belief or disbelief.
> In the third, we believe whatever it is we chose in the second layer. So, really, this third layer is meaningless.
> The idea of atheism (disbelief in a deity) is as absolute as anything could get. Just like the disbelief in the existence of unicorns, even though it cannot be disproven, is as absolute as anything could get.
> 
> There's no pride involved.
> In fact, if you like, I can tell you in advance what you need to do to change my mind about, say, evolution, the Christian God, or anything.


Let's change the context, then, in order to clarify the argument. By what you have said thus far, how would you answer the question, *"Can white men play the blues?"

*Of course, we all know that blues is a form of music created by African American slaves, so it is 'black' music, reflecting the ethnic experience of these black people. Its speech inflections are black, and it mostly deals with the black experience (examples on demand). Its musical syntax is African, using the 'shuffle' rhythm of dividing the beat into three; and it uses pentatonic scales, which were derived from African sources.

So, *"Can white men play the blues?" *Should we see the blues as its outward manifestation of ethnicity and race and culture, or is there an "essence" of soul which can be penetrated by white players?

Is there a 'universal essence' of blues, accessible to all men, based on human suffering and 'soul'? Or is the blues rightfully the property and legacy of its black origins?

Just as in sacred music, there is the question of a music's or art's ethnic and cultural origins. "Ownership" of such music will always be claimed by its originators, those who embody the beliefs and ideology which the music was ostensibly created for.

But after that, music is assimilated by other people and other cultures, like jazz/bossa nova was. Music will change and morph and develop, if it is part of a living, thriving tradition.

Are the defenders of religious music telling me that Bach's Cantatas are static, unchanging products of their origins, never changing or accommodating their meanings to new listeners?

I hope not; I see all sacred music as having the potential to live in the experience of anyone, believer or non-believer, who hears it and responds.


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## millionrainbows

I think that early Chistian chant, which was influenced by Jewish chant, has resonances of "Eastern" or Gnostic origins.

The Gnostic gospels, and the Gnostic Christians themselves, were rejected by the Church fathers in 300 A.D. at the council of Nicea, as the scriptures were compiled into what we now know as the Bible.

The Gnostics were too 'inner' directed, and saw the material world as degraded and unreal as compared to the inner "spirit." This idea was too "Eastern" for the Roman fathers, who were interested in establishing a power base in Rome. The sacrifice of Jesus had to be a "real death" in the material sense, in order for the redemption of Man to have any real meaning. It had to be a real sacrifice.

There is an account in the Gnostic scriptures of Jesus on the cross, looking down with a spiritual detachment on the Romans. This detachment of the spirit, and seeing the material world as 'unreal' was unacceptable.

Yet, this 'inner' connection with the sacred is exactly what I'm talking about here, and why this idea is perhaps seen as 'heretical' to literalist true believers.


----------



## Blake

millionrainbows said:


> I think that early Chistian chant, which was influenced by Jewish chant, has resonances of "Eastern" or Gnostic origins.
> 
> The Gnostic gospels, and the Gnostic Christians themselves, were rejected by the Church fathers in 300 A.D. at the council of Nicea, as the scriptures were compiled into what we now know as the Bible.
> 
> The Gnostics were too 'inner' directed, and saw the material world as degraded and unreal as compared to the inner "spirit." This idea was too "Eastern" for the Roman fathers, who were interested in establishing a power base in Rome. The sacrifice of Jesus had to be a "real death" in the material sense, in order for the redemption of Man to have any real meaning. It had to be a real sacrifice.
> 
> There is an account in the Gnostic scriptures of Jesus on the cross, looking down with a spiritual detachment on the Romans. This detachment of the spirit, and seeing the material world as 'unreal' was unacceptable.
> 
> Yet, this 'inner' connection with the sacred is exactly what I'm talking about here, and why this idea is perhaps seen as 'heretical' to literalist true believers.


Well, of course. If everyone followed the Gnostic pointings then they would realize that no physical manifestation has any power over them, and that's no good for the controlling powers - so, they had to keep them believing in the transient world as the "real' existence…These 'great, powerful' empires who thought they would last are now virtually unrecognizable under all the earth. Now hopelessly being scrapped away by excavators with tooth-brushes to find some remnants, hah. The answers are all around us.


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## millionrainbows

Vesuvius said:


> Well, of course. If everyone followed the Gnostic pointings then they would realize that no physical manifestation has any power over them, and that's no good for the controlling powers - so, they had to keep them believing in the transient world as the "real' existence…These 'great, powerful' empires who thought they would last are now virtually unrecognizable under all the earth. Now hopelessly being scrapped away by excavators with tooth-brushes to find some remnants, hah. The answers are all around us.


This reminds me: I've always said that L. Ron Hubbard was just copying Christian Gnosticism when he invented Scientology and its belief that we are "Thetans" trapped in these physical bodies, captured by space aliens in an ancient cosmic battle in outer space.

:lol:


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> I think that early Chistian chant, which was influenced by Jewish chant, has resonances of "Eastern" or Gnostic origins.
> 
> The Gnostic gospels, and the Gnostic Christians themselves, were rejected by the Church fathers in 300 A.D. at the council of Nicea, as the scriptures were compiled into what we now know as the Bible.
> 
> The Gnostics were too 'inner' directed, and saw the material world as degraded and unreal as compared to the inner "spirit." This idea was too "Eastern" for the Roman fathers, who were interested in establishing a power base in Rome. The sacrifice of Jesus had to be a "real death" in the material sense, in order for the redemption of Man to have any real meaning. It had to be a real sacrifice.
> 
> There is an account in the Gnostic scriptures of Jesus on the cross, looking down with a spiritual detachment on the Romans. This detachment of the spirit, and seeing the material world as 'unreal' was unacceptable.
> 
> Yet, this 'inner' connection with the sacred is exactly what I'm talking about here, and why this idea is perhaps seen as 'heretical' to literalist true believers.


Which "Roman fathers" do you have in mind?

The First Council of Nicaea condemned Arianism, not gnosticism.

What evidence do you have about gnostic chant? That'd be really interesting! I can't find very solid evidence even on Byzantine chant going back before the 9th century or so.


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## Blake

millionrainbows said:


> This reminds me: I've always said that L. Ron Hubbard was just copying Christian Gnosticism when he invented Scientology and its belief that we are "Thetans" trapped in these physical bodies, captured by space aliens in an ancient cosmic battle in outer space.
> 
> :lol:


I don't quite take Hubbard as seriously….


----------



## science

Vesuvius said:


> I don't quite take Hubbard as seriously….


Scientology definitely isn't as cool as gnosticism, but it is a much, much bigger thing.

Incidentally, when I was in college I did some research on "cults" and I found Scientology to be the most interesting, because of its relationship to the idea of "authority," and particularly something we could call "secular authority." If you watch their videos and read their literature, you find a lot of references to dictionaries, court decisions, and things like that. It reveals, in my opinion, a need for mainstream legitimacy; they're trying to prove that they are not as "freaky" as people usually think.

But also, who takes a dictionary definition so seriously? Outside of a court, who takes a court decision so seriously? Even if the court says that money is speech, most thoughtful people don't simply surrender their opinion on the matter. But within Scientology, there was an implicit and simple authoritarianism: the dictionary says it, it MUST BE RIGHT.

You put together that simple authoritarianism with a need for secular legitimacy, and a bizarre set of beliefs, and you get this deep insecurity, which is really interesting.

It is definitely analogous to movements in other religious traditions that aren't usually classified as new religious movements (this is a thing: "NRMs"), particularly creationism. Now I personally would argue that American Protestant Christian fundamentalism has a lot of NRM characteristics, but just now that's a different point; what I have in mind right now is just the creationism aspect of it. People often assume that creationists are "anti-science" or something - actually they're very pro-science, albeit in their own way. Unlike most religious people, who are willing to say things like "you've just got to have faith, you can't prove your religion," creationists desperately want to prove their beliefs with science. For them, science is a major authority, and their problem is that it (well, non-creationist ordinary mainstream science) doesn't give them the kind of secular legitimacy that they crave from it. That craving of scientific legitimacy, that's really fundamentally a pro-science attitude. So you get this desperate combing of the scientific literature, quote-mining, that kind of thing. Really quite similar to what Scientology does, although of course creationism is much more mainstream socially and has a lot more money.

Some other cults that I studied - the Unification Church, the International Church of Christ, and a particularly aggressive little Calvinist church that I stumbled onto accidentally; in Korea I did a bit of research on the World Mission Society Church of God but I didn't actually attend their church which means my research was pretty shallow - each was interesting in its own way but I personally felt that the Scientologists were the most psychologically interesting.

I don't have such negative views on cults. I realize that they're dangerous and ruin many people's lives, but I think the real problem is social alienation in the modern world, and cults are a solution - a poor solution - to that for many people. You could say that they "prey on the lonely" or something like that, but for me the root question is, why are there so many desperately lonely people out there? I don't think that was the case two hundred years ago, when everyone lived their entire lives in a thick social network that they could hardly imagine escaping - rather like a cult! And they actually are powerful - they cure drug addictions at least as well as secular therapies, and for that matter AA has quite a few characteristics of a cult.

So for me it's too bad that "cult" has become a word, like "fascist," just a shorthand for "evil thing" that we use to dismiss something, when in reality it's a complex but useful concept for analyzing a lot of phenomena in our world.


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## Svelte Silhouette

Gregorian chant was a form of worship but it'd b silly 2 say that anyone who isn't a Christian can't fully appreciate it as at Post 1.

Even if ur solely focused on the words rather than the polyphonic spree then appreciation of the feeling being expressed is visible as a bonus even if that same belief isn't held.

It really is quite beautiful and peaceful music. 

Buddha Lounge and Siddharta yoga music is fully appreciatable by those who aren't Buddhists in the same way and this is the new age peaceful equivalent of such "middle-ages in2 renaissance" chant probly.


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## Svelte Silhouette

science said:


> Scientology definitely isn't as cool as gnosticism, but it is a much, much bigger thing.


I cud b drawn on the Gnostic heresy but h8 bloodshed 

I just hope the big lizard gets Tom Cruise b4 an MI:5 appears - oh no, MI5 appears 2 already exist as does MI6, I must've bn asleep


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## millionrainbows

science said:


> Which "Roman fathers" do you have in mind?...The First Council of Nicaea condemned Arianism, not Gnosticism....etc, etc...


"I think that early Christian chant, which was influenced by Jewish chant, has resonances of "Eastern" or Gnostic origins."

I think you are trying to interpret this statement of mine in too much literal detail. I'm just 'probing for meaning' in a more poetic, general, metaphoric way than you are.

For a general background of some of these ideas, refer to *Bart Ehrman, The Historical Jesus *(The Teaching Company).


----------



## Blake

science said:


> So for me it's too bad that "cult" has become a word, like "fascist," just a shorthand for "evil thing" that we use to dismiss something, when in reality it's a complex but useful concept for analyzing a lot of phenomena in our world.


We're going to have to work on shortening these responses, and getting to the point a little quicker. 

But yea, I don't think there is anything intrinsically wrong with cults. You can say the people who followed Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, etc… were cults in a way - compared to the popular religions of their day they were the outcast.


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> "I think that early Christian chant, which was influenced by Jewish chant, has resonances of "Eastern" or Gnostic origins."
> 
> I think you are trying to interpret this statement of mine in too much literal detail. I'm just 'probing for meaning' in a more poetic, general, metaphoric way than you are.
> 
> For a general background of some of these ideas, refer to *Bart Ehrman, The Historical Jesus *(The Teaching Company).


Bart Ehrman is awesome, and largely because he's a historian interested in "much literal detail" rather than someone "probing for meaning in a poetic, general, metaphoric way."

That council was a real thing, the gnostics and Arians and Orthodox and other early Christians were actual people, each of them with an intellectual and emotional world as full and complicated as yours or mine; there are true things we can say about them and historians work hard to figure out what those truths are, and it's a fascinating story, much more interesting than "poetic generalities."

But there is good news. I used teh google and found an actual source on gnostic ritual and liturgy: Practicing Gnosis: Ritual, Magic, Theurgy and Liturgy in Nag Hammadi ....

That looks pretty awesome. But evidently there isn't much about music: I searched for "chant" in it and only found references to a Chinese Manichaean chant (the existence of Chinese Manichaeism, or of Manichaeism itself is a great example of the real world being so much more interesting that "poetic probings"); I searched "music" and found two mentions, one just quoting a guy saying he will "sing and make music" and the other a speculation about Mithraists organizing the planets according to a musical theory about the harmony of the spheres. So really, that tells us nothing about music; definitely not the kind of information we need to establish whether or how Jewish chant influenced gnostic chant. But still, it really looks like a good source for some actual exploration of gnostic liturgy in other ways.

Incidentally, one of the greatest scholars of gnosticism, Bentley Layton, once told me he was interested in exploring music in early Christianity. I cannot find any evidence that he did or that he published anything on it.

There is this: Music in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. I'm a little worried about "John Arthur Smith is a full-time church musician in the Church of Norway and an independent scholar." But I read a review of it and it sounds genuinely academic. He argues that early Christian music would in most ways have been a departure from the Jewish traditions both of the temple and of the synagogue as we know it.

It takes a lot of imagination and guesswork to begin reconstructing ancient Christian music, but it has been tried, and you might enjoy hearing some of it: Musique de la Grèce Antique


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## millionrainbows

science said:


> Bart Ehrman is awesome, and largely because he's a historian interested in "much literal detail" rather than someone "probing for meaning in a poetic, general, metaphoric way." ...there are true things we can say about them and historians work hard to figure out what those truths are, and it's a fascinating story, much more interesting than "poetic generalities."


Whatever floats your boat. I am of a different mindset than you, apparently. I like bird's eye views, McLuhan and Jung.

History is not an exact science. Ehrman explains the historical method, and it's based on speculation, of comparison of sources, for a 'best guess.'

All I'm saying, generally, is that there was an "Eastern" influence of thought-style in some of the early strains of Christianity which was squelched by about the fourth century A.D. Rome was the winner in all this, since it was the seat of power. This resulted in the Christianity we now have, with such "Eastern" ideas being heresy.


----------



## Cosmos

"Is religious music real?" Yes it is. Thread closed.

Seriously, I admit that I'm lazy and have not read anything in this thread, so if this has been brought up before, it is my own fault and ignorance, but the fact that this question seems to be debated so long baffles me so that's my honest opinion. Gregorian chants, and other religious works, in my opinion, are also a form of worship. That's all i have to say on that.


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> Whatever floats your boat. I am of a different mindset than you, apparently. I like bird's eye views, McLuhan and Jung.
> 
> History is not an exact science. Ehrman explains the historical method, and it's based on speculation, of comparison of sources, for a 'best guess.'
> 
> All I'm saying, generally, is that there was an "Eastern" influence of thought-style in some of the early strains of Christianity which was squelched by about the fourth century A.D. Rome was the winner in all this, since it was the seat of power. This resulted in the Christianity we now have, with such "Eastern" ideas being heresy.


I think you said more than that and specifically. (Maybe by "Rome" you mean "the Empire." Rome was replaced by Constantinople in the fourth century as the seat of power - through all seven of the recognized "Ecumenical" councils Constantinople was the seat of power; Rome didn't have comparable power until about the 11th century.

Still the Eastern/Western thing, and once again it just isn't based on anything but projection.

We might be able to discuss Jung more productively, though. Which ideas of his do you have in mind? I was intrigued by Jung back in my "continental philosophy" phase and then a bit again in my "perennialism/traditionalism" phase, but I have neglected him since then, probably prejudicially, since I don't find much psychology before about WWII to be very impressive, and it doesn't really get good until at least 1970 or so.

I suspect that "collective unconscious" and or "archetypes" might be a good entry for this, but if you want to take it up I'll let you say what impresses you about Jung.

I am even less familiar with McLuhan but he seems like a fascinating guy. I wonder which of his ideas you have in mind too.


----------



## millionrainbows

science said:


> I think you said more than that and specifically. (Maybe by "Rome" you mean "the Empire." Rome was replaced by Constantinople in the fourth century as the seat of power - through all seven of the recognized "Ecumenical" councils Constantinople was the seat of power; Rome didn't have comparable power until about the 11th century.
> 
> Still the Eastern/Western thing, and once again it just isn't based on anything but projection.


There are differences in Eastern Orthodox thought, and "Western" Roman interpretations.



science said:


> We might be able to discuss Jung more productively, though. Which ideas of his do you have in mind? I was intrigued by Jung back in my "continental philosophy" phase and then a bit again in my "perennialism/traditionalism" phase, but I have neglected him since then, probably prejudicially, since I don't find much psychology before about WWII to be very impressive, and it doesn't really get good until at least 1970 or so.
> I suspect that "collective unconscious" and or "archetypes" might be a good entry for this, but if you want to take it up I'll let you say what impresses you about Jung.


When you consider the archetypes as on a wheel, with the "self" archetype at the center, then this is a basic model for the Eastern version of the Self as our connection to God or the sacred. The further from center we go, the more "ego-directed" we become.

A more disturbing yet fascinating idea, which he was reluctant to discuss, is the "projection" of archetypes from psychic energy into physical manifestation, explained in this book:


----------



## DavidA

millionrainbows said:


> I think that early Chistian chant, which was influenced by Jewish chant, has resonances of "Eastern" or Gnostic origins.
> 
> The Gnostic gospels, and the Gnostic Christians themselves, were rejected by the Church fathers in 300 A.D. at the council of Nicea, as the scriptures were compiled into what we now know as the Bible.
> 
> The Gnostics were too 'inner' directed, and saw the material world as degraded and unreal as compared to the inner "spirit." This idea was too "Eastern" for the Roman fathers, who were interested in establishing a power base in Rome. The sacrifice of Jesus had to be a "real death" in the material sense, in order for the redemption of Man to have any real meaning. It had to be a real sacrifice.
> 
> There is an account in the Gnostic scriptures of Jesus on the cross, looking down with a spiritual detachment on the Romans. This detachment of the spirit, and seeing the material world as 'unreal' was unacceptable.
> 
> Yet, this 'inner' connection with the sacred is exactly what I'm talking about here, and why this idea is perhaps seen as 'heretical' to literalist true believers.


Gnosticism is simply not Christian and is spoken against in the New Testament by the Apostles. Now you can believe it (or part of it) if you like, but don't call it Christian!


----------



## DavidA

science said:


> An argument like that persuaded me to start calling myself an atheist. I could still hold out if I wanted to, since I acknowledge that in the most abstract sense some kind of deity (albeit not the ordinary ones of human religious practice) could exist.
> 
> But really, I feel that's just splitting hairs. I don't believe in the gods or other spirits of actual human religious practice, those are the gods in question; with respect to all of those I am an atheist. I may be an agnostic with respect to some super-abstract impossible-to-conceive not-anythingness beyond all universes, but for practical purposes that is not in question.
> 
> If I did hold out and call myself an agnostic, it'd be because "atheist" is such a harsh term. I mean, I actually don't like being associated with Richard Dawkins definitely not with Sam Harris. So I could call myself something like "scientific pantheist" or "religious naturalist" (both of which are very close to my actual attitude) but it'd be semi-dishonest, and I can't live with myself doing that. I don't want to slide around trying to make nice rhetoric. So I just bit the bullet and acknowledged myself as an atheist. That feels good too, another liberation just to say things the simple, straightforward way.


You sure need an awful lot of faith to be an atheist. It was Ian Hislop who said, "I tried atheism but I couldn't keep it up! I kept having doubts!" Interesting that Anthony Flew abandoned atheism as he found the case for some sort of God overwhelming. As God if he exists is beyond human comprehension, the position of absolute atheism would seem untenable to the thinking person. Of course, there are those who espouse atheism - like Dawkins and Harris - who don't appear to think at all!
Interesting that Prof John Lennox, the Oxford mathematician, said that when he read Bertrand Russell as a student, he expected an intellectual challenge to his Christian faith. He said he was disappointed at the tired old arguments being trotted out. The same is true of Dawkins and the new atheists. I must admit to liking the late Christopher Hitchens. He was at least interesting even though he had to resort to using his skill as a wordsmith to cover the weakness of many of his arguments. Interesting that in a debate between Lennox and Hitchens it was Lennox who was far more logical in his arguments and Hitchens who resorted to the use of emotive language!


----------



## Blake

DavidA said:


> You sure need an awful lot of faith to be an atheist. It was Ian Hislop who said, "I tried atheism but I couldn't keep it up! I kept having doubts!" Interesting that Anthony Flew abandoned atheism as he found the case for some sort of God overwhelming. As God if he exists is beyond human comprehension, the position of absolute atheism would seem untenable to the thinking person. Of course, there are those who espouse atheism - like Dawkins and Harris - who don't appear to think at all!
> Interesting that Prof John Lennox, the Oxford mathematician, said that when he read Bertrand Russell as a student, he expected an intellectual challenge to his Christian faith. He said he was disappointed at the tired old arguments being trotted out. The same is true of Dawkins and the new atheists. I must admit to liking the late Christopher Hitchens. He was at least interesting even though he had to resort to using his skill as a wordsmith to cover the weakness of many of his arguments. Interesting that in a debate between Lennox and Hitchens it was Lennox who was far more logical in his arguments and Hitchens who resorted to the use of emotive language!


There's a saying... something like, "the foundations of ignorance cannot withstand direct questioning." But of course this holds true for all types, not just atheist.


----------



## Wood

What is God????????


----------



## Blake

Wood said:


> What is God????????


The ultimate mind-game.


----------



## science

DavidA said:


> You sure need an awful lot of faith to be an atheist. It was Ian Hislop who said, "I tried atheism but I couldn't keep it up! I kept having doubts!" Interesting that Anthony Flew abandoned atheism as he found the case for some sort of God overwhelming. As God if he exists is beyond human comprehension, the position of absolute atheism would seem untenable to the thinking person. Of course, there are those who espouse atheism - like Dawkins and Harris - who don't appear to think at all!
> Interesting that Prof John Lennox, the Oxford mathematician, said that when he read Bertrand Russell as a student, he expected an intellectual challenge to his Christian faith. He said he was disappointed at the tired old arguments being trotted out. The same is true of Dawkins and the new atheists. I must admit to liking the late Christopher Hitchens. He was at least interesting even though he had to resort to using his skill as a wordsmith to cover the weakness of many of his arguments. Interesting that in a debate between Lennox and Hitchens it was Lennox who was far more logical in his arguments and Hitchens who resorted to the use of emotive language!


Well, tell me the position that requires the least faith and I'll adopt it.

Edit: What I actually mean is, persuade me that a different position requires less faith and I'll adopt it.

I'm unaware of having any faith, but if you show me that I have some, I will endeavor to be fit of it.


----------



## science

An interesting line of DavdA's post is that someone "was disappointed at the tired old arguments being trotted out." 

I don't actually think we need new arguments. In 2001 I reached a conclusion which I later discovered Protagoras had reached 2500 years earlier: 

"Concerning the gods, I have no means of knowing whether they exist or not or of what sort they may be, because of the obscurity of the subject, and the brevity of human life."

There is no need for new arguments when that will do. 

Anyway, when was the last time someone came up with a new argument for the existence of a god? Platinga's many-worlds thing might be considered new, but really that's just an elaboration of Anselm (and doesn't actually get us further than "if it is possible that God exists, then God exists" which is obviously a just a statement about what kind of thing "God" would supposed to be if it or he existed); the original was dealt with by Gaunilo almost immediately. 

What is the new argument?


----------



## DavidA

science said:


> Well, tell me the position that requires the least faith and I'll adopt it.
> 
> Edit: What I actually mean is, persuade me that a different position requires less faith and I'll adopt it.
> 
> I'm unaware of having any faith, but if you show me that I have some, I will endeavor to be fit of it.


Well to me the fact of a creator is pretty obvious from what we see around us. I mean the fine tuning of the universe, for one. And then the fact that each cell is packed with an incredible amount of information. As we at present know of no other source for information than intelligence then I believe that an intelligence created us. 
But f course, I realised many years ago that atheism is not a logical position but more a moral one - one which does not want to be responsible to a supreme being despite the evidence. It is summed up in the Sinatra song, "I did it my way!"


----------



## DavidA

science said:


> An interesting line of DavdA's post is that someone "was disappointed at the tired old arguments being trotted out."
> 
> I don't actually think we need new arguments. In 2001 I reached a conclusion which I later discovered Protagoras had reached 2500 years earlier:
> 
> "Concerning the gods, I have no means of knowing whether they exist or not or of what sort they may be, because of the obscurity of the subject, and the brevity of human life."
> 
> There is no need for new arguments when that will do.
> 
> Anyway, when was the last time someone came up with a new argument for the existence of a god? Platinga's many-worlds thing might be considered new, but really that's just an elaboration of Anselm (and doesn't actually get us further than "if it is possible that God exists, then God exists" which is obviously a just a statement about what kind of thing "God" would supposed to be if it or he existed); the original was dealt with by Gaunilo almost immediately.
> 
> What is the new argument?


The Christian answer is that God has revealed himself in Christ.


----------



## Wood

DavidA said:


> The Christian answer is that God has revealed himself in Christ.


So your position is:

1.There are complicated things we don't understand.

2.They must have been created by someone supreme.

3.We will call this supreme being God.

4. Our information about this God isn't direct, but comes through JC.

So your supernatural belief system stands or falls on JC, ie whether he existed and if he did whether he was a manifestation of your God.

Is this broadly your position? My Christian upbringers never tried to justify their religion in logical steps such as these.


----------



## science

DavidA said:


> Well to me the fact of a creator is pretty obvious from what we see around us. I mean the fine tuning of the universe, for one. And then the fact that each cell is packed with an incredible amount of information. As we at present know of no other source for information than intelligence then I believe that an intelligence created us.
> But f course, I realised many years ago that atheism is not a logical position but more a moral one - one which does not want to be responsible to a supreme being despite the evidence. It is summed up in the Sinatra song, "I did it my way!"


I'm not trying to do anything MY way - which is actually a very good description of faith. With faith, you declare, I am going to believe what I want to believe regardless of evidence or proof. I declare the opposite: I will submit to whatever the evidence indicates.

So when biologists and cosmologists agree with your theories about information and fine-tuning, I will go along.


----------



## science

I actually really like the idea that God is revealed in Christ. It's not an intellectual proof or evidence of any kind, so in this context it's a non sequitur, but at its theological best - which is the Eastern Orthodox tradition (and its scriptures, properly understood), in which the God revealed in Christ is selfless interpersonal ("Triune") love sacrificing itself eternally, and has nothing at all to do with the idea of the substitutionary atonement - it's the most beautiful, intelligent, wise, inspiring theology I've ever encountered. 

Now at this point there is no question we'd better take it to the religion board because we cannot tie these ideas to music!


----------



## Wood

science said:


> *I actually really like the idea that God is revealed in Christ. It's not an intellectual proof or evidence of any kind, so in this context it's a non sequitur*, but at its theological best - which is the Eastern Orthodox tradition (and its scriptures, properly understood), in which the God revealed in Christ is selfless interpersonal ("Triune") love sacrificing itself eternally, and has nothing at all to do with the idea of the substitutionary atonement - it's the most beautiful, intelligent, wise, inspiring theology I've ever encountered.
> 
> Now at this point there is no question we'd better take it to the religion board because we cannot tie these ideas to music!


I'm not following you on the bolded bit. In terms of DavidA's assertions, wouldn't it be necessary to have some empirical evidence for the existence of the JC figure, in order to support his statements? In other words, his religion stands or falls on whether or not this JC existed and was a God?


----------



## science

Wood said:


> I'm not following you on the bolded bit. In terms of DavidA's assertions, wouldn't it be necessary to have some empirical evidence for the existence of the JC figure, in order to support his statements? In other words, his religion stands or falls on whether or not this JC existed and was a God?


His religion would probably have problems if we found really good evidence that Jesus never existed. But I think it's impossible to establish whether Jesus was the Messiah ("Christ") or was an incarnation of God. He has to take that on faith.

An example is the Resurrection. It'd take a whole heck of a lot of impressive evidence to make a theory that a corpse revived after having been dead three days the _most likely explanation_ for all the evidence. This is an insight I originally got from Kierkegaard, who intended to insist on the necessity of faith (in its modern sense as "intellectual assent to unproven claims"), undermining what he took to be complacent pseudo-Christianity in order to help people become more authentic Christians.

I don't remember his way of putting it (which was rather too succinct for most of us anyway) so I'll put it my way:

My father died when I was seven. If a man shows up at my door today claiming that he is my father risen from the dead, what would it take to persuade me that he's right?

But notice that this isn't actually the Christian case. Instead, what if a guy shows up at my door today claiming the he saw my father risen from the dead, and that my risen father then floated into the sky and disappeared? What would it take to persuade me to believe that guy?

But even that isn't actually the Christian case. What if a guy shows up at my door, not having himself seen my father risen from the dead, but with written documents such as letters from people who say they saw him risen from the dead, then floated into the sky and disappeared?

But even that isn't actually the Christian.

The Christian case is most directly analogous to the guy (Christians at any point since about 100 AD until now) showing up at my door with those documents (the New Testament), and then demanding that I surrender 10% of my income for the rest of my life and follow various other commands contained in the documents.

So, as Kierkegaard realized, essentially no amount of evidence can get you from, "I don't know, let me investigate this evidence," to "The most parsimonious explanation of the evidence before me is that this guy is right and I should give him my money."

You can only get there with an act of faith.

And that's just the Resurrection. As Kierkegaard also argued - you might even say it's the main theme of his writings - the Incarnation itself is impossible, a contradiction in terms, an absolutely irresolvable paradox. You cannot prove the Incarnation for the same reason that you cannot prove that three equals four. We can make no sense out of the sentence, "God became a man," except by denying that it means that God actually became an actual man, and Christian doctrine explicitly forbids any such interpretation.

So, here's the point. Kierkegaard is right. You can only arrive at intellectual assent to such ideas by any means except radical faith. When a Christian says, "I believe God was revealed in Christ," he is telling us something that he cannot prove, not offering evidence for his beliefs.


----------



## Wood

science said:


> His religion would probably have problems if we found really good evidence that Jesus never existed. But I think it's impossible to establish whether Jesus was the Messiah ("Christ") or was an incarnation of God. He has to take that on faith.
> 
> An example is the Resurrection. It'd take a whole heck of a lot of impressive evidence to make a theory that a corpse revived after having been dead three days the _most likely explanation_ for all the evidence. This is an insight I originally got from Kierkegaard, who intended to insist on the necessity of faith (in its modern sense as "intellectual assent to unproven claims"), undermining what he took to be complacent pseudo-Christianity in order to help people become more authentic Christians.
> 
> I don't remember his way of putting it (which was rather too succinct for most of us anyway) so I'll put it my way:
> 
> My father died when I was seven. If a man shows up at my door today claiming that he is my father risen from the dead, what would it take to persuade me that he's right?
> 
> But notice that this isn't actually the Christian case. Instead, what if a guy shows up at my door today claiming the he saw my father risen from the dead, and that my risen father then floated into the sky and disappeared? What would it take to persuade me to believe that guy?
> 
> But even that isn't actually the Christian case. What if a guy shows up at my door, not having himself seen my father risen from the dead, but with written documents such as letters from people who say they saw him risen from the dead, then floated into the sky and disappeared?
> 
> But even that isn't actually the Christian.
> 
> The Christian case is most directly analogous to the guy (Christians at any point since about 100 AD until now) showing up at my door with those documents (the New Testament), and then demanding that I surrender 10% of my income for the rest of my life and follow various other commands contained in the documents.
> 
> So, as Kierkegaard realized, essentially no amount of evidence can get you from, "I don't know, let me investigate this evidence," to "The most parsimonious explanation of the evidence before me is that this guy is right and I should give him my money."
> 
> You can only get there with an act of faith.
> 
> And that's just the Resurrection. As Kierkegaard also argued - you might even say it's the main theme of his writings - the Incarnation itself is impossible, a contradiction in terms, an absolutely irresolvable paradox. You cannot prove the Incarnation for the same reason that you cannot prove that three equals four. We can make no sense out of the sentence, "God became a man," except by denying that it means that God actually became an actual man, and Christian doctrine explicitly forbids any such interpretation.
> 
> So, here's the point. Kierkegaard is right. You can only arrive at intellectual assent to such ideas by any means except radical faith. When a Christian says, "I believe God was revealed in Christ," he is telling us something that he cannot prove, not offering evidence for his beliefs.


Good, I'm back with you again.

Debates about the likelihood of the existence or non-existence of God are in this context somewhat superfluous because Christians do not offer much information about what their God is. Hence I had no reply to my original question 'What is God?'

In other words, it may be literally nonsensical to make assertions such as 'God exists' or 'God does not exist'.

The debate seems to end at this point. Christians accept the supernatural tales in the Gospels as an unprovable truth, like you say, because they have this faith, whereas non-Christians don't.

Once you get to this point, all the scientific arguments, Dawkins etc, seem to melt away.


----------



## millionrainbows

"What is God," can be answered with our own existence and being. It is not a question of externals or meanings or definitions. We are all part of everything, and we are connected to the sacred in this sense. Calling it "God" creates confusion. I'm very happy with that answer.
Even an atheist who actively denies God's existence is connected to the sacred in this way. You know, there *are* such things as non-deistic religions, and they don't require that God be proven or disproven; yet, their religion is seeking a higher nature, and a more meaningful connection with the sacred.
Like Buddhism; I think it functions just fine without a "God." I don't see what the big deal is.


----------



## millionrainbows

...But the fact is, this is the twenty-first century, and the world is getting smaller and more similar, and we are starting to realize that The East has much to offer, and new composers reflect this; although Western music developed from Christianity, "Religious Music" as a title for a forum does not have to restrict itself to old history and tradition. There are new strains of thought, and I seek to explore them.
I'm really referring to the 'big three' monotheistic, scriptural-based religions, including Judaism and Islam, when I speak in this direction. To me, these all exemplify the same type of mindset, which seeks to verify through writings, which seems to have the curious side-effect of controlling its adherents into specific beliefs and conclusions. It tends to produce inflexible, rigid thinking.


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> ...But the fact is, this is the twenty-first century, and the world is getting smaller and more similar, and we are starting to realize that The East has much to offer, and new composers reflect this; although Western music developed from Christianity, "Religious Music" as a title for a forum does not have to restrict itself to old history and tradition. There are new strains of thought, and I seek to explore them.
> I'm really referring to the 'big three' monotheistic, scriptural-based religions, including Judaism and Islam, when I speak in this direction. To me, these all exemplify the same type of mindset, which seeks to verify through writings, which seems to have the curious side-effect of controlling its adherents into specific beliefs and conclusions. It tends to produce inflexible, rigid thinking.


Unless you can do some really fair and concrete analysis - like, five thousand pages or so of really hardcore scholarly work - this is just a litany of your prejudices. I realize very well that you inherited this set of prejudices from the culture around you, but that culture itself is misinformed.

Here's an offer. Let's do some REAL work!

Let's just take one very specific and limited comparison and see if your generalizations can actually hold up.

For an Eastern tradition, take your pick of 
a) Neo-Confucianism in the Chosun Dynasty, 
b) medieval Indian Tantric Buddhism, 
c) Sikhism, 
d) Theravada Buddhism in 20th century Myanmar, 
e) Vaishnavite devotional Hinduism, 
f) Han Dynasty Confucianism, 
g) Korean Buddhism in the 3 Kingdoms period, 
h) Tang Dynasty Zen Buddhism, 
i) Japanese Zen Buddhism from the Meiji Restoration to the end of WWII;
j) Burmese shamanism,
k) Korean shamanism, 
l) religious traditions in the Khmer Empire, 
m) Song Dynasty Neo-Confucianism, or 
n) Japanese new religions.

For an "Abrahamic" tradition, take your pick of 
a) 16th-century Anabaptists, 
b) Byzantine hesychasts, 
c) Russian hesychasts, 
d) 17th and 18th century Quakers, 
e) early medieval Celtic Christianity, 
f) Byzantine Christians in the fifth and sixth centuries,
g) the Franciscan movement up to Savonarola, 
h) 12th and 13th century Catholic Scholasticism, 
i) French Catholicism under the Bourbons, 
j) 17th century Anglicanism, 
k) Renaissance esotericism, 
l) Medieval Kabbalah, 
m) 2nd temple Judaism, 
n) Islam in the Abbasid period, 
o) Hasidic Judaism,
p) Islamic Sunni fundamentalism in the 20th century, 
q) American 19th century Protestant Christianity,
r) Shiite Islam in the 20th century, or 
s) 20th century Latin American Catholicism.

So that's a bit of brainstorming by me; you can offer alternatives if you want. For lots of fun, we might even consider doing a third tradition that crosses some of the implied boundaries, such as medieval Chinese Christianity, or the Taiping Rebellion, or Korean Catholicism, or Korean Protestantism, or Islam in the Ming Dynasty.

You pick one tradition from each side, and together we'll explore the original sources as well as recent (say, 1970 or later - the more recent the better, of course) scholarship on it. If after exploring each tradition in the kind of depth that an undergraduate course would attempt we find that the Western tradition really wasn't just as brimming with diversity and originality and introspection as the Eastern tradition, and that the Eastern tradition wasn't just as socio-politically strategic and concerned with tradition as the Western one, then for the rest of my life I will not challenge you when you assert this set of prejudices.

Plus, regardless of our conclusions, we'll learn some concrete, actual things!


----------



## Wood

millionrainbows said:


> "What is God," can be answered with our own existence and being. It is not a question of externals or meanings or definitions. We are all part of everything, and we are connected to the sacred in this sense. Calling it "God" creates confusion. I'm very happy with that answer.
> Even an atheist who actively denies God's existence is connected to the sacred in this way. You know, there *are* such things as non-deistic religions, and they don't require that God be proven or disproven; yet, their religion is seeking a higher nature, and a more meaningful connection with the sacred.
> Like Buddhism; I think it functions just fine without a "God." I don't see what the big deal is.


Q. What is God?

A. We exist

Sorry man, but on the face of it that response appears highly illogical, if not literally nonsense.

I'm not getting further here than your emphasis that we exist, and that you use the word sacred to describe this.

Vesuvius, help me!


----------



## Wood

Wood said:


> Good, I'm back with you again.
> 
> Debates about the likelihood of the existence or non-existence of God are in this context somewhat superfluous because Christians do not offer much information about what their God is. Hence I had no reply to my original question 'What is God?'
> 
> In other words, it may be literally nonsensical to make assertions such as 'God exists' or 'God does not exist'.
> 
> The debate seems to end at this point. Christians accept the supernatural tales in the Gospels as an unprovable truth, like you say, because they have this faith, whereas non-Christians don't.
> 
> Once you get to this point, all the scientific arguments, Dawkins etc, seem to melt away.


None of our Christian members responded to this sub-discussion. Can I assume that we have found common ground with the above? If so, we can wipe out a whole industry of atheist debaters!


----------



## Blake

Wood said:


> Q. What is God?
> 
> A. We exist
> 
> Sorry man, but on the face of it that response appears highly illogical, if not literally nonsense.
> 
> I'm not getting further here than your emphasis that we exist, and that you use the word sacred to describe this.
> 
> Vesuvius, help me!


Haha, I guess we're having a bit of philosophical fun here, so I'll continue to defile myself. I'd suppose that the only way to know that god exist would be because of your very own existence. Without your own consciousness, there is no god… at least not for you. That's why it makes absolutely no sense at all when people talk of things outside of there own experience, because it simply doesn't exist for them. It's similar to talking about a pink unicorn riding a rainbow. The thought is fluffy, but the reality is weak.

Start with fully understanding yourself beyond your concepts, and see that everything else is simply a modification of your own being. That seems like the most honest way to go about things. Look at what you know… and that is purely that you exist right now. Hold on to that knowledge of existence and see what unfolds, or doesn't unfold. But you always solidly exist, that is the only fact of life….


----------



## Guest

Vesuvius said:


> But you always solidly exist, that is the only fact of life….


Nope. That's still arguable. Not by me, but there are philosophers who've cast doubt on even that solid "fact."


----------



## Blake

MacLeod said:


> Nope. That's still arguable. Not by me, but there are philosophers who've cast doubt on even that solid "fact."


Ok, let's continue to deal with facts. When have you ever experienced your non-existence?

You might find that all you really know or ever known is that you exist. The rest is simply temporary mind-games.


----------



## Guest

Vesuvius said:


> Ok, let's continue to deal with facts. When have you ever experienced your non-existence?
> 
> You might find that all you really know or ever known is that you exist. The rest is simply temporary mind-games.


I did say that I wasn't arguing the point. Here's an article by Julian Baggini...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-blurred-reality-of-humanity-2247591.html



> Commissurotomy therefore seems to show that selves can be divided - at least temporarily - or that they needn't have just one centre of consciousness after all.


----------



## Blake

MacLeod said:


> I did say that I wasn't arguing the point. Here's an article by Julian Baggini...
> 
> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-blurred-reality-of-humanity-2247591.html


I know, but you must have some affinity for it to post it in here, aye? I'm just responding. We can play an infinite amount of thought games. The only facts are - you have never experienced your non-existence, and you have never experienced anything outside of your mind.


----------



## Guest

Vesuvius said:


> I know, but you must have some affinity for it to post it in here, aye?


No, not at all. Never heard of 'devil's advocate'?


----------



## DavidA

Vesuvius said:


> There's a saying... something like, "the foundations of ignorance cannot withstand direct questioning." But of course this holds true for all types, not just atheist.


That's why real faith is built on knowledge and evidence that can withstand questioning.


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> Real knowledge is built on evidence that can withstand questioning.


Fixed that for you. Don't know where 'faith' fits in, as it's too corrupted a term.


----------



## KenOC

DavidA said:


> That's why real faith is built on knowledge and evidence that can withstand questioning.


Nonsense. Faith is not to be questioned and needs no evidence, because it's true by definition. Any "facts" that seem to contradict it are, similarly by definition, false.


----------



## DavidA

Wood said:


> So your position is:
> 
> 1.There are complicated things we don't understand.
> 
> 2.They must have been created by someone supreme.
> 
> 3.We will call this supreme being God.
> 
> 4. Our information about this God isn't direct, but comes through JC.
> 
> So your supernatural belief system stands or falls on JC, ie whether he existed and if he did whether he was a manifestation of your God.
> 
> Is this broadly your position? My Christian upbringers never tried to justify their religion in logical steps such as these.


No. Just about all your points are wrong here or at least start from the wrong premise. Note that the Bible never tries to justify God. It just assumes Him. We don't think of God for things we can't understand but look at the obvious fact that things all around us are designed. To say that the world around this came together as a result of blind forces is to me about as ridiculous as saying that the programs on my Apple Mac were programmed by blind forces.
We do not call the supreme being.but he reveals himself to us as he has done to successive generations. As a Christian I believe that the supreme revelation came in Christ. The proof that Christ was who he claimed to be lies in the historical fact of the resurrection. Through Christ we can have a living relationship with God which is a further and clinching proof to me of the veracity of my faith.


----------



## DavidA

KenOC said:


> Nonsense. Faith is not to be questioned and needs no evidence, because it's true by definition. Any "facts" that seem to contradict it are, similarly by definition, false.


You are, of course, completely wrong in this. You are talking about blind faith, which is not the Christian faith.


----------



## KenOC

DavidA said:


> You are, of course, completely wrong in this. You are talking about blind faith, which is not the Christian faith.


Again, faith is blind by definition. It brooks no doubt, no questions. I thought that was clear. Any Christian "faith" that is otherwise is a poor sort of faith, adhered to by waverers.


----------



## DavidA

science said:


> I'm not trying to do anything MY way - which is actually a very good description of faith. With faith, you declare, I am going to believe what I want to believe regardless of evidence or proof. I declare the opposite: I will submit to whatever the evidence indicates.
> 
> So when biologists and cosmologists agree with your theories about information and fine-tuning, I will go along.


Fine! Start with this:

http://www.uncommondescent.com/inte...t-alive-today-who-understands-macroevolution/


----------



## DavidA

KenOC said:


> Again, faith is blind by definition. It brooks no doubt, no questions. I thought that was clear. Any Christian "faith" that is otherwise is a poor sort of faith, adhered to by waverers.


No. You are completely wrong. That is your definition of 'faith'. To say the Christian faith is a poor sort of faith as it has evidence is clearly ridiculous.


----------



## DavidA

science said:


> His religion would probably have problems if we found really good evidence that Jesus never existed. But I think it's impossible to establish whether Jesus was the Messiah ("Christ") or was an incarnation of God. He has to take that on faith.
> 
> An example is the Resurrection. It'd take a whole heck of a lot of impressive evidence to make a theory that a corpse revived after having been dead three days the _most likely explanation_ for all the evidence. This is an insight I originally got from Kierkegaard, who intended to insist on the necessity of faith (in its modern sense as "intellectual assent to unproven claims"), undermining what he took to be complacent pseudo-Christianity in order to help people become more authentic Christians.
> 
> I don't remember his way of putting it (which was rather too succinct for most of us anyway) so I'll put it my way:
> 
> My father died when I was seven. If a man shows up at my door today claiming that he is my father risen from the dead, what would it take to persuade me that he's right?
> 
> But notice that this isn't actually the Christian case. Instead, what if a guy shows up at my door today claiming the he saw my father risen from the dead, and that my risen father then floated into the sky and disappeared? What would it take to persuade me to believe that guy?
> 
> But even that isn't actually the Christian case. What if a guy shows up at my door, not having himself seen my father risen from the dead, but with written documents such as letters from people who say they saw him risen from the dead, then floated into the sky and disappeared?
> 
> But even that isn't actually the Christian.
> 
> The Christian case is most directly analogous to the guy (Christians at any point since about 100 AD until now) showing up at my door with those documents (the New Testament), and then demanding that I surrender 10% of my income for the rest of my life and follow various other commands contained in the documents.
> 
> So, as Kierkegaard realized, essentially no amount of evidence can get you from, "I don't know, let me investigate this evidence," to "The most parsimonious explanation of the evidence before me is that this guy is right and I should give him my money."
> 
> You can only get there with an act of faith.
> 
> And that's just the Resurrection. As Kierkegaard also argued - you might even say it's the main theme of his writings - the Incarnation itself is impossible, a contradiction in terms, an absolutely irresolvable paradox. You cannot prove the Incarnation for the same reason that you cannot prove that three equals four. We can make no sense out of the sentence, "God became a man," except by denying that it means that God actually became an actual man, and Christian doctrine explicitly forbids any such interpretation.
> 
> So, here's the point. Kierkegaard is right. You can only arrive at intellectual assent to such ideas by any means except radical faith. When a Christian says, "I believe God was revealed in Christ," he is telling us something that he cannot prove, not offering evidence for his beliefs.


Your post shows a complete misunderstanding of the Christian position which is not surprising from your reading material!


----------



## Guest

See what I mean? "Faith" has, IMO, a different meaning from its meaning in the phrase "the Christian faith".

It's a fruitless argument (not least because if we want to continue a discussion that we're not allowed to have, we have to whisper!)


----------



## DavidA

science said:


> I'm not trying to do anything MY way - which is actually a very good description of faith. With faith, you declare, I am going to believe what I want to believe regardless of evidence or proof. I declare the opposite: I will submit to whatever the evidence indicates.
> 
> So when biologists and cosmologists agree with your theories about information and fine-tuning, I will go along.


When biologists and cosmologists tell us how cellular information can be produced by blind forces acting then they might have more credibility. Interesting that it was the fine tuning argument that led Anthony Flew to renounce his atheism
I don't think you quite realise that scientists are also affected by their world view. We have the touching faith in science that it is entirely objective. It is not always so. What scientists believe is governed by their world views. For example, the postulate of the multiverse. There is absolutely no experimental scientific proof for this but many scientists have jumped on the band wagon, not because of science, but to bolster their worldview.


----------



## science

DavidA said:


> Fine! Start with this:
> 
> http://www.uncommondescent.com/inte...t-alive-today-who-understands-macroevolution/


Well, when he convinces most of his colleagues - well, people with the relevant expertise (which he may well have though his credentials are in other fields; "chemistry" hasn't been a single field since well before you or I or he was born) - he'll have me convinced too.

You don't have to convince _me_. I'm not an expert in the field. You have to convince the experts. What they agree to, I accept as most likely the best theory at the moment.



DavidA said:


> When biologists and cosmologists tell us how cellular information can be produced by blind forces acting then they might have more credibility. Interesting that it was the fine tuning argument that led Anthony Flew to renounce his atheism
> I don't think you quite realise that scientists are also affected by their world view. We have the touching faith in science that it is entirely objective. It is not always so. What scientists believe is governed by their world views. For example, the postulate of the multiverse. There is absolutely no experimental scientific proof for this but many scientists have jumped on the band wagon, not because of science, but to bolster their worldview.


Fortunately, the enterprise of science doesn't depend on scientists being unbiased. Nothing that depends on that is going to work well. It depends on aligning their incentives in (for the most part) the right way, so that the community as a whole can counteract its members biases. It's not the kind of thing that is going to consistently deliver perfect answers in a timely fashion - it's messy, it's complicated, it's contentious - but as long as the community continues to enforce the rules (no private revelation, repeatable results, an irrevocable end of your career if you're caught cheating) that get the incentives right, the community will stumble inevitably to better and better theories - closer and closer to "the truth" insofar as it can be known without private revelation.

Another thing to understand: science really doesn't do well at proving things. The body of knowledge properly called "scientific" isn't stuff that someone proved - it's the stuff that, in spite of significant efforts by people with the right tools and the right knowledge and the right motivation, _no one has managed to disprove_.

So there is no "faith" in science. It's not allowed. The imperative is to disprove everything we can possible disprove, and only reluctantly concede that what is left standing at the end of our best efforts is our best guess so far.


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> No. You are completely wrong. That is your definition of 'faith'. To say the Christian faith is a poor sort of faith as it has evidence is clearly ridiculous.


Give it up Ken, David is on a roll and anyone who takes a different view is just wrong! wrong! wrong!


----------



## science

A good way to think about this is to think about the way we use the word "believe." 

When someone doing science says, "I believe X," what she really means is, "I strongly suspect that no one is going to be able to disprove X, but I'm interested in the attempts to do so." 

When someone doing religion says, "I believe X," what he really means is, "I am committed to the proposition that X is true and even in the absence of the kind of evidence that would be needed to persuade a reasonable skeptic that I might be right, I intend to remain thus committed."


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## science

In view of recent posts, here's a question - we all know that religious music (understanding "religion" and "music" in anything like their ordinary meanings) exists, but could there be such a thing as scientific music? 

This might be found to be nothing but a nonsensical question, analogous to wondering if we can find round purples or musical beers, but on the other hand maybe thinking about it will lead to some interesting ideas about religion and/or music. 

If we can't pull the topic back to music somehow or other, we'd better move the discussion to the religion "group."


----------



## DavidA

science said:


> Well, when he convinces most of his colleagues - well, people with the relevant expertise (which he may well have though his credentials are in other fields; "chemistry" hasn't been a single field since well before you or I or he was born) - he'll have me convinced too.
> 
> You don't have to convince _me_. I'm not an expert in the field. You have to convince the experts. What they agree to, I accept as most likely the best theory at the moment.
> 
> Fortunately, the enterprise of science doesn't depend on scientists being unbiased. Nothing that depends on that is going to work well. It depends on aligning their incentives in (for the most part) the right way, so that the community as a whole can counteract its members biases. It's not the kind of thing that is going to consistently deliver perfect answers in a timely fashion - it's messy, it's complicated, it's contentious - but as long as the community continues to enforce the rules (no private revelation, repeatable results, an irrevocable end of your career if you're caught cheating) that get the incentives right, the community will stumble inevitably to better and better theories - closer and closer to "the truth" insofar as it can be known without private revelation.
> 
> Another thing to understand: science really doesn't do well at proving things. The body of knowledge properly called "scientific" isn't stuff that someone proved - it's the stuff that, in spite of significant efforts by people with the right tools and the right knowledge and the right motivation, _no one has managed to disprove_.
> 
> So there is no "faith" in science. It's not allowed. The imperative is to disprove everything we can possible disprove, and only reluctantly concede that what is left standing at the end of our best efforts is our best guess so far.


Yes there is faith in science. You've only got to read some of Dawkins' so-called science to realise that!


----------



## DavidA

science said:


> A good way to think about this is to think about the way we use the word "believe."
> 
> When someone doing science says, "I believe X," what she really means is, "I strongly suspect that no one is going to be able to disprove X, but I'm interested in the attempts to do so."
> 
> When someone doing religion says, "I believe X," what he really means is, "I am committed to the proposition that X is true and even in the absence of the kind of evidence that would be needed to persuade a reasonable skeptic that I might be right, I intend to remain thus committed."


When I scientist says, "I believe X" what he should be saying that it's the best theory we have so far until it is disproved. Unfortunately there are so many vested interests in science (funding, etc) that when someone offers to disprove a pet theory they are sometimes shouted down by the cacophony of vested interests. This is what actually happened with Galileo when he took to task the astronomical theories of the day. The first people to yell were the scientists!

As for your point on religion it is not true of the Christian faith, certainly. There is reasonable evidence, certainly. The fact is that skepticism is produced by a worldview also and Your picture of a 'reasonable skeptic' is pretty elusive. I gave always found that skeptics are skeptics because of their worldview not because of the evidence.


----------



## Wood

DavidA said:


> No. Just about all your points are wrong here or at least start from the wrong premise. Note that the Bible never tries to justify God. It just assumes Him. We don't think of God for things we can't understand but look at the obvious fact that things all around us are designed. To say that the world around this came together as a result of blind forces is to me about as ridiculous as saying that the programs on my Apple Mac were programmed by blind forces.
> We do not call the supreme being.but he reveals himself to us as he has done to successive generations. As a Christian I believe that the supreme revelation came in Christ. *The proof that Christ was who he claimed to be lies in the historical fact of the resurrection.* Through Christ we can have a living relationship with God which is a further and clinching proof to me of the veracity of my faith.


You assert that my points are all wrong, but with the exception of the bolded bit the points you have made appear to be consistent with me. I am not seeing where you disagree with me.

The bold sentence is difficult to comprehend however. The resurrection is a historical fact? That is new to me. Can you expand on that a bit?


----------



## Wood

Vesuvius said:


> Haha, I guess we're having a bit of philosophical fun here, so I'll continue to defile myself. I'd suppose that the only way to know that god exist would be because of your very own existence. Without your own consciousness, there is no god… at least not for you. That's why it makes absolutely no sense at all when people talk of things outside of there own experience, because it simply doesn't exist for them. It's similar to talking about a pink unicorn riding a rainbow. The thought is fluffy, but the reality is weak.
> 
> Start with fully understanding yourself beyond your concepts, and see that everything else is simply a modification of your own being. That seems like the most honest way to go about things. Look at what you know… and that is purely that you exist right now. Hold on to that knowledge of existence and see what unfolds, or doesn't unfold. But you always solidly exist, that is the only fact of life….


Careful with that self-defilng: you may go blind. :lol:

Okay, now forgive me if I'm getting these two threads muddled up, but I think I see now that Millions wants us to listen to music with an empty and open mind. We do this already of course, when we try to get rid of those internal voices which interfere with a serious listening session.

However, in this case, the void is filled by the music. Millions doesn't want us to let music fill the void, our minds should remain empty. Music should be chosen which assists in achieving this state, hence the monotonous, no I mean monophonous, music.

Okay, so we are listening to some minimalist music, our minds are empty, we believe nothing other than that we exist.

Is that it? Do we just wait for a spiritual revelation, or is there anything else we need to do?


----------



## science

DavidA said:


> Yes there is faith in science. You've only got to read some of Dawkins' so-called science to realise that!


Well, maybe, but if you show that some theory depends on faith and that some other theory doesn't, science will take the latter.

However, let's try to be specific. I've read several of Dawkins' books so maybe we can figure out what's going on. What do you take to be "faith" in his ideas?


----------



## Wood

science said:


> Well, maybe, but if you show that some theory depends on faith and that some other theory doesn't, science will take the latter.
> 
> However, let's try to be specific. I've read several of Dawkins' books so maybe we can figure out what's going on. What do you take to be "faith" in his ideas?


I think I've seen Dawkins say something like he has faith in science to provide answers to the big questions.


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> Yes there is faith in science.


I agree. Curious how 'faith' as applied to your religion is solid evidence-based and logical, yet 'faith' as applied to Dawkins' trust in science is to be disparaged.

See what I mean about how the definition of 'faith' shifts according to who is wielding the word and to what end?


----------



## DavidA

MacLeod said:


> I agree. Curious how 'faith' as applied to your religion is solid evidence-based and logical, yet 'faith' as applied to Dawkins' trust in science is to be disparaged.
> 
> See what I mean about how the definition of 'faith' shifts according to who is wielding the word and to what end?


Sorry, but I thought you'd pick up I had used the word 'faith' wrt Dawkins in an ironic sense. The problem with Dawkins is that he doesn't stick to the proven facts of science. He also goes off into areas he knows nothing about. His 'faith' in his own lack of reason is touching!


----------



## science

Wood said:


> I think I've seen Dawkins say something like he has faith in science to provide answers to the big questions.


That'd be an interesting quote to analyze. I wonder if it was an off-the-cuff remark or something he'd thought through.

Anyway, depending on what he means by "the big questions," I would have to disagree with him. But if he only means matters of fact, then he is using "faith" as a rhetorical gambit at best. He probably doesn't mean he has faith in science regardless of any evidence one way or the other, he probably only means he "has faith" (probably "trust" would be better) because he's seen that it works.


----------



## science

DavidA said:


> Sorry, but I thought you'd pick up I had used the word 'faith' wrt Dawkins in an ironic sense. The problem with Dawkins is that he doesn't stick to the proven facts of science. He also goes off into areas he knows nothing about. His 'faith' in his own lack of reason is touching!


If you're talking about his polemics against religion, I guess he realizes that those aren't science; and he has a right to his opinion. (I'll grant he doesn't seem to understand religion. Of course I'd say the same of most people!)

But if you mean that he does bad science (using faith) when he's doing science, then you need to let the relevant experts know!


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> Sorry, but I thought you'd pick up I had used the word 'faith' wrt Dawkins in an ironic sense.


But I wasn't. I believe Dawkins _does _have faith in science.


----------



## Nereffid

science said:


> If you're talking about his polemics against religion, I guess he realizes that those aren't science; and he has a right to his opinion. (I'll grant he doesn't seem to understand religion. Of course I'd say the same of most people!)


I think if we've learned anything from this thread it's that religion is incredibly easy to understand. All you need to do is make up your own definition of what it is!


----------



## Guest

Nereffid said:


> I think if we've learned anything from this thread it's that religion is incredibly easy to understand. All you need to do is make up your own definition of what it is!


I enjoy the irony, but it does, of course, reflect a reality. I'm quite sure that if you were to hop along to your local church/temple/mosque and survey the understanding of the worshippers you find there, each one would bring their own distinctive interpretation to their religion (though most would fall short of claiming their variation as a definition).


----------



## Wood

science said:


> That'd be an interesting quote to analyze. I wonder if it was an off-the-cuff remark or something he'd thought through.
> 
> Anyway, depending on what he means by "the big questions," I would have to disagree with him. But if he only means matters of fact, then he is using "faith" as a rhetorical gambit at best. He probably doesn't mean he has faith in science regardless of any evidence one way or the other, he probably only means he "has faith" (probably "trust" would be better) because he's seen that it works.


I'm a bit hazy about it, but it was most likely an off-the-cuff remark in response to a Christian asking him if he had faith in anything or something like that.

I remember thinking it was a poor choice of words, and what he perhaps should have said is that he trusts science to get him the answers he seeks more than religion.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

> Originally Posted by DavidA
> Fine! Start with this:
> 
> http://www.uncommondescent.com/intel...acroevolution/
> Well, when he convinces most of his colleagues - well, people with the relevant expertise (which he may well have though his credentials are in other fields; "chemistry" hasn't been a single field since well before you or I or he was born) - he'll have me convinced too.
> 
> You don't have to convince me. I'm not an expert in the field. You have to convince the experts. What they agree to, I accept as most likely the best theory at the moment.
> 
> Originally Posted by DavidA
> When biologists and cosmologists tell us how cellular information can be produced by blind forces acting then they might have more credibility. Interesting that it was the fine tuning argument that led Anthony Flew to renounce his atheism
> I don't think you quite realise that scientists are also affected by their world view. We have the touching faith in science that it is entirely objective. It is not always so. What scientists believe is governed by their world views. For example, the postulate of the multiverse. There is absolutely no experimental scientific proof for this but many scientists have jumped on the band wagon, not because of science, but to bolster their worldview.
> Fortunately, the enterprise of science doesn't depend on scientists being unbiased. Nothing that depends on that is going to work well. It depends on aligning their incentives in (for the most part) the right way, so that the community as a whole can counteract its members biases. It's not the kind of thing that is going to consistently deliver perfect answers in a timely fashion - it's messy, it's complicated, it's contentious - but as long as the community continues to enforce the rules (no private revelation, repeatable results, an irrevocable end of your career if you're caught cheating) that get the incentives right, the community will stumble inevitably to better and better theories - closer and closer to "the truth" insofar as it can be known without private revelation.
> 
> Another thing to understand: science really doesn't do well at proving things. The body of knowledge properly called "scientific" isn't stuff that someone proved - it's the stuff that, in spite of significant efforts by people with the right tools and the right knowledge and the right motivation, no one has managed to disprove.
> 
> So there is no "faith" in science. It's not allowed. The imperative is to disprove everything we can possible disprove, and only reluctantly concede that what is left standing at the end of our best efforts is our best guess so far.


---

This isn't even my conversation, so I hope you'll forgive the unspeakeable discourtesy, but I liked what I read.

Yes: <Ping.> Popper.

http://www.amazon.com/Conjectures-R...9&sr=1-1&keywords=conjectures+and+refutations

http://www.amazon.com/Retreat-Commi...8&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=retreat+to+commitemnt

Induction is a myth. Hypothetico-deductive, conjecture-and-refutation, trial-and-error educated guess-work is what science_ is_.

Science exists because of the (best case) evidence; faith exists in spite of, and very often contrary _to_, the evidence.

-- And no, it isn't a matter of either having "faith" in science or "faith" in religions-- as if they were just different paradigms of arbitrary, socially-constructed belief systems.

Science can make engergy jump through hoops on command; it can build skyscrapers; it can deliver my B&W Nautaluses.

What can a prayer cloth do?


----------



## millionrainbows

New Conceptions of Musical Time *Linear time:* Music that imparts a sense of linear time seems to move towards goals. This quality permeates virtually all of Western music from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras. This is accomplished by processes which occur within tonal and metrical frameworks.
*Nonlinear time:* Music that evokes a sense of nonlinear time seems to stand still or evolve very slowly.

Western musicians first became aware of nonlinear time during the late 19th century. Debussy's encounter with Javanese gamelan music at the 1889 Paris Exhibition was a seminal event.

*Moment Form:* broken down connections between musical events in order to create a series of more or less discrete moments. Certain works of Stravinsky, Webern, Messiaen, and Stockhausen exemplify this approach.

*Vertical Time: *At the other extreme of the nonlinear continuum is music that maximizes consistency and minimizes articulation. Vertical time means that whatever structure that is in the music exists between simultaneous layers of sound, not between successive gestures. A virtually static moment is expanded to encompass an entire piece. A vertical piece does not exhibit large-scale closure. It does not begin, but merely starts. It does not build to a climax, does not set up internal expectations, does not seek to fulfill any expectations that might arise accidentally, does not build or release tension, and does not end, but simply ceases.
*Minimalism* exemplifies vertical time, but instead of absolute stasis, it generates constant motion. The sense of movement is so evenly paced, and the goals are so vague, that we usually lose our sense of perspective.

To the degree that religious music invokes a sacred state of being through its approach to time, it can produce 'real' results.

This is why Gregorian chant is more effective than LBV's Missa Solemnis in inducing calm and meditative states. Chant is 'timeless' because it is not progressing towards a goal as harmonic music is.

Harmonic music progresses toward a goal, using points of tension and resolution, through sonance.

Chant is more simplistic, and its tensions and resolutions are contained within shorter phrases, and as a whole is not seeking any long-term goal. In this sense it is a "moment" form.​


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## millionrainbows

science said:


> Unless you can do some really fair and concrete analysis - like, five thousand pages or so of really hardcore scholarly work - this is just a litany of your prejudices. I realize very well that you inherited this set of prejudices from the culture around you, but that culture itself is misinformed.
> 
> Here's an offer. Let's do some REAL work!
> 
> Let's just take one very specific and limited comparison and see if your generalizations can actually hold up.
> 
> For an Eastern tradition, take your pick of
> a) Neo-Confucianism in the Chosun Dynasty,
> b) medieval Indian Tantric Buddhism,
> c) Sikhism,
> d) Theravada Buddhism in 20th century Myanmar,
> e) Vaishnavite devotional Hinduism,
> f) Han Dynasty Confucianism,
> g) Korean Buddhism in the 3 Kingdoms period,
> h) Tang Dynasty Zen Buddhism,
> i) Japanese Zen Buddhism from the Meiji Restoration to the end of WWII;
> j) Burmese shamanism,
> k) Korean shamanism,
> l) religious traditions in the Khmer Empire,
> m) Song Dynasty Neo-Confucianism, or
> n) Japanese new religions.
> 
> For an "Abrahamic" tradition, take your pick of
> a) 16th-century Anabaptists,
> b) Byzantine hesychasts,
> c) Russian hesychasts,
> d) 17th and 18th century Quakers,
> e) early medieval Celtic Christianity,
> f) Byzantine Christians in the fifth and sixth centuries,
> g) the Franciscan movement up to Savonarola,
> h) 12th and 13th century Catholic Scholasticism,
> i) French Catholicism under the Bourbons,
> j) 17th century Anglicanism,
> k) Renaissance esotericism,
> l) Medieval Kabbalah,
> m) 2nd temple Judaism,
> n) Islam in the Abbasid period,
> o) Hasidic Judaism,
> p) Islamic Sunni fundamentalism in the 20th century,
> q) American 19th century Protestant Christianity,
> r) Shiite Islam in the 20th century, or
> s) 20th century Latin American Catholicism.
> 
> So that's a bit of brainstorming by me; you can offer alternatives if you want. For lots of fun, we might even consider doing a third tradition that crosses some of the implied boundaries, such as medieval Chinese Christianity, or the Taiping Rebellion, or Korean Catholicism, or Korean Protestantism, or Islam in the Ming Dynasty.
> 
> You pick one tradition from each side, and together we'll explore the original sources as well as recent (say, 1970 or later - the more recent the better, of course) scholarship on it. If after exploring each tradition in the kind of depth that an undergraduate course would attempt we find that the Western tradition really wasn't just as brimming with diversity and originality and introspection as the Eastern tradition, and that the Eastern tradition wasn't just as socio-politically strategic and concerned with tradition as the Western one, then for the rest of my life I will not challenge you when you assert this set of prejudices.
> 
> Plus, regardless of our conclusions, we'll learn some concrete, actual things!


Uhh, no thanks. It seems to me that everyone here is lost in the details and externals. My earlier thread on "time" is enough. Check out my blogs as well.


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## science

DavidA said:


> Your post shows a complete misunderstanding of the Christian position which is not surprising from your reading material!


You're a veritable fountain of bon mots! Do you mean Kierkegaard is the reading material leading me astray?


----------



## science

Incidentally, anyone read _Either/Or_?

Near the beginning of it "A" gives a fascinating analysis of the process of enjoying Mozart's _Don Giovanni_.


----------



## DavidA

science said:


> You're a veritable fountain of bon mots! Do you mean Kierkegaard is the reading material leading me astray?


People like Kierkegaard have the uncanny knack of complicating what should be simple. Just look at the teaching of Jesus. So simple a child could understand yet so profound it baffled the greatest teachers of the day. I'm afraid these guys like Kierkegaard, for all their lofty intellectual pretensions, miss the point. Of course, it makes us feel I clever that we read them. But then our understanding is not based on our cleverness or even our learning.


----------



## DavidA

Just to say that to do any kind of science you have to gave faith in an orderly and rational universe which implies a rational mind behind it. Why Kepler said 'we are thinking God's thoughts after him.' The scientific fathers took that as read.


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> People like Kierkegaard have the uncanny knack of complicating what should be simple. Just look at the teaching of Jesus. So simple a child could understand yet so profound it baffled the greatest teachers of the day. I'm afraid these guys like Kierkegaard, for all their lofty intellectual pretensions, miss the point. Of course, it makes us feel I clever that we read them. But then our understanding is not based on our cleverness.


People like Kierkegaard thought and wrote in response to the long tradition of thinkers and writers that had gone before (as well, of course, in response to personal experience). It is that which is most complicated, though that does not render it worthless. It is highly simplistic to suggest that a child could understand what the philosophers could not.


----------



## Mahlerian

DavidA said:


> People like Kierkegaard have the uncanny knack of complicating what should be simple. Just look at the teaching of Jesus. So simple a child could understand yet so profound it baffled the greatest teachers of the day. I'm afraid these guys like Kierkegaard, for all their lofty intellectual pretensions, miss the point. Of course, it makes us feel I clever that we read them. But then our understanding is not based on our cleverness or even our learning.


Kierkegaard's work actually exists to knock down many of the intellectual pretensions of people like Hegel (and express his various neuroses and layers of doubt...).


----------



## DavidA

MacLeod said:


> People like Kierkegaard thought and wrote in response to the long tradition of thinkers and writers that had gone before (as well, of course, in response to personal experience). It is that which is most complicated, though that does not render it worthless. It is highly simplistic to suggest that a child could understand what the philosophers could not.


The problem s that philosophers tend to complicate what should be simple. And I beLieve it was Jesus himself who said that unless you become as a little child you cannot see the kingdom of God!
Of course, Christian doctrine of revelation, far from making the human mind unnecessary, actually makes it indispensable but assigns to it its proper place. God has revealed himself in words to minds. His revelation is a rational revelation to rational creatures. Our duty is to receive his message, to submit to it, to seek to understand it and to relate it to the world in which we live. The greatest mistake we can make, IMO, is to try and place our minds above what God has revealed.


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> The problem s that philosophers tend to complicate what should be simple.


I don't see why it should be simple. Sure you can reduce the teaching of Jesus to something simple - as he did- but deciding whether he is the son of god, and, beyond that, whether there is a god, is not simple at all.


----------



## DavidA

MacLeod said:


> I don't see why it should be simple. Sure you can reduce the teaching of Jesus to something simple - as he did- but deciding whether he is the son of god, and, beyond that, whether there is a god, is not simple at all.


I can't see what is complicated. If you believe his teachings then you believe he is the Son of God.


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## Guest

DavidA said:


> I can't see what is complicated. If you believe his teachings then you believe he is the Son of God.


No. That might be so for you, but it's not an objective truth. I can accept, "Love thy neighbour as thyself," without having to accept any other proposition.


----------



## DavidA

MacLeod said:


> No. That might be so for you, but it's not an objective truth. I can accept, "Love thy neighbour as thyself," without having to accept any other proposition.


You mean you pick and choose!


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> You mean you pick and choose!


Shocking, eh. But since I don't profess to be a Christian, I'm free to do so.


----------



## millionrainbows

So, back to the original question, "Is religious music real?"

By "real" I mean that it can induce a* real *state of mind which brings us closer to a sacred state.

Not all Western music is designed to be real, in this sense. It tends to extrovert into a 'religious fervor' which is outward-directed. It can be inspiring; it can excite and bolster our belief; it can proclaim its belief loudly, with magnificence, but I do not consider this outward excitement to be the ideal sacred state. Furthermore, I assert that religion, any religion, is best used as a mirror for improving one's character; otherwise, it tends to project on to other people, and begin serving agendas, which I think is not the true purpose of religion. It should be a tool to enhance our spirituality, not to control other people. Anyone who has any protests that Western religion has been used for control need only to look at history, or at the way Islam has exerted a great degree of control over the countries it is used in.

Handel's Messiah and LBV's Missa Solemnis are both examples of narrative works which are not designed primarily to induce or enhance a sacred state, but are serving a textual and scriptural function, as proclamations of belief.

It should be clear by now that I see belief as a cognitive tool, not a spiritual one. Belief is a conviction, an assumption, rather than a state of being. Belief is of the mind, not the being or spirit.

J.S. Bach's organ music, being instrumental, is much more effective in a general way in inducing a sacred state of awe.


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## science

DavidA said:


> Just to say that to do any kind of science you have to gave faith in an orderly and rational universe which implies a rational mind behind it. Why Kepler said 'we are thinking God's thoughts after him.' The scientific fathers took that as read.


Yeah, it still feels that way, so I can understand how Kepler would feel in an age when almost no one could imagine - and absolutely no one could speak - a skeptical position.

But you're wrong about having faith in an orderly and rational universe. You could even say that in a real way modern physics has found that the universe is irrational.

But more to the point, it doesn't take "faith" to see order in the universe. There are cycles of seasons, of day and night, of the moon phases, of tides, of the apparent motion of the celestial sphere, that are obviously fairly orderly. If you plant wheat, you don't harvest rice; you don't see plants spontaneously grow wings and fly away, or birds sprout fruit. The regularity of the universe is a matter of observation, and science doesn't actually assume it: if you do a study and find no correlation between your variables, you've (at least for the moment) failed to find some order that you hoped to find. It could happen that in some aspect of the universe we fail to find any correlations, that everything is random, and then we would probably eventually conclude that there is no apparent order there.

I believe that some cosmologists have even speculated that we live in a "pocked of order" in a disorderly universe, but this might be something I misunderstood or misremember so if that's not right it's not too serious.

And finally, the human mind is a pattern-seeking thing. It even imagines patterns were there aren't any. It doesn't take faith to look for order in the world, it merely takes a human mind. (If you say, "Why is the human mind a pattern-seeking thing?" The answer is, "Because the genes to make the brain that does it evolved in fairly orderly ecosystems.")

Perhaps a better question is, why is the universe orderly? Perhaps there is a human intuition that chaos is more natural, that order has to be imposed by a human-like mind (such as that of an anthropomorphic god). That intuition lines up with a lot of our experience - things fall apart - but not all of it. All kinds of patterns happen naturally, given certain conditions. We don't need to posit a design to explain tides, seasons, any of those patterns I mentioned earlier.

I am not sure whether the apparent fundamental rationality (or mathiness) of the universe is a thing that requires explanation. Maybe it is. Maybe there's no other way anything could be.


----------



## DavidA

MacLeod said:


> Shocking, eh. But since I don't profess to be a Christian, I'm free to do so.


Of course. Not even God makes people believe!


----------



## DavidA

science said:


> Yeah, it still feels that way, so I can understand how Kepler would feel in an age when almost no one could imagine - and absolutely no one could speak - a skeptical position.
> 
> But you're wrong about having faith in an orderly and rational universe. You could even say that in a real way modern physics has found that the universe is irrational.
> 
> But more to the point, it doesn't take "faith" to see order in the universe. There are cycles of seasons, of day and night, of the moon phases, of tides, of the apparent motion of the celestial sphere, that are obviously fairly orderly. If you plant wheat, you don't harvest rice; you don't see plants spontaneously grow wings and fly away, or birds sprout fruit. The regularity of the universe is a matter of observation, and science doesn't actually assume it: if you do a study and find no correlation between your variables, you've (at least for the moment) failed to find some order that you hoped to find. It could happen that in some aspect of the universe we fail to find any correlations, that everything is random, and then we would probably eventually conclude that there is no apparent order there.
> 
> I believe that some cosmologists have even speculated that we live in a "pocked of order" in a disorderly universe, but this might be something I misunderstood or misremember so if that's not right it's not too serious.
> 
> And finally, the human mind is a pattern-seeking thing. It even imagines patterns were there aren't any. It doesn't take faith to look for order in the world, it merely takes a human mind. (If you say, "Why is the human mind a pattern-seeking thing?" The answer is, "Because the genes to make the brain that does it evolved in fairly orderly ecosystems.")
> 
> Perhaps a better question is, why is the universe orderly? Perhaps there is a human intuition that chaos is more natural, that order has to be imposed by a human-like mind (such as that of an anthropomorphic god). That intuition lines up with a lot of our experience - things fall apart - but not all of it. All kinds of patterns happen naturally, given certain conditions. We don't need to posit a design to explain tides, seasons, any of those patterns I mentioned earlier.
> 
> I am not sure whether the apparent fundamental rationality (or mathiness) of the universe is a thing that requires explanation. Maybe it is. Maybe there's no other way anything could be.


Of course it doesn't take faith to see order in the universe. You miss the point entirely. It doesn't take faith to see that order is the product of a rational mind. Don't put too much 'faith' in the speculations of cosmologists, btw.

Why on earth do you think the human mind is a pattern-seeking thing? Especially as you believe we are a product of blind, unthinking forces? We seek patterns because we are designed that way.

Well, you can speculate about your gods but it all adds up to a circular argument.


----------



## science

DavidA said:


> People like Kierkegaard have the uncanny knack of complicating what should be simple. Just look at the teaching of Jesus. So simple a child could understand yet so profound it baffled the greatest teachers of the day. I'm afraid these guys like Kierkegaard, for all their lofty intellectual pretensions, miss the point. Of course, it makes us feel I clever that we read them. But then our understanding is not based on our cleverness or even our learning.


The anti-intellectual thing doesn't do anything for me. Granted that Jesus' teachings themselves are simple - let us know the next time you visit someone in prison! - the world isn't simple, and the last time Christianity itself was simple was before Paul started trying to figure out what God's plan for the gentiles and Jews would be given the resurrection and temporary disappearance of the crucified Messiah. And with the idea of an incarnation, all simplicity was abandoned forever. It's not just Kierkegaard, it's Origen, Cyril of Alexandria, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzus, Maximus Confessor, Augustine of Hippo... Aquinas... Luther, Calvin... Barth, Tillich, Bulgakov... and the good people at talkclassical!

The anti-intellectual thing made more sense in a world where poor people had less access to basic information than wealthy people had. But in the age of google and wikipedia, there is no excuse for glorifying ignorance. Or, I could understand just saying, "I don't know, I haven't thought about this," or "I don't know, I haven't studied this," or something along those lines. We don't all have to study everything. But, "theology is bunk because things ought to be simple" is a sentiment I cannot celebrate in 2014. You have every right to say it, but at least from my POV it puts ID and any of your other beliefs in an unflattering light.


----------



## science

DavidA said:


> Of course it doesn't take faith to see order in the universe. You miss the point entirely. It doesn't take faith to see that order is the product of a rational mind. Don't put too much 'faith' in the speculations of cosmologists, btw.
> 
> Why on earth do you think the human mind is a pattern-seeking thing? Especially as you believe we are a product of blind, unthinking forces? We seek patterns because we are designed that way.
> 
> Well, you can speculate about your gods but it all adds up to a circular argument.


Well, you had said that scientists had to have faith in an orderly universe. Just to be clear, you've changed your mind about that?


----------



## mmsbls

Science is rather complicated, but it is a truly wonderful endeavor.



DavidA said:


> For example, the postulate of the multiverse. There is absolutely no experimental scientific proof for this but many scientists have jumped on the band wagon, not because of science, but to bolster their worldview.


The multiverse is an enormously complicated theory. It's true that there is no present _evidence_ to support the theory (there no such thing as scientific proof). Physicists speculate about the multiverse theory because two theories (one with overwhelming evidence supporting it and one with almost no evidence) strongly suggest that a multiverse could exist. The multiverse no more stems from a worldview than the initial theory of anti-matter did. They both came from predictions of theories. One has been verified, and the other has not.



DavidA said:


> Yes there is faith in science. You've only got to read some of Dawkins' so-called science to realise that!


I'm not sure if you have read any of Dawkins peer reviewed papers (i.e. his science), but I personally have not seen much faith exhibited in them. I have also read his books which contain some philosophy and speculation. There may be faith in those parts, but those would not qualify as science (as your term "so-called" suggests).



DavidA said:


> Just to say that to do any kind of science you have to gave faith in an orderly and rational universe which implies a rational mind behind it.


I have done science for most of my life. I do not have faith in an orderly and rational universe. I perceive an orderly universe through measurements. Because I see the universe as orderly, I use science to try to understand it by making models and theories and then testing them. Because the universe is orderly, science is possible. I'm not sure what's meant by a rational universe. If you mean that scientific laws can describe it, I don't know why that would imply any kind of _mind_ (rational or otherwise) behind it.


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> We seek patterns because we are designed that way.


We seek patterns because we evolved that way. In a search for a designer we cannot assume there is one - that's circular!


----------



## millionrainbows

*Messiaen* is a good example of music which intends to produce a 'real' effect in the listener, through a sense of timelessness. This makes Messiaen's music more accessible to a broad range of listeners, not just Catholics or Christians.

Messiaen was a French Catholic mystic, and so his music is 'religious' in its ideology and subject matter, in the traditional Christian Western sense. I don't think any reasonable traditionalist would argue with those 'givens.' The Resurrection, the Ascension, the Crucifixion, it's all there.

Yet, Messiaen was influenced by Eastern musical cultures: the Gamelon scales of Bali, the rhythmic devices of North India, etc.

Messiaen's music has no harmonic development. It is vertical in concept, concerned with color, timbre, and a series of 'events' rather than a 'development to a goal through time.'

If anyone doubts this, they can read a book on Messiaen:










So, Messiaen wanted to create a sense of 'timelessness' with his music, which is especially appropriate for his subject matter.

I hope that Messiaen serves as an example; an example which shows that "not all Eastern-influenced music" has to be about trance-like states or Buddhism; it can also be about Christian concepts.

This is what I'm trying to illuminate: that the sense of the sacred can be induced in the listener, and that this 'real' effect should ideally be the goal of all religious or sacred music.

Otherwise, religious music which is simply a setting of text, or is designed to proclaim a belief system, is in actuality really more concerned with "pushing an agenda" than it is with actually getting us in touch with our sacred nature and being. In this sense, it is 'propaganda' which is serving an ideological power-based agenda.

Sacred music of the present day is more apt to free itself from this ideological trap, since the power of the church has been replaced with other power-based systems of control.

Also, since the subjective 'sacred' state I speak of is individual, not a group-think, then it is more likely to escape the influence of power-based propaganda.


----------



## millionrainbows

The beautiful thing about art & music, ostensibly for all of us here at TalkClassical, is that it allows us to focus on the moment, to be a point moving through time, in joyous ignorance of the cognitive, ideological, and philosophical quandaries we tend to spiral into...let us simply 'be' here in the moment, and set all thought aside. In that sense, music is definitely a sacred tool, a means of focusing our being.


----------



## Wood

millionrainbows said:


> The beautiful thing about art & music, ostensibly for all of us here at TalkClassical, is that it allows us to focus on the moment, to be a point moving through time, in joyous ignorance of the cognitive, ideological, and philosophical quandaries we tend to spiral into...let us simply 'be' here in the moment, and set all thought aside. *In that sense, music is definitely a sacred tool, a means of focusing our being.*


The first sentence, yes, for sure.

The bolded bit requires a jump of logic to get there from the first. You will always have that jump when you invoke God. And that is when you lose people.


----------



## Svelte Silhouette

This must infringe on the thread about the universal characteristics of sacred music.

Is it real or is it Memorex.


----------



## DavidA

science said:


> Well, you had said that scientists had to have faith in an orderly universe. Just to be clear, you've changed your mind about that?


No. Perhaps I didn't express it too well. Scientists start from the assumption that the universe is basically orderly.


----------



## DavidA

mmsbls said:


> Science is rather complicated, but it is a truly wonderful endeavor.
> 
> The multiverse is an enormously complicated theory. It's true that there is no present _evidence_ to support the theory (there no such thing as scientific proof). Physicists speculate about the multiverse theory because two theories (one with overwhelming evidence supporting it and one with almost no evidence) strongly suggest that a multiverse could exist. The multiverse no more stems from a worldview than the initial theory of anti-matter did. They both came from predictions of theories. One has been verified, and the other has not.
> 
> I'm not sure if you have read any of Dawkins peer reviewed papers (i.e. his science), but I personally have not seen much faith exhibited in them. I have also read his books which contain some philosophy and speculation. There may be faith in those parts, but those would not qualify as science (as your term "so-called" suggests).
> 
> I have done science for most of my life. I do not have faith in an orderly and rational universe. I perceive an orderly universe through measurements. Because I see the universe as orderly, I use science to try to understand it by making models and theories and then testing them. Because the universe is orderly, science is possible. I'm not sure what's meant by a rational universe. If you mean that scientific laws can describe it, I don't know why that would imply any kind of _mind_ (rational or otherwise) behind it.


But your very measurements assume an orderly universe. Without it science is impossible! If you cannot see a rational mind behind order then you deny the very order you propose.


----------



## DavidA

MacLeod said:


> We seek patterns because we evolved that way. In a search for a designer we cannot assume there is one - that's circular!


So our evolution which is the result of blind and unguided forces leads us to seek patterns. Hmmmm!


----------



## Wood

DavidA said:


> So our evolution which is the result of blind and unguided forces leads us to seek patterns. Hmmmm!


Your 'logic' is so funny.

Why do you not answer the points raised in a direct manner?


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## Svelte Silhouette

Is anything real or am I a figment of all your imaginations or you one of mine in dream sleep. 

If anything is real then religious music has as much right to be real as the next thing.


----------



## Blake




----------



## mmsbls

DavidA said:


> No. Perhaps I didn't express it too well. Scientists start from the assumption that the universe is basically orderly.





DavidA said:


> But your very measurements assume an orderly universe. Without it science is impossible! If you cannot see a rational mind behind order then you deny the very order you propose.


Scientists do not propose or assume order. People look at the universe and discover order. It could have been otherwise. And yes, because the universe has order, science is possible.

Scientists can't deny the order they see. It is simply there. But there's certainly no reason why a mind must have created that order. Are you perhaps confusing an innate purpose for the universe with simple order?


----------



## DavidA

mmsbls said:


> Scientists do not propose or assume order. People look at the universe and discover order. It could have been otherwise. And yes, because the universe has order, science is possible.
> 
> Scientists can't deny the order they see. It is simply there. But there's certainly no reason why a mind must have created that order. Are you perhaps confusing an innate purpose for the universe with simple order?


I see every reason why a mind must have created the order. In fact it is illogical to assume the order has not been created. 
I see every reason that intelligence must have conceived the information we know is around us (and in us) in every cell. 
When I look at the computer in front of me I have every reason to believe that the mind designed it and also designed the software. That's simply to me is common sense. You are saying that something which is far more complicated was designed by blind forces which never seems to make sense.


----------



## mmsbls

DavidA said:


> When I look at the computer in front of me I have every reason to believe that the mind designed it and also designed the software. That's simply to me is common sense. You are saying that something which is far more complicated was designed by blind forces which never seems to make sense.


Why are you so concerned with common sense when trying to understand reality? Do you think that quantum physics has anything whatsoever to do with common sense? Quantum physics has a lot to do with computers, but little to do with common sense. One can learn fairly little about special relativity, general relativity, even electromagnetic theory using common sense. The world is a very complicated place, and common sense can only help in limited areas.

I doubt we'll make any progress here. We have rather different ways of trying to understand reality, and therefore, our explanations carry little weight with the other.


----------



## Nereffid

DavidA said:


> I see every reason why a mind must have created the order. In fact it is illogical to assume the order has not been created.
> I see every reason that intelligence must have conceived the information we know is around us (and in us) in every cell.
> When I look at the computer in front of me I have every reason to believe that the mind designed it and also designed the software. That's simply to me is common sense. You are saying that something which is far more complicated was designed by blind forces which never seems to make sense.


"Because that's just the way it is" can be a rather exasperating and unsatisfying explanation for the order observed in the universe, certainly. But explaining this order by saying it was created by an outside intelligence is, for me, even less satisfying because now there's an extra layer of interpretation that _still_ leads us to "Because that's just the way it is". And I'm left wondering why - given the vast scale (time and space) of the universe compared with human existence - this extraordinarily powerful intelligence is believed to require us to (for example) cut off our children's foreskins or not eat meat on Fridays.


----------



## Wood

A debate on any issue requires respect for the opposite POV, and the ability to engage the other party's points and questions.

We are not seeing that here.


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> So our evolution which is the result of blind and unguided forces leads us to seek patterns. Hmmmm!


You're fond of the concept of 'blindness' as a descriptor for evolution. It's not a very helpful one, since its opposite is 'sight', something not possessed by systems at all. As for 'unguided' - that's not the case either. For example, once the egg is fertilised by the sperm, a whole chain of events unfolds, 'guided' by no-one, and with nothing in charge that has 'sight': it just happens.


----------



## DavidA

mmsbls said:


> Why are you so concerned with common sense when trying to understand reality? Do you think that quantum physics has anything whatsoever to do with common sense? Quantum physics has a lot to do with computers, but little to do with common sense. One can learn fairly little about special relativity, general relativity, even electromagnetic theory using common sense. The world is a very complicated place, and common sense can only help in limited areas.
> 
> I doubt we'll make any progress here. We have rather different ways of trying to understand reality, and therefore, our explanations carry little weight with the other.


Looking at the very complicated nature of how matter behaves, it is quite obvious a complex mind is behind it and not blind forces. Unless, of course, Bill Gates employs blind forces to write his programmes!


----------



## DavidA

Nereffid said:


> "Because that's just the way it is" can be a rather exasperating and unsatisfying explanation for the order observed in the universe, certainly. But explaining this order by saying it was created by an outside intelligence is, for me, even less satisfying because now there's an extra layer of interpretation that _still_ leads us to "Because that's just the way it is". And I'm left wondering why - given the vast scale (time and space) of the universe compared with human existence - this extraordinarily powerful intelligence is believed to require us to (for example) cut off our children's foreskins or not eat meat on Fridays.


If you can tell me just where God tells us not to eat meat on Fridays I'd be interested!


----------



## DavidA

MacLeod said:


> You're fond of the concept of 'blindness' as a descriptor for evolution. It's not a very helpful one, since its opposite is 'sight', something not possessed by systems at all. As for 'unguided' - that's not the case either. For example, once the egg is fertilised by the sperm, a whole chain of events unfolds, 'guided' by no-one, and with nothing in charge that has 'sight': it just happens.


But what is the first cause? Chemical evolution? Just doesn't work!


----------



## Guest

I don't know what the first cause is and nor do you. You are happy to shortcut to god. Others are working on other theories.


----------



## Wood

This is becoming a comedy thread.

Pseudo-intellectual battles on TC always seem to end up funny.


----------



## DavidA

MacLeod said:


> I don't know what the first cause is and nor do you. You are happy to shortcut to god. Others are working on other theories.


What do you shortcut to - nothing made something?


----------



## millionrainbows

Wood said:


> The first sentence, yes, for sure.
> 
> The bolded bit requires a jump of logic to get there from the first. You will always have that jump when you invoke God. And that is when you lose people.


Oh, I don't think so, not just because of that word. My concept of God is very flexible. I saw this manifest in the form of a green lizard, today. And, yes, I'm sure I will lose a few ideological die-hards along the way. I guess I'll just have to pick up the pieces and go forward.


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> What do you shortcut to - nothing made something?


I don't shortcut anywhere...I don't pretend to have an answer or understand the complex scientific theories on offer either.


----------



## Nereffid

DavidA said:


> If you can tell me just where God tells us not to eat meat on Fridays I'd be interested!


Actually that's my point. As an atheist I'm willing to accept the possibility that some outside intelligence created the universe, but as far as I'm concerned this has absolutely nothing to do with all the trappings of religion and the "sacred". To get from a being that's capable of setting all the laws of physics in motion to one who requires that one particular species out of millions on a particular planet out of (presumably) billions must obey certain very specific laws "or else"... well, when the earth and the sky were all we knew it might have made some kind of logical sense, but now it's such a tremendous leap I'm not sure why anyone still feels the need to go there. The "God" notion might have originated in an attempt to explain the origins of the world but, now that science has squeezed the gaps smaller and smaller, it's no longer fit for purpose.

(And your attempt to focus on the most trivial detail of what I said is duly noted).


----------



## DavidA

Nereffid said:


> Actually that's my point. As an atheist I'm willing to accept the possibility that some outside intelligence created the universe, but as far as I'm concerned this has absolutely nothing to do with all the trappings of religion and the "sacred". To get from a being that's capable of setting all the laws of physics in motion to one who requires that one particular species out of millions on a particular planet out of (presumably) billions must obey certain very specific laws "or else"... well, when the earth and the sky were all we knew it might have made some kind of logical sense, but now it's such a tremendous leap I'm not sure why anyone still feels the need to go there. The "God" notion might have originated in an attempt to explain the origins of the world but, now that science has squeezed the gaps smaller and smaller, it's no longer fit for purpose.
> 
> (And your attempt to focus on the most trivial detail of what I said is duly noted).


What you are actually saying us that if you can't understand something with your limited human intelligence then it cannot exist. 
Interesting the 'God' you quote a the 'God of the gaps' that fills in what we don't understand. I don't believe in that 'god' either!
Like most atheists you disbelieve in the wrong 'god'!


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> What you are actually saying us that if you can't understand something with your limited human intelligence then it cannot exist.
> Interesting the 'God' you quote a the 'God of the gaps' that fills in what we don't understand. I don't believe in that 'god' either!
> Like most atheists you disbelieve in the wrong 'god'!


For this to be a fair debate,

You'd be better giving some organised evidenced responses to the ideas with which you disagree.

You'd have to stop making sweeping and potentially insulting generalisations about those who hold those ideas (such as the atheists you refer to in your last post. I don't think I've seen any poster offer dismissive generalisations about Christians or any other group of people who believe in a god, but if they have, they too should desist).

You'd have to give some explanation of the god that you believe in, so that those who wish to express disagreement have something specific to consider.


----------



## Nereffid

DavidA said:


> Like most atheists you disbelieve in the wrong 'god'!


Which god is the right one? Thor? 



> What you are actually saying us that if you can't understand something with your limited human intelligence then it cannot exist.


Not sure where you got that from, but I will say that if something is genuinely beyond human understanding, then any attempt by humans to explain it will be a failure.


----------



## millionrainbows

MacLeod said:


> For this to be a fair debate,
> 
> You'd be better giving some organised evidenced responses to the ideas with which you disagree.
> 
> You'd have to stop making sweeping and *potentially insulting generalisations *about those who hold those ideas (such as the atheists you refer to in your last post. I don't think I've seen any poster offer *dismissive generalisations *about Christians or any other group of people who believe in a god, but if they have, they too should desist).
> 
> You'd have to give some explanation of the god that you believe in, so that those who wish to express disagreement have something specific to consider.


That's a new one. I thought only _personal_ remarks were insults, and were infraction-worthy.


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> That's a new one. I thought only _personal_ remarks were insults, and were infraction-worthy.


Who said anything about infractions? I was talking about a fair debate.


----------



## DavidA

Nereffid said:


> Which god is the right one? Thor?
> 
> e.


Certainly not the one you don't believe in!


----------



## Blake

DavidA said:


> Certainly not the one you don't believe in!


Haha, this is kinda' cleverly funny.

Athiest - "I don't believe in god."

DavidA - "Sure you do. Just not the one you don't believe in."

:lol:


----------



## DavidA

MacLeod said:


> For this to be a fair debate,
> 
> You'd be better giving some organised evidenced responses to the ideas with which you disagree.
> 
> You'd have to stop making sweeping and potentially insulting generalisations about those who hold those ideas (such as the atheists you refer to in your last post. I don't think I've seen any poster offer dismissive generalisations about Christians or any other group of people who believe in a god, but if they have, they too should desist).
> 
> You'd have to give some explanation of the god that you believe in, so that those who wish to express disagreement have something specific to consider.


I have generally found that atheists actually tend themselves to make make so-called sweeping generalisations about believers. 
Without trying to return too much in kind, I have found atheism is itself generally a very narrow outlook. As the astrophysicist, Sir John Polkinghorne, said, "I don't think that atheists are stupid, but I do believe theism explains more." 
Atheism always seems to me to be the incredulity that there might be something (or someone) beyond our understanding. That IMO is a very narrow view. After all, there is an awful lot of the material universe we don't comprehend for a start! But because we don't comprehend it we don't disbelieve in it!


----------



## Blake

It simply depends on how logical you're disposition is. If you believe in anything without empirical evidence then that's not very logical. But what exactly are the regulations of what is empirical and what is not? If I experience some profound Kundalini awakening, but I can't scientifically explain or theorize about it... Well, it would be empirical for me, yet no one else. But does that make it less real?


----------



## DavidA

Vesuvius said:


> Haha, this is kinda' cleverly funny.
> 
> Athiest - "I don't believe in god."
> 
> DavidA - "Sure you do. Just not the one you don't believe in."
> 
> :lol:


If you're going to quote me, friend, please actually quote what I say!


----------



## DavidA

Vesuvius said:


> It simply depends on how logical you're disposition is. If you believe in anything without empirical evidence then that's not very logical. But what exactly are the regulations of what is empirical and what is not? If I experience some profound Kundalini awakening, but I can't scientifically explain or theorize about it... Well, it would be empirical for me, yet no one else. But does that make it less real?


I have never seen any convincing empirical or logical evidence for atheism!


----------



## Blake

DavidA said:


> If you're going to quote me, friend, please actually quote what I say!


I did, brother-man. I added a couple words to clarify your implication, but that is exactly what you said. Well... maybe not exactly. 

But I had your quote pasted above what I said, so there really shouldn't be any confusion here.


----------



## KenOC

DavidA said:


> I have never seen any convincing empirical or logical evidence for atheism!


And I have never seen any empirical or logical evidence for the non-existence of flying pigs. But the burden of proof normally rests with the affirmative position! This should probably start with a sound definition of "God".


----------



## Wood

Vesuvius said:


> Haha, this is kinda' cleverly funny.
> 
> :lol:


I told you all, up there, but as long as it persists, I'm being entertained.

Keep going.


----------



## Blake

Wood said:


> I told you all, up there, but as long as it persists, I'm being entertained.
> 
> Keep going.


It is rather entertainment. But not like a show-monkey kind of funny. I respect DavidA's position, and it's obviously hard to put into rational limitations the more abstract beliefs.


----------



## Guest

Vesuvius said:


> It is rather entertainment. But not like a show-monkey kind of funny. I respect DavidA's position, and it's obviously hard to put into rational limitations the more abstract beliefs.


I'm glad you understand DavidA's position well enough. His position is about rejecting atheism, but he doesn't say much about what he embraces.


----------



## Fratello

this topic will remain a battle field till the end of time !
anyway I feel like the so called religious music , is nothing but a big advertisement for the religion !


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> I have generally found that atheists actually tend themselves to make make so-called sweeping generalisations about believers.


I could argue that "I have found that Christians actually tend themselves..." etc but I don't see how it advances fair debate.



DavidA said:


> Without trying to return too much in kind,


Return too much of what, and to whom? Me? Those general atheists?



DavidA said:


> I have found atheism is itself generally a very narrow outlook.


Arguably, atheism _is _a 'narrow outlook'! Depending where you like to put your negatives, it's either a belief that there is no god, or a disbelief that there is one.


----------



## DavidA

KenOC said:


> And I have never seen any empirical or logical evidence for the non-existence of flying pigs. But the burden of proof normally rests with the affirmative position! d".


I have found that this often an argument made by atheists as they know there is no logical or empirical evidence for their own beliefs.


----------



## DavidA

Vesuvius said:


> I did, brother-man. I added a couple words to clarify your implication, but that is exactly what you said. Well... maybe not exactly.
> 
> But I had your quote pasted above what I said, so there really shouldn't be any confusion here.


No, you quoted me then said I'd said something different! But no matter!


----------



## Nereffid

DavidA said:


> I have found that this often an argument made by atheists as they know there is no logical or empirical evidence for their own beliefs.


But I don't see my atheism as a "belief".
I was raised in what I guess was a fairly typical Irish Catholic household of the 1970s. Becoming agnostic/atheist wasn't a case of rejecting one belief and adopting another: it was simply rejecting one belief. I know now, with children of my own, that the deciding factor in whether one believes in God is whether one grows up in an environment where it's assumed that God exists.
I "don't believe in the Christian God" in exactly the same way as you "don't believe in Thor".


----------



## Wood

Vesuvius said:


> It is rather entertainment. But not like a show-monkey kind of funny. I respect DavidA's position, and it's obviously hard to put into rational limitations the more abstract beliefs.


I always find this debate becomes entertaining when someone of faith tries to justify their belief system on rational grounds, and then the atheists engage with him. I respect the Members in the debate, but neither position seems logical, so it is fun to watch it go round and round and round and round and round.


----------



## Guest

Wood said:


> I always find this debate becomes entertaining when someone of faith tries to justify their belief system on rational grounds, and then the atheists engage with him. I respect the Members in the debate, but neither position seems logical, so it is fun to watch it go round and round and round and round and round.


It's the quality of the debate that concerns me, not the "positions" being held. Logic has nothing to do with it.


----------



## Wood

MacLeod said:


> It's the quality of the debate that concerns me, not the "positions" being held. Logic has nothing to do with it.


A debate without logic? Love it.


----------



## millionrainbows

The thread question is "Is religious music real?" In other words, does it induce a 'real' effect on the listener, which is more real than a belief system or ideology. In other words, the 'real' effect must be based on a 'real' condition of being, rather than a cognitive, abstract thought-construction.

The 'debate' which rages here seems to have forgotten this basic state of being. No argument is needed to bolster the fact that we are beings who exist as beings. Ohm and by the way, that being is connected to the sacred. 

Now, can we find some examples of music which either reinforce this sacred being by inducing a sacred state, or those examples of music which are like a cognitive argument, and are less satisfying?


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> The thread question is "Is religious music real?" In other words, does it induce a 'real' effect on the listener, which is more real than a belief system or ideology. In other words, the 'real' effect must be based on a 'real' condition of being, rather than a cognitive, abstract thought-construction.
> 
> The 'debate' which rages here seems to have forgotten this basic state of being. No argument is needed to bolster the fact that we are beings who exist as beings. Ohm and by the way, that being is connected to the sacred.
> 
> Now, can we find some examples of music which either reinforce this sacred being by inducing a sacred state, or those examples of music which are like a cognitive argument, and are less satisfying?


As I don't accept your basic premise, my answer has to be, 'No.' There is no such thing as either a sacred being or a sacred state. Therefore, there is no music that can induce it.


----------



## DavidA

Nereffid said:


> But I don't see my atheism as a "belief".
> I was raised in what I guess was a fairly typical Irish Catholic household of the 1970s. Becoming agnostic/atheist wasn't a case of rejecting one belief and adopting another: it was simply rejecting one belief. I know now, with children of my own, that the deciding factor in whether one believes in God is whether one grows up in an environment where it's assumed that God exists.
> I "don't believe in the Christian God" in exactly the same way as you "don't believe in Thor".


This is an argument used by Dawkins. Atheism is not simply rejecting a belief it is putting your faith in a nihilistic non-belief system. It is an act of faith which is itself unprovable.


----------



## DavidA

Wood said:


> I always find this debate becomes entertaining when someone of faith tries to justify their belief system on rational grounds, and then the atheists engage with him. I respect the Members in the debate, but neither position seems logical, so it is fun to watch it go round and round and round and round and round.


You of course have to ask yourself whether your own belief system is logical!


----------



## DavidA

MacLeod said:


> As I don't accept your basic premise, my answer has to be, 'No.' There is no such thing as either a sacred being or a sacred state. Therefore, there is no music that can induce it.


But there are an awful lot of people who would disagree with this statement. So is making a statement like this as if it is an established fact itself a statement of dogmatism?


----------



## Wood

DavidA said:


> You of course have to ask yourself whether your own belief system is logical!


I don't have a belief system.


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> But there are an awful lot of people who would disagree with this statement. So is making a statement like this as if it is an established fact itself a statement of dogmatism?


Dogmatism? Because I've expressed an opinion contradicting millions' opinion?


----------



## DavidA

Wood said:


> I don't have a belief system.


Everyone has a belief system. You might mean you are not conventionally religious (whatever that might mean) but even atheists have their belief system.


----------



## Wood

I'm not an atheist.


----------



## KenOC

DavidA said:


> Everyone has a belief system. You might mean you are not conventionally religious (whatever that might mean) but even atheists have their belief system.


A belief system is hardly defined by what you don't believe it! I don't believe in flying pigs; does that define my "belief system"?

If you claim that there is a supernatural being, I invite your arguments in support. Again, a definition of this being would be helpful to the discussion -- otherwise, what's to discuss?


----------



## Wood

KenOC said:


> A belief system is hardly defined by what you don't believe it! I don't believe in flying pigs; does that define my "belief system"?
> 
> If you claim that there is a supernatural being, I invite your arguments in support. Again, a definition of this being would be helpful to the discussion -- otherwise, what's to discuss?


I'm still waiting for an answer to my question 'What is God?' which was a couple of miles upthread. I'm not expecting a sensible answer anytime soon.

But in the absence of this definition, DavidA is kinda right to throwback at the atheists. What is this God that they don't believe exists? After all, they must have some conception of this being that could exist but doesn't. Otherwise, their refutations are literally as nonsensical as those who proclaim that such a supernatural being exists.

That is why the debate is so funny.


----------



## KenOC

Wood said:


> I'm still waiting for an answer to my question 'What is God?' which was a couple of miles upthread. I'm not expecting a sensible answer anytime soon.
> 
> But in the absence of this definition, DavidA is kinda right to throwback at the atheists. What is this God that they don't believe exists? After all, they must have some conception of this being that could exist but doesn't. Otherwise, their refutations are literally as nonsensical as those who proclaim that such a supernatural being exists.
> 
> That is why the debate is so funny.


Hard to refute the existence of something nobody is willing to define. Let's get some idea of what it is, then maybe there's something to refute (or not).


----------



## science

The gods and spirits (and ghosts and so on) in which I do not believe are the bodiless minds, usually anthropomorphic but sometimes zoomorphic, that humans relate to in our religious rituals and beliefs.


----------



## Blake

Wood said:


> But in the absence of this definition, DavidA is kinda right to throwback at the atheists. What is this God that they don't believe exists? After all, they must have some conception of this being that could exist but doesn't. Otherwise, their refutations are literally as nonsensical as those who proclaim that such a supernatural being exists.


Interesting. So, the very act of saying something doesn't exist shows that there is some belief that it does...

"See this abstraction... it doesn't exist."


----------



## DavidA

science said:


> The gods and spirits (and ghosts and so on) in which I do not believe are the bodiless minds, usually anthropomorphic but sometimes zoomorphic, that humans relate to in our religious rituals and beliefs.


As I've said, the gods you don't believe in either!


----------



## science

DavidA said:


> As I've said, the gods you don't believe in either!


I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean.


----------



## Guest

Wood said:


> I'm still waiting for an answer to my question 'What is God?' which was a couple of miles upthread. I'm not expecting a sensible answer anytime soon.


_Your _question? First, it's not a question you can own and second, others here have been asking it too.



Wood said:


> But in the absence of this definition, DavidA is kinda right to throwback at the atheists. What is this God that they don't believe exists?After all, they must have some conception of this being that could exist but doesn't.


In the absence of a definition, there's nothing to debate here. Whether the atheist collective could set out and reject the many and varied gods and others' interpretations of gods on offer elsewhere is another matter: as has already been said, take any example of well-known gods in the myths of ancient civilisations, and you'll find an atheist who will deny its existence. That way comedy lies, since we all know DavidA is not advancing Zeus, Loki, Ra or Shiva.

[I'm reminded of a scene in Laurel and Hardy's _Come Clean_ where the boys go to get some ice-cream.

(Ollie) "They haven't any chocolate"
(Stan) "Have you got any moustachio?"
(Vendor) "No, we haven't got any moustachio!"
"What other flavours haven't you got?"
"We haven't got...." (Vendor screws up face in incredulity then lists all the flavours the shop _hasn't _got.)]



Wood said:


> Otherwise, their refutations are literally as nonsensical as those who proclaim that such a supernatural being exists.


Why nonsensical?

The 'god' that I have come to doubt the existence of is the god with whom I was brought up as a Catholic, studied at school, read about in books, seen in movies, argued about on the internet, seen expressed through other religions and other cultures. That is to say, a personal compilation of all the facets of 'godness' that I have acquired over the last 40+ years. It's not the same god as DavidA's, nor anyone else's. Those who have grown up with any conception of god at all has, as I suggested earlier, a slightly different take on 'god', even if they worship next to each other in the same church. Why do you think that Catholic Church has such a hard time enforcing its proclamations on doctrine? Because its billions of followers don't all hold exactly the same beliefs; the Anglican Church struggles with the same problem, though for both these churches, the issues are more often manifest not in what god they believe in but how he wants us to behave, and whether he wants us to have women priests/vicars.

I can tell you that I don't believe in the idea of a god who can intervene in man's affairs; who is like a Father; with whom I can have a personal relationship; who lives outside of space and time and beyond the known laws of the universe. I don't believe in the god who is described in Genesis. I no longer believe in the god I came to know at mass. I also don't believe in the god written about in books by CS Lewis, Antony Flew or Keith Ward. I am left with a residue of superstition - that there may be some supernatural presences, good and bad in the dark, or in my subconscious, but nothing that I should paid any heed to.

The personal implication is that I see no merit in living my life as though the next is more important, though I suffer the failing that I wish there were a next life. I embrace some of the basic moral teachings that I have learned since I was small which are based on the religion I was brought up with, but that doesn't entail any belief in the Father that inspired Jesus to urge us to love one another.

Would you like me to continue, or have you got a flavour of what this atheist doesn't believe in?

Perhaps we've discussed this nonsense for long enough. Millionrainbows rightly reminded us of the OP. I posted a plain response. I've only posted more on the subject because I don't believe that other posters should have some unchallengeable right to ridicule atheism. I've not mocked anyone else's beliefs (and if anyone feels that I have, I'm sorry) and I expect others to treat me and mine with the same courtesy.


----------



## Wood

Vesuvius said:


> Interesting. So, the very act of saying something doesn't exist shows that there is some belief that it does...
> 
> "See this abstraction... it doesn't exist."


No, I'm not quite arguing that.

An atheist accepts that an idea of a god is sensible, it just doesn't exist in reality.

My view (and Science seems to be coming from the same area) is that these notions of God are illogical, so the statement 'God doesn't exist' is as nonsensical as the statement 'God does exist'.


----------



## Wood

Wood said:


> What is God????????


There you go MacLeod.


----------



## Wood

MacLeod said:


> Why nonsensical?
> 
> The 'god' that I have come to doubt the existence of is the god with whom I was brought up as a Catholic, studied at school, read about in books, seen in movies, argued about on the internet, seen expressed through other religions and other cultures. That is to say, a personal compilation of all the facets of 'godness' that I have acquired over the last 40+ years. It's not the same god as DavidA's, nor anyone else's. Those who have grown up with any conception of god at all has, as I suggested earlier, a slightly different take on 'god', even if they worship next to each other in the same church. Why do you think that Catholic Church has such a hard time enforcing its proclamations on doctrine? Because its billions of followers don't all hold exactly the same beliefs; the Anglican Church struggles with the same problem, though for both these churches, the issues are more often manifest not in what god they believe in but how he wants us to behave, and whether he wants us to have women priests/vicars.
> 
> I can tell you that I don't believe in the idea of a god who can intervene in man's affairs; who is like a Father; with whom I can have a personal relationship; who lives outside of space and time and beyond the known laws of the universe. I don't believe in the god who is described in Genesis. I no longer believe in the god I came to know at mass. I also don't believe in the god written about in books by CS Lewis, Antony Flew or Keith Ward. I am left with a residue of superstition - that there may be some supernatural presences, good and bad in the dark, or in my subconscious, but nothing that I should paid any heed to.


Here you make my point for me. You talk of 'facets of godness' , 'conception of god' etc. None of these answer my short question.

For clarity, when I use the word nonsense, I do not mean it disparagingly, but in the literal way, ie no sense, not logical.


----------



## Guest

Wood said:


> Here you make my point for me. You talk of 'facets of godness' , 'conception of god' etc. None of these answer my short questions.


It may not answer _your _question in the way _you _want it to be answered, but your 'short' question has no simple answer. I'm disappointed that you reject my honest attempt to put forward what I believe (and what I don't); still wondering about what I didn't say instead of engaging with what I did.


----------



## Wood

MacLeod said:


> It may not answer _your _question in the way _you _want it to be answered, but your 'short' question has no simple answer. I'm disappointed that you reject my honest attempt to put forward what I *believe* (and what I don't); still wondering about what I didn't say instead of engaging with what I did.


Did you mean to misquote me? Probably not.

I don't reject your post, actually I find it quite refreshing in that you responded with conviction and sincerity.

There is a disconnect here. You do not understand my point.

I have no issue with what you or anyone believes, or what faith they have. Quite the opposite in fact, the diversity of races and religions enrich humanity.


----------



## Guest

Wood said:


> Did you mean to misquote me? Probably not.


Which misquote? (And _certainly _not!)


----------



## Wood

MacLeod said:


> Which misquote? (And _certainly _not!)


An 's' snuck in at the end of the quote. I was trying to work out if it had any divine significance.


----------



## millionrainbows

MacLeod said:


> As I don't accept your basic premise, my answer has to be, 'No.' There is no such thing as either a sacred being or a sacred state. Therefore, there is no music that can induce it.


Oh, you poor thing. My greatest, most sincere sympathies.


----------



## millionrainbows

Wood said:


> I'm still waiting for an answer to my question 'What is God?'


Well, don't hold your breath, or you might find out. :lol:


----------



## millionrainbows

Wood said:


> I'm not an atheist.


Hey, you don't have to proselytize!


----------



## millionrainbows

I can show you who God is...for only 3 easy payments of $99.95.


----------



## KenOC

“The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.” --H. L. Mencken


----------



## Blake

KenOC said:


> "The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind." --H. L. Mencken


There's actually great truth in this if one really looks beyond the superficial cleverness that I've found many get attached to.


----------



## DavidA

KenOC said:


> "The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind." --H. L. Mencken


Like the self made man who worships his creator!


----------



## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> "The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind." --H. L. Mencken


Problem solved if you don't just believe, but just 'be.'


----------



## Blake

millionrainbows said:


> Problem solved if you don't just believe, but just 'be.'


The mind can't understand 'being' because it constantly strives for 'becoming.' But once you realize this striving to become is an ultimately fruitless and endless pursuit then one can really let go and be.


----------



## DavidA

Vesuvius said:


> The mind can't understand 'being' because it constantly strives for 'becoming.' But once you realize this striving to become is an ultimately fruitless and endless pursuit then one can really let go and be.


Do you know what this means?


----------



## Blake

DavidA said:


> Do you know what this means?


I do. I'm guessing you'd like to tell me your thoughts. So, go ahead....


----------



## DavidA

Vesuvius said:


> I do. I'm guessing you'd like to tell me your thoughts. So, go ahead....


Not at all. I haven't the faintest idea what you mean!


----------



## Blake

DavidA said:


> Not at all. I haven't the faintest idea what you mean!


Oh, haha. It's not supposed to be some complex riddle. The mind is always associated with "what's next," and it's the restless aspect of our nature. However, many solely identify with their mind, so they're constantly in this restless state of trying to become something. But when you realize that you are not the mind, and your attention stops chasing after thoughts and settles in your being... Well, I'll leave that open for you to discover.


----------



## DavidA

Vesuvius said:


> Oh, haha. It's not supposed to be some complex riddle. The mind is always associated with "what's next," and it's the restless aspect of our nature. However, many solely identify with their mind, so they're constantly in this restless state of trying to become something. But when you realize that you are not the mind, and your attention stops chasing after thoughts and settles in your being... Well, I'll leave that open for you to discover.


I don't think I'll bother!


----------



## Blake

Suit yourself. :tiphat:


----------



## Guest

Vesuvius said:


> Oh, haha. It's not supposed to be some complex riddle.


Maybe not, but let's try to understand.



Vesuvius said:


> The mind is always associated with "what's next,"


It is? I don't understand this.



Vesuvius said:


> However, many solely identify with their mind, so they're constantly in this restless state of trying to become something. But when you realize that you are not the mind


What else is there to identify with (except the body, irrelevant without a mind to power it)?


----------



## Wood

Vesuvius said:


> The mind can't understand 'being' because it constantly strives for 'becoming.' But once you realize this striving to become is an ultimately fruitless and endless pursuit then one can really let go and be.


Fine so long as you don't have a mortgage or dependents and are happy to surrender part of what makes you human.


----------



## Blake

Not to be smugly arrogant, but this is apparently way over some of you guys' heads. I don't have the energy to start from ground zero. What I wrote seems very basic, and if that's not even remotely understood then this conversation won't be pleasant at all.


----------



## Guest

Vesuvius said:


> Not to be smugly arrogant, but this is apparently way over some of you guys' heads. I don't have the energy to start from ground zero. What I wrote seems very basic, and if that's not even remotely understood then this conversation won't be pleasant at all.


And yet if you don't try, your posts hitherto will have been in vain, and we will forever live in ignorance.

Still, if you can't be a$$ed I guess we'll have to try an alternative take on this thread.


----------



## Blake

MacLeod said:


> And yet if you don't try, *your posts hitherto will have been in vain*, and we will forever live in ignorance.
> 
> Still, if you can't be a$$ed I guess we'll have to try an alternative take on this thread.


I've gotten pretty used to that. It'c clear the topic isn't for this thread. I'm cool with that. We'll have to find something lighter.

I will leave it at this though, everything... from the outside world of the body to the inner world of thoughts, feelings, and sensations are watched. The very feeling of being the body is perceived. What perceives all of this? You can say 'its' me,' but what are you and where are you located? Everything you say or find is an object seen by you, so it can't be you. Find yourself.


----------



## DavidA

Vesuvius said:


> Not to be smugly arrogant, but this is apparently way over some of you guys' heads. I don't have the energy to start from ground zero. What I wrote seems very basic, and if that's not even remotely understood then this conversation won't be pleasant at all.


One thing to grasp, friend, is that the art of communication is to make something complex appear simple and not the other way round! If what you're saying is not understood then you need first to look at what you are trying to say!


----------



## Blake

DavidA said:


> One thing to grasp, friend, is that the art of communication is to make something complex appear simple and not the other way round! If what you're saying is not understood then you need first to look at what you are trying to say!


Absolutely. I don't know how to make it any clearer, though. So I must digress.


----------



## Guest

Vesuvius said:


> Absolutely. I don't know how to make it any clearer, though. So I must digress.


But you make emphatic statements ("everything... from the outside world of the body to the inner world of thoughts, feelings, and sensations are watched") assuming that they either don't need explaining (they are self-evident?) or they are too complex (or too basic?) to be able to explain. If I say I disagree (as I did earlier) you just tell me it's over my head.

If the idea you are trying to convey is your own, then you are the only one who can advance it and elaborate. If it's not your own, point to someone somewhere who can explain for you.


----------



## Blake

MacLeod said:


> But you make emphatic statements ("everything... from the outside world of the body to the inner world of thoughts, feelings, and sensations are watched") assuming that they either don't need explaining (they are self-evident?) or they are too complex (or too basic?) to be able to explain. If I say I disagree (as I did earlier) you just tell me it's over my head.
> 
> If the idea you are trying to convey is your own, then you are the only one who can advance it and elaborate. If it's not your own, point to someone somewhere who can explain for you.


You keep worrying about the objects of the world, thoughts and feelings like they're the important part. They pass and fade like everything else. Find the one who is perceiving them. I don't know how much more ridiculously simply I can get with this.


----------



## Guest

Vesuvius said:


> You keep worrying about the objects of the world, thoughts and feelings like they're the important part. They pass and fade like everything else.


I'm not _worrying _about anything (save my mortality, but I'll pass and fade like the objects you say I worry about).



Vesuvius said:


> Find the one who is perceiving them.


Er...that'll be me. I'm not lost. I know where I am, and where I'm going. (I'm a bit hazy about where I've been.)


----------



## Blake

MacLeod said:


> Er...that'll be me. I'm not lost. I know where I am, and where I'm going. (I'm a bit hazy about where I've been.)


What are you, exactly? The person, the body, the mind? Aren't all of those seen by something else that's not them? And just a pointer... you have never known where you are going. You feel comfortable with the "idea" of where your body is, but you really don't know where it's going. You'd have to know all the interchanging variables of the entire universe and how they co-exist to know that stuff. And I don't feel that type of wisdom is pouring out of you.

I told you this conversation won't be a pleasant one.


----------



## Guest

Vesuvius said:


> What are you, exactly? The person, the body, the mind? Aren't all of those seen by something else that's not them? And just a pointer... you have never known where you are going. You feel comfortable with the "idea" of where your body is, but you really don't know where it's going. You'd have to know all the interchanging variables of the entire universe and how they co-exist to know that stuff. And I don't feel that type of wisdom is pouring out of you.
> 
> I told you this conversation won't be a pleasant one.


For someone who insists it's all basic and simple, you like to make things mysterious and complicated. I guess we're just on different plane(t)s that's all.

I'd probably agree that if I have any type of wisdom pouring out of me, it's not the same that you might claim pours out of you.


----------



## DavidA

Vesuvius said:


> Absolutely. I don't know how to make it any clearer, though. So I must digress.


Frankly, if you can't make it any clearer then it is not clear in your own mind!


----------



## KenOC

Vesuvius said:


> What are you, exactly? The person, the body, the mind?


This is an interesting topic. I suspect that what we "are" is whatever's looking out through our eyes and perceiving -- whatever that is! An interesting if not totally convincing book that bears on this is "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind." Description and reviews here:

http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Consci...usness+in+the+breakdown+of+the+bicameral+mind


----------



## Blake

MacLeod said:


> For someone who insists it's all basic and simple, you like to make things mysterious and complicated. I guess we're just on different plane(t)s that's all.
> 
> I'd probably agree that if I have any type of wisdom pouring out of me, it's not the same that you might claim pours out of you.


Fair enough. It only seems complicated because the idea we have of ourselves is complicated. The truth is simple.



DavidA said:


> Frankly, if you can't make it any clearer then it is not clear in your own mind!


That's not always a fact. Many sages and wisemen all over the place have been misunderstood. You should know that following Jesus, and see how much his teachings have been molested.

I'm not comparing myself to Jesus or anyone, haha. I'm just trying to make a point.



KenOC said:


> This is an interesting topic. I suspect that what we "are" is whatever's looking out through our eyes and perceiving -- whatever that is! An interesting if not totally convincing book that bears on this is "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind." Description and reviews here:
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Consci...usness+in+the+breakdown+of+the+bicameral+mind


Yea, it's an extraordinary contemplation.


----------



## Deontologist

I don't know, but I rather enjoy Bruckner's three Missa as "pure music".

Plus, a couple of my favourite grand works have "religious" connotations: for example, Beethoven's Christus am Ölberge; Schubert's Lazarus; Franck's Les Béatitudes.


----------



## Morimur

Yes, there are a lot of 'interesting' philosophies out there but I'll stick with Jesus Christ.


----------



## Blake

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Yes, there are a lot of 'interesting' philosophies out there but I'll stick with Jesus Christ.


He was incredibly wise, so I don't think you'll be misguided.


----------



## hpowders

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Yes, there are a lot of 'interesting' philosophies out there but I'll stick with Jesus Christ.


It's a wise bet. The Lady of my avatar approves.


----------



## Wood

Vesuvius, is this your theory or does it come from a book? If it is a book, can you give us a reference?


----------



## millionrainbows

MacLeod said:


> Maybe not, but let's try to understand.
> 
> It is? I don't understand this.
> 
> What else is there to identify with (except the body, irrelevant without a mind to power it)?


Hmm, I'll bet you don't play an instrument, do painting, or any activity which involves the intuitive; except driving a Lexus, probably.


----------



## millionrainbows

Wood said:


> Fine so long as you don't have a mortgage or dependents and are happy to surrender part of what makes you human.


Too much stress, man. Job can force you to stress-out and 'surrender' your humanity in a much worse way than anything we are focused on here. This makes it sound like one is being 'irresponsible' if they get in touch with their 'being' through meditation, prayer, or music. Nothing could be further from the truth. BTW, I have a mortgage, too.


----------



## millionrainbows

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Yes, there are a lot of 'interesting' philosophies out there but I'll stick with Jesus Christ.


Hey, Mel Gibson liked him enough to make a movie.


----------



## millionrainbows

So what is the 'hidden agenda' that these critics of 'just being' are espousing? I think it reveals an underlying fear, an insecurity, a hostility of strange unfamiliar things, and too much social conditioning in public schools.


----------



## Guest

Wood said:


> Vesuvius, is this your theory or does it come from a book? If it is a book, can you give us a reference?


Funny, I thought I asked that in post #414, but I wasn't as direct as you. Thanks for speaking more plainly!


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> Hmm, I'll bet you don't play an instrument, do painting, or any activity which involves the intuitive; except driving a Lexus, probably.


Ah, "the intuitive" (not "the mind", presumably, since that's what my exchange was about). You'll be telling me next that I couldn't be a Jedi either!


----------



## millionrainbows

MacLeod said:


> Ah, "the intuitive" (not "the mind", presumably, since that's what my exchange was about). You'll be telling me next that I couldn't be a Jedi either!


No, you'd rather argue with a fencepost than engage in swordplay.

:lol:


----------



## millionrainbows

How to meditate: Just sit there.


----------



## Wood

Vesuvius said:


> Nisargadatta Maharaj's book "I Am That." Open up a little and dive inside.
> 
> The main exponent of this type of understanding is from Advaita, which is a branch of Hinduism. And the book I've pointed out is one of the behemoths in that area.


Good thanks.

I'm bright. I discovered many years ago that if I do not understand something it is not being explained properly to me. As (like the others) I am unable to get what you & Millions are saying, I recommend a moratorium on this thread whilst we all read the book, and we can then report back with our views later.


----------



## Wood

millionrainbows said:


> Too much stress, man. Job can force you to stress-out and 'surrender' your humanity in a much worse way than anything we are focused on here. This makes it sound like one is being 'irresponsible' if they get in touch with their 'being' through meditation, prayer, or music. Nothing could be further from the truth. BTW, I have a mortgage, too.


How can you have a mortgage without a job?


----------



## Blake

Wood said:


> Good thanks.
> 
> I'm bright.* I discovered many years ago that if I do not understand something it is not being explained properly to me.* As (like the others) I am unable to get what you & Millions are saying, I recommend a moratorium on this thread whilst we all read the book, and we can then report back with our views later.


I wouldn't jump to that conclusion. There are plenty of brilliant minds in physics, philosophy, mysticism, etc. who have expounded enormously on topics that I haven't fully realized, and my lack of understanding is no other fault but my own.

But I do appreciate your bit of openness, Wood.


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> No, you'd rather argue with a fencepost than engage in swordplay.
> 
> :lol:


I won't take offence at your jibe (it's still insulting, with or without the smiley) I'll just ask from which of my posts in this thread you would draw such a conclusion?


----------



## Morimur

Human nature sure is a *****. :angel:


----------



## Guest

http://www.anandavala.info/miscl/I_Am_That.pdf

No, I'm not going to claim I've read it, but I am going to say that from my skimming, it doesn't appeal to me. Now, that may be my 'fault' for not wanting to _submit _to such a way of thinking and being, but it's no more a question of 'fault' than it is my 'fault' to choose not to listen to music that does nothing for me, or engage in allegedly life-affirming activities like swimming with dolphins or bungee-jumping.

I refer to my very first post in this thread #8 where I said "each to his own way, and his own path".


----------



## Svelte Silhouette

Am I real, ouch I felt that so yes.

Oh, but it could be a dream and I'd expect to feel that.

Poof, all is gone.


----------



## Wood

MacLeod said:


> http://www.anandavala.info/miscl/I_Am_That.pdf
> 
> No, I'm not going to claim I've read it, but I am going to say that from my skimming, it doesn't appeal to me. Now, that may be my 'fault' for not wanting to _submit _to such a way of thinking and being, but it's no more a question of 'fault' than it is my 'fault' to choose not to listen to music that does nothing for me, or engage in allegedly life-affirming activities like swimming with dolphins or bungee-jumping.
> 
> I refer to my very first post in this thread #8 where I said "each to his own way, and his own path".


Thanks MacLeod

Here goes:

_Chapter One: The sense of 'I am'

There is a difference between our perceptions and what we are. 
_

I'm struggling with this right at the start. The idea that there is more to our mind than perceptions, feelings etc, but he can only say what it isn't, not what it is, already sounds a bit flaky.


----------



## Wood

_Chapter Two: Obsession with the body

We are obsessed with our perceptions of real things, but they make us bemused. We are not these things, we are nothing but that we exist, so we should just contemplate that, and recognise that we are imprisoned by obsession with the body.
_

It is hard to see the logic in this. I don't feel bemused, though I can see how some people might want to empty their minds if they are anxious, but that is only to relax for a bit, a rest before re-engaging with the world.

It'll have to pick up a bit soon, or I'll lose interest.


----------



## Wood

_Chapter three The living present

The present is more relevant than the past or future because we are always in the present.

Desire and fear are based on memories of pleasure and pain in the past. They are bad things.

Life is mostly painful with a few occasional short passages of joy.

There is a gap between the mind that has bodily perceptions and the mind that has no properties.

The gap is bridged by love which comes from the heart.

_A lot of this chapter was incomprehensible. I almost completely disagree with the above.

Desire and fear can be useful.

My life isn't mostly pain, in fact it is almost entirely pleasurable. I can't be the only one.

Love? What is that? Where did it come from? I thought the heart was just a pump.

I may not read any more as this is starting to look like a faith, an alternative religion. The reason that we were not understanding Millions and Vesuvius is that these ideas appear to be no more logical than religious dogma, so any attempt to understand them in a logical manner will fail.

I'm out of here.


----------



## Svelte Silhouette

No, religious music is imaginary as are you all and me for that matter

We're but a feather on the breath of god as he dreams us


----------



## mmsbls

The thread has, in general, remained fairly free of problematic posts, but recently people have started resorting to ad homs. Several posts have been deleted. Please keep comments focused on content and not other people.


----------



## millionrainbows

I'm disengaging from this thread, I'm tired of the constant danger of infraction. Later! Love you all, and keep on listening.


----------



## Blake

My post keep getting deleted, so I'm never able to make a point. This is getting rather annoying. Do what you want fellas, I'm done waisting my time.


----------



## science

Wood said:


> Good thanks.


And thank you for quoting that post. Evidently it's been deleted, but I'm glad to get that book recommendation.


----------



## science

I've started a discussion thread on that book in the religion discussion group.


----------



## Majed Al Shamsi

Finally! :clap:


----------



## millionrainbows

Come on! Delete this post! I dare you! :lol:


----------



## millionrainbows

How odd it is to see this era of historical revisionism in classical music; how these accomplishments of Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Terry Riley are often relegated by people who should know better as being 'not classical' or as 'modernism' (possibly the single most ignorant and damaging term ever invented to describe (discount) an important and vital branch of the classical music tree). The minimalists, at their best, define what the word classical really means. They used their own experiences, filtered through an almost unbelievable originality informed by a musicianship as audacious as it was expansive, to manifest into sound through a musical reality that illuminated their individuality. 

So what can we gather from this statement? 

(1) I seem to be 'anti-history,' meaning by the word 'history' the way that anything which has lasted long enough seems to accrue a 'history' at the end, which looks back on and tries to define (or in some cases re-define) what has happened. If a car accident happens, and there are ten witnesses, you will get ten different versions of what happened; this is history, not an exact science by any stretch.

(2) I see other terms, such as 'modernism,' as devisive and damaging.

(3) I see classical music as a 'tree' with diverse and diverging branches, yet all connected to the roots of the form.

(4) I see classical music as a personal expression of one's personality and being, using composition and performance (talking about your ideas through your works and instrument) as the vehicle.

So, the 'unstable' and ever-changing factor here, which will always continue to threaten rigid 'historical' notions of what classical music is, or is supposed to be, seems to be the human factor. 

As each new generation comes along, living in whatever new reality that has developed, they will express their experiences of the ever-changing 'now' into the reality of the musical forms which they have learned to use, in their lifetimes, in their 'now.'

This seems diametrically opposed to any idea of a 'history' which is rigidly fixed and defined. 

So, we can say, classical music is about 'time and changes,' and the time is now; and time is always changing.


----------



## Jobis

millionrainbows said:


> How odd it is to see this era of historical revisionism in classical music; how these accomplishments of Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Terry Riley are often relegated by people who should know better as being 'not classical' or as 'modernism' (possibly the single most ignorant and damaging term ever invented to describe (discount) an important and vital branch of the classical music tree). The minimalists, at their best, define what the word classical really means. They used their own experiences, filtered through an almost unbelievable originality informed by a musicianship as audacious as it was expansive, to manifest into sound through a musical reality that illuminated their individuality.
> 
> So, we can say, classical music is about 'time and changes,' and the time is now; and time is always changing.


One distinction I think is the role of time in various musics. Typically classical music has development, more in a series of variations rather than a slow metamorphosis; other musics might be more static, often creating an air of sacredness and ritualism. I take the example of Stravinsky's symphonies of wind instruments, one of my all time favourite pieces of music, which has such an intriguing form, so apparently static in character, making it incredibly captivating. Is it classical? I don't know, honestly. I would think so, despite the unusual form and use of russian/eastern european folk music in its motifs and ostinati. So I must concede that Minimalism is also classical if this be so. But what need do we have of such terms if they don't discriminate at least somewhat; is pop music classical, if it has a form and is notated?

Also lol @ unbelievable originality. 'sure lets just repeat this arpeggiated DbMaj 7th chord for 48 bars', yeah these guys are true pioneers!

(i'm just teasing)


----------



## millionrainbows

Jobis said:


> One distinction I think is the role of time in various musics. Typically classical music has development, more in a series of variations rather than a slow metamorphosis; other musics might be more static, often creating an air of sacredness and ritualism. I take the example of Stravinsky's symphonies of wind instruments, one of my all time favourite pieces of music, which has such an intriguing form, so apparently static in character, making it incredibly captivating. Is it classical? I don't know, honestly. I would think so, despite the unusual form and use of russian/eastern european folk music in its motifs and ostinati. So I must concede that Minimalism is also classical if this be so. But what need do we have of such terms if they don't discriminate at least somewhat; is pop music classical, if it has a form and is notated?
> 
> Also lol @ unbelievable originality. 'sure lets just repeat this arpeggiated DbMaj 7th chord for 48 bars', yeah these guys are true pioneers!
> 
> (i'm just teasing)


Re: development

From my blog *New Conceptionsof Musical Time: **
Linear time:* Music that imparts a sense of linear time seems to move towards goals. This quality permeates virtually all of Western music from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras. This is accomplished by processes which occur within tonal and metrical frameworks.
*Nonlinear time:* Music that evokes a sense of nonlinear time seems to stand still or evolve very slowly.

Western musicians first became aware of nonlinear time during the late 19th century. Debussy's encounter with Javanese gamelan music at the 1889 Paris Exhibition was a seminal event.

*Moment Form:* broken down connections between musical events in order to create a series of more or less discrete moments. Certain works of Stravinsky, Webern, Messiaen, and Stockhausen exemplify this approach.

*Vertical Time: *At the other extreme of the nonlinear continuum is music that maximizes consistency and minimizes articulation. Vertical time means that whatever structure that is in the music exists between simultaneous layers of sound, not between successive gestures. A virtually static moment is expanded to encompass an entire piece. A vertical piece does not exhibit large-scale closure. It does not begin, but merely starts. It does not build to a climax, does not set up internal expectations, does not seek to fulfill any expectations that might arise accidentally, does not build or release tension, and does not end, but simply ceases.
*Minimalism* exemplifies vertical time, but instead of absolute stasis, it generates constant motion. The sense of movement is so evenly paced, and the goals are so vague, that we usually lose our sense of perspective.​


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> Re: development
> 
> From my blog *New Conceptionsof Musical Time: **
> Linear time:* Music that imparts a sense of linear time seems to move towards goals. This quality permeates virtually all of Western music from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras. This is accomplished by processes which occur within tonal and metrical frameworks.
> *Nonlinear time:* Music that evokes a sense of nonlinear time seems to stand still or evolve very slowly.
> 
> Western musicians first became aware of nonlinear time during the late 19th century. Debussy's encounter with Javanese gamelan music at the 1889 Paris Exhibition was a seminal event.
> 
> *Moment Form:* broken down connections between musical events in order to create a series of more or less discrete moments. Certain works of Stravinsky, Webern, Messiaen, and Stockhausen exemplify this approach.
> 
> *Vertical Time: *At the other extreme of the nonlinear continuum is music that maximizes consistency and minimizes articulation. Vertical time means that whatever structure that is in the music exists between simultaneous layers of sound, not between successive gestures. A virtually static moment is expanded to encompass an entire piece. A vertical piece does not exhibit large-scale closure. It does not begin, but merely starts. It does not build to a climax, does not set up internal expectations, does not seek to fulfill any expectations that might arise accidentally, does not build or release tension, and does not end, but simply ceases.
> *Minimalism* exemplifies vertical time, but instead of absolute stasis, it generates constant motion. The sense of movement is so evenly paced, and the goals are so vague, that we usually lose our sense of perspective.​


Are these ideas completely original to you?

Thematically they remind me of A's thoughts on music and time in _Either/Or_.

I'd reconsider the linear/nonlinear terminology, since it looks like the difference is actually quantitative - how fast the music seems to move from one thing to another thing - rather than qualitative.

Edit: Perhaps "teleological" and "dysteleological" would point toward your meaning more clearly.


----------



## millionrainbows

science said:


> Are these ideas completely original to you?
> 
> Thematically they remind me of A's thoughts on music and time in _Either/Or_.
> 
> I'd reconsider the linear/nonlinear terminology, since it looks like the difference is actually quantitative - how fast the music seems to move from one thing to another thing - rather than qualitative.
> 
> Edit: Perhaps "teleological" and "dysteleological" would point toward your meaning more clearly.


No, these came from a 20th century theory book, as I mentioned before on the earlier thread I started. on this subject.
I don't think the definition, or the music itself, needs to be precise, as these are at the same time describing experiential modes of being and awareness.


the doctrine that there is evidence of purpose or design in the universe, and esp that this provides proof of the existence of a Designer   b. the belief that certain phenomena are best explained in terms of purpose rather than cause  c. See also final cause the systematic study of such phenomena


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> No, these came from a 20th century theory book, as I mentioned before on the earlier thread I started. on this subject.
> I don't think the definition, or the music itself, needs to be precise, as these are at the same time describing experiential modes of being and awareness.


What is that book?


----------



## millionrainbows

science said:


> What is that book?


I'm almost sure it's this one, but mine has a different cover, and I don't have access to it right now.

http://amzn.com/0135608309


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> I'm almost sure it's this one, but mine has a different cover, and I don't have access to it right now.
> 
> http://amzn.com/0135608309


That looks like a fine book, but I really can't imagine an elementary textbook using such obfuscatory terminology or definitions. Hopefully that author put whatever he was saying into some language that ordinary mortals can understand.


----------



## EdwardBast

science said:


> That looks like a fine book, but I really can't imagine an elementary textbook using such obfuscatory terminology or definitions. Hopefully that author put whatever he was saying into some language that ordinary mortals can understand.


Several of the concepts seem to derive from the late Jonathan Kramer's book _The Time of Music_. I read the prepublication manuscript Kramer made available for a seminar he was teaching. Rainbows is paraphrasing with dubious accuracy ideas that were more clearly expressed in the source.


----------



## science

EdwardBast said:


> Several of the concepts seem to derive from the late Jonathan Kramer's book _The Time of Music_. I read the prepublication manuscript Kramer made available for a seminar he was teaching. Rainbows is paraphrasing with dubious accuracy ideas that were more clearly expressed in the source.


Thank you!

Sadly these books are rather too expensive for me, but maybe someday I'll stumble on one or find one in a library.


----------



## Guest

Wat is real? Is there religious music or is it only music? Is there a real distinction between the so called secular music and the church music of J.S.Bach,I doubt if there is.


----------



## Blake

I suppose the only experiential difference is belief. Some people worship the bible, while others wouldn't think twice about tossing it in the garbage. What's the different?


----------



## millionrainbows

traverso said:


> Wat is real? Is there religious music or is it only music? Is there a real distinction between the so called secular music and the church music of J.S.Bach,I doubt if there is.


Well, the difference is, that truly 'spiritual' music should act as a catalyst, somewhat like a drug, to aid in getting your mind into a 'resonance' with the spiritual realm. It should have a real effect. You owe it to yourself to experience music in this way, or at least strive to reach this level of listening.

And it shouldn't matter if the music was created for the secular or not; some 'sacred' music is just ineffective filler, and some 'secular' music is spiritually potent. Jimi Hendrix, for instance, called his music 'the sky church,' meaning that the sacred could come down directly, through the music, to the audience.


----------



## millionrainbows

Vesuvius said:


> I suppose the only experiential difference is belief. Some people worship the bible, while others wouldn't think twice about tossing it in the garbage. What's the different?


No, it's not a matter of belief in a dogma, afterlife, or any of that. The truly spiritual realm is a state of being that every human can achieve, and it is quite real and palpable, and it is independent of any dogma or religion.


----------



## Blake

millionrainbows said:


> No, it's not a matter of belief in a dogma, afterlife, or any of that. The truly spiritual realm is a state of being that every human can achieve, and it is quite real and palpable, and it is independent of any dogma or religion.


I'm not arguing with that. I was pointing towards the world of dogma.


----------



## DavidA

Vesuvius said:


> I suppose the only experiential difference is belief. Some people worship the bible, while others wouldn't think twice about tossing it in the garbage. What's the different?


Just one correction to your perception. Christians worship the God of the Bible not the Bible itself.


----------



## Blake

DavidA said:


> Just one correction to your perception. Christians worship the God of the Bible not the Bible itself.


Maybe for you....

... and by the way, I said "some people." Don't know why you consistently feel the need to make this about defending your religion. Have the faith you preach.


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> No, it's not a matter of belief in a dogma, afterlife, or any of that. *The truly spiritual realm is a state of being that every human can achieve, and it is quite real and palpable*, and it is independent of any dogma or religion.


Even though in my own way I agree with you about the part in bold (even if I agreed entirely I certainly would prefer more pragmatic and precise diction), you have to admit that this belief itself is a dogma. It is a particular religious belief that a lot of people do not share with you. You say they're wrong; they say you're wrong; it's dogma all around. You can't get above the human condition on this.

And that is an entirely separate matter from the question of what sorts of music might promote the kinds of experience you're valuing here, and whether that sort of experience really is the only valid spiritual experience, to the exclusion of what happens in things like shamanistic trances and spirit possessions.


----------



## Blake

science said:


> Even though in my own way I agree with you about the part in bold (even if I agreed entirely I certainly would prefer more pragmatic and precise diction), you have to admit that this belief itself is a dogma. It is a particular religious belief that a lot of people do not share with you. You say they're wrong; they say you're wrong; it's dogma all around. You can't get above the human condition on this.
> 
> And that is an entirely separate matter from the question of what sorts of music might promote the kinds of experience you're valuing here, and whether that sort of experience really is the only valid spiritual experience, to the exclusion of what happens in things like shamanistic trances and spirit possessions.


Both of y'all have made good points. I can see what million is pointing to, that space of being beyond distinction. But the folly you're finding is in his delivery. He's so passionate about it that it can come across as a bit stiff and ruley... which alludes to a type of dogma. What he's pointing to though, is that which should be able to float in any conversation... worldly or not. Because it's the true commonplace of all existence. Athiesm, Theism, etc... it's all the same here.


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> No, it's not a matter of belief in a dogma, afterlife, or any of that. The truly spiritual realm is a state of being that every human can achieve, and it is quite real and palpable, and it is independent of any dogma or religion.


I'll accept that you can achieve "states of being" without reference to dogma or religion, but only inasmuch as there is such a thing as a "state of being" at all. My state of being after a skinful is not the same state of being while listening (without distraction) to Haydn's 99th Symphony, and different again from when I'm in full flow delivering training to a room full of teachers.


----------



## science

Vesuvius said:


> Both of y'all have made good points. I can see what million is pointing to, that space of being beyond distinction. But the folly you're finding is in his delivery. He's so passionate about it that it can come across as a bit stiff and ruley... which alludes to a type of dogma. What he's pointing to though, is that which should be able to float in any conversation... worldly or not. Because it's the true commonplace of all existence. Athiesm, Theism, etc... it's all the same here.


I don't know what "that which should be able to float in any conversation" or "the true commonplace of existence" refer to.

Let's use ordinary straightforward language around here for a change. Let's drop the self-referentially problematic implicit condemnation of all people who have particular religious beliefs ("dogma") and our condemnation of most of their music; likewise, when musicians intend no special relationship to supernatural persons, let's allow their music to remain contentedly secular rather than trying to glamorize it with dubious assertions about transcendence. Their dogmas are good enough for their music; we don't need to project ours onto it. Let's let it be what it is. There is no need for these fantastic intellectual-ish projects with their redefined words and their clumsily hidden politics and their dismissal of all phenomena that do not fit the theory. Let's drop that struggle; let the whole world be what it is, for that matter, as well as its music.

That's all just a matter of intellectual, spiritual, and musical integrity.

If we want, though it is a separate matter, we can probably agree that we sometimes have experiences of bliss and joy and ecstasy and insignificance and grief and contentedness and so much more... experiences that take us beyond what we usually think of as ourselves and seem to point to something deeper or greater or higher... We can probably agree that all kinds of music can cause this in us.

I don't know what else is wanted here. The obfuscation has gotten too deep. But for the love of truth and goodness, let us think and communicate as clearly as we can.


----------



## Blake

science said:


> I don't know what "that which should be able to float in any conversation" or "the true commonplace of existence" refer to.
> 
> Let's use ordinary straightforward language around here for a change. Let's drop the self-referentially problematic implicit condemnation of all people who have particular religious beliefs ("dogma") and our condemnation of most of their music; likewise, when musicians intend no special relationship to supernatural persons, let's allow their music to remain contentedly secular rather than trying to glamorize it with dubious assertions about transcendence. Their dogmas are good enough for their music; we don't need to project ours onto it. Let's let it be what it is. There is no need for these fantastic intellectual-ish projects with their redefined words and their clumsily hidden politics and their dismissal of all phenomena that do not fit the theory. Let's drop that struggle; let the whole world be what it is, for that matter, as well as its music.
> 
> That's all just a matter of intellectual, spiritual, and musical integrity.
> 
> If we want, though it is a separate matter, we can probably agree that we sometimes have experiences of bliss and joy and ecstasy and insignificance and grief and contentedness and so much more... experiences that take us beyond what we usually think of as ourselves and seem to point to something deeper or greater or higher... We can probably agree that all kinds of music can cause this in us.
> 
> I don't know what else is wanted here. The obfuscation has gotten too deep. But for the love of truth and goodness, let us think and communicate as clearly as we can.


I don't think you've understood a word I've said. Just using my ideas for your own agenda. The type of thinking you keep wanting to go back to is extraordinarily condensed and narrow. There's no room for the wonders of life there. That space of being that is talked about is simply what it is. You're either aware of it or you're not. It's everyone's common ground. I don't care about degrading any dogmas. But if they come up, although many do have some beautiful conditions, I might be inclined to say how limited I think they are.

I mean, this is a forum to discuss individual perceptions, correct? Or should we all just speak your language?


----------



## Guest

Vesuvius said:


> I don't think you've understood a word I've said. [...] That space of being that is talked about is simply what it is. You're either aware of it or you're not


Perhaps he hasn't. But I haven't either. As always with miscommunication, it could be you; it could be me and/or him; it's usually both parties.

In my opinion - my individual perception, there is no such thing as 'the spiritual realm'. So, either I'm 'not aware' of something that you believe exists, or you're imagining something that doesn't.


----------



## science

Vesuvius said:


> I don't think you've understood a word I've said. Just using my ideas for your own agenda. The type of thinking you keep wanting to go back to is extraordinarily condensed and narrow. There's no room for the wonders of life there. That space of being that is talked about is simply what it is. You're either aware of it or you're not. It's everyone's common ground. I don't care about degrading any dogmas. But if they come up, although many do have some beautiful conditions, I might be inclined to say how limited I think they are.
> 
> I mean, this is a forum to discuss individual perceptions, correct? Or should we all just speak your language?


I begin by admitting I haven't understood many of your words. That seems to be your intention!

But you can call me narrow-minded, I understand that perfectly, and it's all good by me. Meanwhile, I'll keep my thinking as reality-based as I'm able. That's not easy of course. But there is more than enough wonder and mystery and delight here to last me through this short lifetime. Perhaps I'm too easily amused.

Or maybe not after all. For, although the fantasies of pop spirituality offer fascinating data for the study of human behavior - especially our willingness to regard an attachment to befuddlement as wisdom, and our delight in casually asserting grand theories with little supporting evidence - the worlds they project are, compared to what we find if we're willing to "narrow" ourselves to reality, bland and predictable.

An apt analogy: how much great music would we lose if we began by imagining what music is and then disregarded that which does not fit our assertions? No, sadly for our hastiest theories but luckily for us, the reality of music is incomparably more wonderful.


----------



## millionrainbows

science said:


> Even though in my own way I agree with you about the part in bold (even if I agreed entirely I certainly would prefer more pragmatic and precise diction), you have to admit that this belief itself is a dogma. It is a particular religious belief that a lot of people do not share with you. You say they're wrong; they say you're wrong; it's dogma all around. You can't get above the human condition on this.
> 
> And that is an entirely separate matter from the question of what sorts of music might promote the kinds of experience you're valuing here, and whether that sort of experience really is the only valid spiritual experience, to the exclusion of what happens in things like shamanistic trances and spirit possessions.


Well, I think there are many great thinkers who would agree with my view that spirituality is the birthright of all men, and that they are all created equal, and that we hold these truths to be self-evident...hint, hint...


----------



## millionrainbows

MacLeod said:


> I'll accept that you can achieve "states of being" without reference to dogma or religion, but only inasmuch as there is such a thing as a "state of being" at all. My state of being after a skinful is not the same state of being while listening (without distraction) to Haydn's 99th Symphony, and different again from when I'm in full flow delivering training to a room full of teachers.


I'm speaking generally, and, yes, 'being' is a changing thing. But I'm talking about achieving a general state of spirituality, which music can enhance or induce, and you don't go around shooting people.


----------



## millionrainbows

science said:


> I begin by admitting I haven't understood many of your words. That seems to be your intention!
> 
> But you can call me narrow-minded, I understand that perfectly, and it's all good by me. Meanwhile, I'll keep my thinking as reality-based as I'm able. That's not easy of course. But there is more than enough wonder and mystery and delight here to last me through this short lifetime. Perhaps I'm too easily amused.
> 
> Or maybe not after all. For, although the fantasies of pop spirituality offer fascinating data for the study of human behavior - especially our willingness to regard an attachment to befuddlement as wisdom, and our delight in casually asserting grand theories with little supporting evidence - the worlds they project are, compared to what we find if we're willing to "narrow" ourselves to reality, bland and predictable.
> 
> An apt analogy: how much great music would we lose if we began by imagining what music is and then disregarded that which does not fit our assertions? No, sadly for our hastiest theories but luckily for us, the reality of music is incomparably more wonderful.


...and how's that working for you?


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> Well, I think there are many great thinkers who would agree with my view that spirituality is the birthright of all men, and that they are all created equal, and that we hold these truths to be self-evident...hint, hint...


And none of them would reduce all the things you've argued in this topic to those principles. Again, if these are all you intend, stick to them and dispense with the tinsel.



millionrainbows said:


> ...and how's that working for you?


Um, wonderfully, thanks!

Just tonight I was contemplating the physics of light passing through glass. Astounding. Next to that, indefensible projections of our prejudices onto "the mystic East," even when they are dressed up as humanistically as possible, or semantic manipulations rendering "relaxing" as "spiritual," appear even more banal than usual.


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> and you don't go around shooting people.


Eh ?


----------



## Blake

science said:


> I begin by admitting I haven't understood many of your words. That seems to be your intention!
> 
> But you can call me narrow-minded, I understand that perfectly, and it's all good by me. Meanwhile, I'll keep my thinking as reality-based as I'm able. That's not easy of course. But there is more than enough wonder and mystery and delight here to last me through this short lifetime. Perhaps I'm too easily amused.
> 
> Or maybe not after all. For, although the fantasies of pop spirituality offer fascinating data for the study of human behavior - especially our willingness to regard an attachment to befuddlement as wisdom, and our delight in casually asserting grand theories with little supporting evidence - the worlds they project are, compared to what we find if we're willing to "narrow" ourselves to reality, bland and predictable.
> 
> An apt analogy: how much great music would we lose if we began by imagining what music is and then disregarded that which does not fit our assertions? No, sadly for our hastiest theories but luckily for us, the reality of music is incomparably more wonderful.


Look, you are certainly an intelligent guy. That's easy to distinguish... and I often enjoy having a contrast of perceptions. It would be pretty dull if everyone saw exactly as I do. I'm quite the fan of logic, as well. I use it rather often. But I have also found great satisfaction with exploring the more 'vague' realms of existence. And it's so hard to explain that it can be frustrating when we would like to practically pin it down. I haven't been able to do so, and the only way I can come close is with abstract pointings. But, I'll leave it at that.


----------



## millionrainbows

science said:


> And none of them would reduce all the things you've argued in this topic to those principles. Again, if these are all you intend, stick to them and dispense with the tinsel....indefensible projections of our prejudices onto "the mystic East," even when they are dressed up as humanistically as possible, or semantic manipulations rendering "relaxing" as "spiritual," appear even more banal than usual.


That sounds cynical, and there's nothing I can do to answer that sort of an attitude. I have a vision of what I'm striving for, and I will articulate it to others. I sense that you are fighting an empty battle...good luck with that.


----------



## millionrainbows

I'm even hearing traces, primordial traces, of this method in* Robert Schumann's* music. His piano music frequently uses 'figurations' and repetitive accompaniment figures, like repeating arpeggios, alternating notes, 'rocking' mechanisms...these begin to have a soothing, repetitive, hypnotic effect, if played by the appropriate player, in the right spirit...

In this sense, this is proto-minimalism, and we are transported into a poetic state of wonder and suspension. This music is sacred, in that sense. And we know that Schumann was not writing this music for religious purposes, but simply as an expression of his Romantic, poetic, spirituality.

We shall owe him a debt of gratitude for helping us discover our 'inner child' through him. His children's pieces are not so much intended for young players, as they are to help us, the listener, rediscover and touch base with our own inner sense of innocence and spirituality.


 




 
 


 
​


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> That sounds cynical, and there's nothing I can do to answer that sort of an attitude. I have a vision of what I'm striving for, and I will articulate it to others. I sense that you are fighting an empty battle...good luck with that.


Sure there is! Of course, not without reforming your diction and dropping some prejudices, but even such sacrifices are not beyond you.


----------



## science

Vesuvius said:


> Look, you are certainly an intelligent guy. That's easy to distinguish... and I often enjoy having a contrast of perceptions. It would be pretty dull if everyone saw exactly as I do. I'm quite the fan of logic, as well. I use it rather often. But I have also found great satisfaction with exploring the more 'vague' realms of existence. And it's so hard to explain that it can be frustrating when we would like to practically pin it down. I haven't been able to do so, and the only way I can come close is with abstract pointings. But, I'll leave it at that.


It's curious to me that rhetoric portraying "good" music as "religious" regardless of its intent counts as "vague realms of existence," as do indefensible stereotypes about half of humanity; while, say, quantum physics is just some old mundane banality.


----------



## Blake

science said:


> It's curious to me that rhetoric portraying "good" music as "religious" regardless of its intent counts as "vague realms of existence," as do indefensible stereotypes about half of humanity; while, say, quantum physics is just some old mundane banality.


You're connecting dots without my permission. I've never made those relations.

Re-read my quote you responded to again....


----------



## millionrainbows

Can genuine spirituality be found in works which are composed for religious purposes? Yes, it is possible for the spiritual intent of some works to actually 'transcend' the religious dogma and trappings they were composed under! A good example is Hildegard Von Bingen's Canticles of Ecstacy.


----------



## Jobis

Vesuvius said:


> I don't think you've understood a word I've said. Just using my ideas for your own agenda. The type of thinking you keep wanting to go back to is extraordinarily condensed and narrow. There's no room for the wonders of life there. That space of being that is talked about is simply what it is. You're either aware of it or you're not. It's everyone's common ground. I don't care about degrading any dogmas. But if they come up, although many do have some beautiful conditions, I might be inclined to say how limited I think they are.
> 
> I mean, this is a forum to discuss individual perceptions, correct? Or should we all just speak your language?


One of the points of dogma is to define reality objectively; there are limits on reality, so I guess you could say dogma is 'limited' but that doesn't invalidate it.


----------



## Blake

Nothing wrong with limitations. This whole existence is comprised of limitations. Some more so than others. Put too much of yourself in tight boxes, and it can become rather uncomfortable. S'all.


----------



## science

Vesuvius said:


> You're connecting dots without my permission. I've never made those relations.
> 
> Re-read my quote you responded to again....


Millionrainbows has, and you've been responding to my responses to him. Those are the topics of conversation here.

You might've had something else in mind, but you've chosen to express yourself so elliptically that I can't tell whether you're changing a subject or not.


----------



## Blake

science said:


> Millionrainbows has, and you've been responding to my responses to him. Those are the topics of conversation here.
> 
> You might've had something else in mind, but you've chosen to express yourself so elliptically that I can't tell whether you're changing a subject or not.


This has become a test of mental acuteness. In part I agree with million, but I have my own take.

Usually what I post is on it's own. I don't expect people to start connecting the dots with others' ideas. I'm just bouncing my own off the general topic. I'm not in cahoots with anyone in particular.


----------



## SONNET CLV

millionrainbows said:


> *Is religious music real**?*


Yes, the music is real.
But the Prime Motivator behind the music is questionable at best, if not completely unreal.


----------



## millionrainbows

Vesuvius: "You disagree with everything I say!"
Jobis: "I do not!"


----------



## millionrainbows

"The Vesuvius/millionrainbows Conspiracy, and Obama's Eastern Agenda"


----------



## millionrainbows

SONNET CLV said:


> Yes, the music is real.
> But the Prime Motivator behind the music is questionable at best, if not completely unreal.


Then the perfect 'spiritual' music for religious quandaries, even hard-core atheism, is Morton Feldman's_ For Philip Guston._ It will keep you in a state of suspension and absurdity for hours on end. Yet, there is a spiritual essence which comes through, like the glow of a distant, foggy sunrise...or is that a sunset?


----------



## Blake

millionrainbows said:


> "The Vesuvius/millionrainbows Conspiracy, and Obama's Eastern Agenda"


I think we're all doing pretty well at misunderstanding each other.


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> "The Vesuvius/millionrainbows Conspiracy, and Obama's Eastern Agenda"


Keep trying buddy. Your stereotypes of the Eastern mind or whatever are still wrong (poorly supported at the very least), and your definition of religion is still arbitrary.


----------



## millionrainbows

science said:


> Keep trying buddy. Your stereotypes of the Eastern mind or whatever are still wrong (poorly supported at the very least), and your definition of religion is still arbitrary.


With my recent post of Feldman, I should think that you would realize that my philosophical scope is much wider than that. I've got something for everyone, even Existentialists and Atheists. What's your poison?

How about Schopenhauer? That's like Buddhism with all the joy taken out.


----------



## millionrainbows

Vesuvius said:


> I think we're all doing pretty well at misunderstanding each other.


Well, far be it for me to pigeonhole anyone.


----------



## Blake

millionrainbows said:


> Well, far be it for me to pigeonhole anyone.


Labels suck, aye? Particular those given by people who don't see the whole picture.

-generally speaking-


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> With my recent post of Feldman, I should think that you would realize that my philosophical scope is much wider than that. I've got something for everyone, even Existentialists and Atheists. What's your poison?
> 
> How about Schopenhauer? That's like Buddhism with all the joy taken out.


My position is that I like Feldman's music, which is secular as far as I know, and my religious beliefs don't affect the pleasure I take in that music. "Spiritual essence" is an attempt to glamorize your enjoyment of the music with religious language, but it is superfluous and misleading.


----------



## science

Vesuvius said:


> Labels suck, aye? Particular those given by people who don't see the whole picture.
> 
> -generally speaking-


Just being snarky and vague all the time might score you more points in some kind of contest, but if you would instead kindly and in plain English point out which part of the picture I don't see, we could maybe have a productive conversation about it.


----------



## Blake

science said:


> Just being snarky and vague all the time might score you more points in some kind of contest, but if you would instead kindly and in plain English point out which part of the picture I don't see, we could maybe have a productive conversation about it.


I don't have the energy, and you apparently don't have the embrace. This relationship just won't last.

By the way, I wasn't aiming that comment at you. That's why I said -generally speaking-. If I wanted it at you then I would've quoted you. I value your input here, my friend.


----------



## science

Vesuvius said:


> I don't have the energy, and you apparently don't have the embrace. This relationship just won't last.
> 
> By the way, I wasn't aiming that comment at you. That's why I said -generally speaking-. If I wanted it at you then I would've quoted you. I value your input here, my friend.


I survived "narrow" or whatever it was along those lines that you called me the other day; I can survive "don't see the whole picture," even if it actually wasn't directly aimed at me specifically or exclusively.

But it is true that we probably would be better off it we could just ignore each other. I'm too skeptical and cynical and literal for you; you're too attached to your religious belief and its obfuscatory cleverness for me, and neither of us are likely to change our minds on anything regardless of how insightful or clever the other one is.

Perhaps the majority of nonreligious people fit your stereotype about "embrace," but I think I don't. I am actually a great admirer of the "mystical" traditions and the philosophies that legitimize them, and I believe we can incorporate _all_ of their genuine insights in a naturalistic, pantheist mysticism. I consider myself part of a few movements that are creating what I hope will become the kinds of religions most common in the future. But these traditions don't require or even benefit from any clinging to old supernaturalisms. The difference between us is not so much in what I refuse to embrace as in what you refuse to release. But if you are willing to listen to anyone as idiosyncratic as I am, let me reassure you: you can keep all the important, real, and beneficial elements of your spiritual practice without the supernatural belief. Admittedly it is a challenge, it definitely requires some deep thought about the ideas in the traditions, but it is both possible and wonderful.


----------



## Blake

science said:


> I survived "narrow" or whatever it was along those lines that you called me the other day; I can survive "don't see the whole picture," even if it actually wasn't directly aimed at me specifically or exclusively.
> 
> But it is true that we probably would be better off it we could just ignore each other. I'm too skeptical and cynical and literal for you; you're too attached to your religious belief and its obfuscatory cleverness for me, and neither of us are likely to change our minds on anything regardless of how insightful or clever the other one is.
> 
> Perhaps the majority of nonreligious people fit your stereotype about "embrace," but I think I don't. I am actually a great admirer of the "mystical" traditions and the philosophies that legitimize them, and I believe we can incorporate _all_ of their genuine insights in a naturalistic, pantheist mysticism. I consider myself part of a few movements that are creating what I hope will become the kinds of religions most common in the future. But these traditions don't require or even benefit from any clinging to old supernaturalisms. The difference between us is not so much in what I refuse to embrace as in what you refuse to release. But if you are willing to listen to anyone as idiosyncratic as I am, let me reassure you: you can keep all the important, real, and beneficial elements of your spiritual practice without the supernatural belief. Admittedly it is a challenge, it definitely requires some deep thought about the ideas in the traditions, but it is both possible and wonderful.


We just keep on misunderstanding each other, don't we? Probably my vagueness.

I'm not very religious, I will tell you. I speak carelessly, and what you find to be 'vaguely', my perceptions of the natural world that I find rather confusing myself. I've repeatedly been sharp and analytical in my life, and it certainly leaves much to be desired. At least when all your eggs are in that basket. Useful tools, definitely.

Yet... it is amazing at how vague I am being and you're still able to pin my outlook down... curious, for sure. I hold no attachment to any particular ritual. Although I do enjoy a pantheistic model as you suggest. But I don't specifically desire any kind of model. I'm more interested in the destruction of models, really.


----------



## Blake

And another one, science. I wouldn't say you're any less religious than what you think I am. You just praise your metal functions more than I do. I'm quite the fan of them too, but I can also have a bit of fun in more abstract territory.


----------



## aleazk

My beliefs are the following: 

Fact: our brains perceive an objective reality governed by logic. My belief: this objective reality governed by logic actually exists, the brain is able to perceive it just because of purely evolutionary reasons, i.e., a brain that learns how this reality works has more chances of survival. And this is quite a strong evidence, since we know how extremelly sensitive is life to the changes in the enviroment and we also have tons of empirical evidence that illustrate how life adapts to this environment. 

Now, this doesn't mean that all of our perceptions are correct. What seems to be universal is that the logical ordering always prevails. The fact that we make mistakes is evidence that the world works according to external rules that do not depend on us.

The only ontological premise made by science is the one I mentioned in the second paragraph. Once you have that, you start to define concepts that you think are relevant in this reality, you make theories based on these concepts, and you test the empirical validity of these theories. So far, this has been incredibly successful. We discovered that a lot of our initial concepts were actually incorrect, and we used this in order to make more accurate concepts (and this also encompass concepts that were thought to be metaphysical rather than physical, like certain properties of time, space and matter, and even the syntactic properties of propositional logic when applied to physical phenomena). All this incredible success has allowed us to manipulate certain aspects of reality as we please (for good or bad, but that's another discussion).

So, based on all this, for exploring the objective reality, I definitely think science is the answer, and my only ontological belief is this and the one made by science; we can merge all this into a single term: scientific realism.

On the other hand, I'm aware that science is an accumulative process of knowledge, i.e., of course we don't claim we know everything. But I do think, based on the previous success, that many answers will come in the future thanks to the scientific inquiry.

And here comes an important subject. How do we deal with the anxiety of not knowing? The answer is: i) most people don't care; ii) some people care, but accept answers that we wouldn't accept; iii) us.

The western approach does not give an answer. But, also, I don't think there's an answer. The only thing that I found a little relieving is certain "contemplative and stoic" approach favored by certain Eastern philosophies (I'm speaking in a vague and general sense here). But I take it as some kind of subjective contemplation and do not try to mix it with metaphysics. And, certainly, to listen to music (Scelsi, Cage, Feldman, etc.) that favors these ideas also gives me certain relief. But I think of all that as my own subjective experiences and have no interest in calling them "spiritual" or "religious", since those terms have for me metaphysical connotations in which I'm not interested.


----------



## Blake

Nice write-up, a. I greatly admire science. But I also have a blast in the abstract, contemplative realms where the mind falls flat on its face. There's just nothing there for it to hold onto.


----------



## science

Vesuvius said:


> And another one, science. I wouldn't say you're any less religious than what you think I am. You just praise your metal functions more than I do. I'm quite the fan of them too, but I can also have a bit of fun in more abstract territory.


The religious belief you have insisted upon in the past is that there is no reality outside of our mind. That's as religious an idea - in every sense of the word "religious" - as the idea that Jesus died for our sins so that God might not have to sentence us to eternal torture by fire. It's also not a particularly abstract or vague idea; it can be discussed with perfect clarity and goodwill.



Vesuvius said:


> Nice write-up, a. I greatly admire science. But I also have a blast in the abstract, contemplative realms where the mind falls flat on its face. There's just nothing there for it to hold onto.


What are those realms?

Why do you think science isn't abstract?


----------



## science

aleazk said:


> My beliefs are the following:
> 
> Fact: our brains perceive an objective reality governed by logic. My belief: this objective reality governed by logic actually exists, the brain is able to perceive it just because of purely evolutionary reasons, i.e., a brain that learns how this reality works has more chances of survival. And this is quite a strong evidence, since we know how extremelly sensitive is life to the changes in the enviroment and we also have tons of empirical evidence that illustrate how life adapts to this environment.
> 
> Now, this doesn't mean that all of our perceptions are correct. What seems to be universal is that the logical ordering always prevails. The fact that we make mistakes is evidence that the world works according to external rules that do not depend on us.
> 
> The only ontological premise made by science is the one I mentioned in the second paragraph. Once you have that, you start to define concepts that you think are relevant in this reality, you make theories based on these concepts, and you test the empirical validity of these theories. So far, this has been incredibly successful. We discovered that a lot of our initial concepts were actually incorrect, and we used this in order to make more accurate concepts (and this also encompass concepts that were thought to be metaphysical rather than physical, like certain properties of time, space and matter, and even the syntactic properties of propositional logic when applied to physical phenomena). All this incredible success has allowed us to manipulate certain aspects of reality as we please (for good or bad, but that's another discussion).
> 
> So, based on all this, for exploring the objective reality, I definitely think science is the answer, and my only ontological belief is this and the one made by science; we can merge all this into a single term: scientific realism.
> 
> On the other hand, I'm aware that science is an accumulative process of knowledge, i.e., of course we don't claim we know everything. But I do think, based on the previous success, that many answers will come in the future thanks to the scientific inquiry.
> 
> And here comes an important subject. How do we deal with the anxiety of not knowing? The answer is: i) most people don't care; ii) some people care, but accept answers that we wouldn't accept; iii) us.
> 
> The western approach does not give an answer. But, also, I don't think there's an answer. The only thing that I found a little relieving is certain "contemplative and stoic" approach favored by certain Eastern philosophies (I'm speaking in a vague and general sense here). But I take it as some kind of subjective contemplation and do not try to mix it with metaphysics. And, certainly, to listen to music (Scelsi, Cage, Feldman, etc.) that favors these ideas also gives me certain relief. But I think of all that as my own subjective experiences and have no interest in calling them "spiritual" or "religious", since those terms have for me metaphysical connotations in which I'm not interested.


Very nice! I will need time for this so come back tomorrow and I'll have something by then!


----------



## millionrainbows

aleazk said:


> My beliefs are the following:
> 
> Fact: our brains perceive an objective reality governed by logic. My belief: this objective reality governed by logic actually exists, the brain is able to perceive it just because of purely evolutionary reasons, i.e., a brain that learns how this reality works has more chances of survival. And this is quite a strong evidence, since we know how extremelly sensitive is life to the changes in the enviroment and we also have tons of empirical evidence that illustrate how life adapts to this environment.
> 
> Now, this doesn't mean that all of our perceptions are correct. What seems to be universal is that the logical ordering always prevails. The fact that we make mistakes is evidence that the world works according to external rules that do not depend on us.
> 
> The only ontological premise made by science is the one I mentioned in the second paragraph. Once you have that, you start to define concepts that you think are relevant in this reality, you make theories based on these concepts, and you test the empirical validity of these theories. So far, this has been incredibly successful. We discovered that a lot of our initial concepts were actually incorrect, and we used this in order to make more accurate concepts (and this also encompass concepts that were thought to be metaphysical rather than physical, like certain properties of time, space and matter, and even the syntactic properties of propositional logic when applied to physical phenomena). All this incredible success has allowed us to manipulate certain aspects of reality as we please (for good or bad, but that's another discussion).
> 
> So, based on all this, for exploring the objective reality, I definitely think science is the answer, and my only ontological belief is this and the one made by science; we can merge all this into a single term: scientific realism.
> 
> On the other hand, I'm aware that science is an accumulative process of knowledge, i.e., of course we don't claim we know everything. But I do think, based on the previous success, that many answers will come in the future thanks to the scientific inquiry.
> 
> And here comes an important subject. How do we deal with the anxiety of not knowing? The answer is: i) most people don't care; ii) some people care, but accept answers that we wouldn't accept; iii) us.
> 
> The western approach does not give an answer. But, also, I don't think there's an answer. The only thing that I found a little relieving is certain "contemplative and stoic" approach favored by certain Eastern philosophies (I'm speaking in a vague and general sense here). But I take it as some kind of subjective contemplation and do not try to mix it with metaphysics. And, certainly, to listen to music (Scelsi, Cage, Feldman, etc.) that favors these ideas also gives me certain relief. But I think of all that as my own subjective experiences and have no interest in calling them "spiritual" or "religious", since those terms have for me metaphysical connotations in which I'm not interested.


Then really, after reading what you have said here, you really have no business discussing 'religious' music, or 'spiritual' music and its effects, because these are metaphysical ideas. You should go off and do your science, and stop creating friction.

The precise reason most people who are into these sorts of metaphysical ideas is because of the 'unprovable' nature of them. People like us are interested in 'the soul', which has not been proven to exist. We're interested in 'the unconscious' and the irrational, darker, more mysterious aspects of being.

I used to be totally logical. Now, I'm very interested in metaphysical ideas like religion and stujj like the I Ching and Tarot oracle cards.

I just acquired a new set of tarot cards, called the _*Voyager *_set. The guy who wrote the accompanying book is very erudite, and uses the I Ching in conjunction with it. He gives new, more modern interpretations to the oracle, and touts it as a way of self-knowledge, of your innate wisdom. Nothing wrong with that, and no "belief" is necessary; just 'faith' in your own inner wisdom...Things have progressed since you apparently last looked.


----------



## Jobis

millionrainbows said:


> Then really, after reading what you have said here, you really have no business discussing 'religious' music, or 'spiritual' music and its effects, because these are metaphysical ideas. You should go off and do your science, and stop creating friction.
> 
> The precise reason most people who are into these sorts of metaphysical ideas is because of the 'unprovable' nature of them. People like us are interested in 'the soul', which has not been proven to exist. We're interested in 'the unconscious' and the irrational, darker, more mysterious aspects of being.
> 
> I used to be totally logical. Now, I'm very interested in metaphysical ideas like religion and stujj like the I Ching and Tarot oracle cards.
> 
> I just acquired a new set of tarot cards, called the _*Voyager *_set. The guy who wrote the accompanying book is very erudite, and uses the I Ching in conjunction with it. He gives new, more modern interpretations to the oracle, and touts it as a way of self-knowledge, of your innate wisdom. Nothing wrong with that, and no "belief" is necessary; just 'faith' in your own inner wisdom...Things have progressed since you apparently last looked.


Tarot? Seriously?

The religious search starts, for me, with the question 'why'? 'Why' are we here? Most importantly: 'why' is there something rather than nothing?

Science will never remove the necessity of God because it can never answer the 'why' questions, only the 'what' and perhaps 'how'.

The question following that is; does the universe have a purpose? How can meaning exist without one? But a purpose implies a cause I think. Everywhere in science we see a long system of cause and effect, but it cannot be infinite. Surely there has to be a beginning to the whole thing, a first cause.

I don't see what is illogical about that; perhaps people get confused because they envision God as a big bearded man in the clouds?


----------



## Guest

Jobis said:


> Tarot? Seriously?
> 
> The religious search starts, for me, with the question 'why'? 'Why' are we here? Most importantly: 'why' is there something rather than nothing?
> 
> Science will never remove the necessity of God because it can never answer the 'why' questions, only the 'what' and perhaps 'how'.
> 
> The question following that is; does the universe have a purpose? How can meaning exist without one? But a purpose implies a cause I think. Everywhere in science we see a long system of cause and effect, but it cannot be infinite. Surely there has to be a beginning to the whole thing, a first cause.
> 
> I don't see what is illogical about that; perhaps people get confused because they envision God as a big bearded man in the clouds?


Science might never remove the possibility of god, but I don't see how it can never remove the necessity.

As for beardy man - if not, then what?


----------



## DavidA

MacLeod said:


> Science might never remove the possibility of god, but I don't see how it can never remove the necessity.
> 
> As for beardy man - if not, then what?


The problem is that people have the wrong idea of Gpd - ie the bearded man image. But the Christian God is both infinite and personal. God is a spirit not a bearded man.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

> MacLeod: Science will never remove the necessity of God because it can never answer the 'why' questions, only the 'what' and perhaps 'how'.


Stephen Hawking doesn't find it a bridge too far fetched; even if his saying so seems even more contrary than contrary.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/09/02/hawking.god.universe/


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> The problem is that people have the wrong idea of Gpd - ie the bearded man image. But the Christian God is both infinite and personal. God is a spirit not a bearded man.


Sure, I know 'he' isn't a beardy man, but the male imagery of the Gospels and of the prayers and hymns makes it very difficult to get away from that idea. As for the idea of 'infinite' and 'personal' that doesn't help get close to the nature of any god, never mind a specifically Christian one (and there is more than one of those)



Marschallin Blair said:


> Stephen Hawking doesn't find it a bridge too far fetched; even if his saying so seems even more contrary than contrary.
> 
> http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/09/02/hawking.god.universe/


Yep. Read the book. But that isn't what jobis is saying - he's saying the opposite, isn't he?


----------



## mmsbls

Marschallin Blair said:


> Stephen Hawking doesn't find it a bridge too far fetched; even if his saying so seems even more contrary than contrary.
> 
> http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/09/02/hawking.god.universe/


Hawking did basically say that, but he was referring to our region of spacetime rather than all of reality. Most physicists believe the quantum mechanical vacuum exists, and from that state, "universes" such as ours can spontaneously (i.e. without a conventional cause) be created. The question would be how the quantum mechanical vacuum came to be (or existed forever).


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## Jobis

MacLeod said:


> Science might never remove the possibility of god, but I don't see how it can never remove the necessity.
> 
> As for beardy man - if not, then what?


Because within the laws of science it is impossible for something to come from nothing; if the universe itself did, why is the law so consistent otherwise? Likewise with life arising from dead matter, even at a bacterial level; it just doesn't happen, and yet life cannot always have existed for an eternity.

As for the necessity: perhaps you are not in a position to judge the importance of God in many people's lives. Its the importance of having a purpose and the knowledge that you matter; that human life is sacred. That may not be important to a lot of us, but I see no logical reason to give up the belief that existence has meaning.

I believe Jesus Christ was God, but in the trinitarian view; embodying one of the three persons. So God the father would not have a physical manifestation, but would rather be a kind of timeless, spaceless, immaterial being.

I doubt I could get any more specific than that, and no doubt I sound ridiculous enough already.


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## Jobis

Marschallin Blair said:


> Stephen Hawking doesn't find it a bridge too far fetched; even if his saying so seems even more contrary than contrary.
> 
> http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/09/02/hawking.god.universe/


I don't believe Hawking makes any serious argument beyond the claim that 'because the universe exists, it must have just appeared from nothing' without any explanation, scientific or otherwise. He takes for granted the existence of something at all, as so many of the new atheists do.


----------



## DavidA

aleazk said:


> My beliefs are the following:
> 
> Fact: our brains perceive an objective reality governed by logic.


This is, of course, an assumption we make on which everything else is based.

The question we have to ask is whether non-guided forces are likely to produce such an entity. A bit like saying that I believe Bill Gates employs unguided forces to write his computer programmes.


----------



## DavidA

Marschallin Blair said:


> Stephen Hawking doesn't find it a bridge too far fetched; even if his saying so seems even more contrary than contrary.
> 
> http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/09/02/hawking.god.universe/


Stephen Hawking also made the statement that 'philosophy is dead.' This, of course, is a statement of philosophy itself. Some of Hawking's theories have as much to do with his philosophy as his physics.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

mmsbls said:


> Hawking did basically say that, but he was referring to our region of spacetime rather than all of reality. Most physicists believe the quantum mechanical vacuum exists, and from that state, "universes" such as ours can spontaneously (i.e. without a conventional cause) be created. The question would be how the quantum mechanical vacuum came to be (or existed forever).


Fair-shooting, certainly._ ;D_

But then, when veering off from science and into metaphysical speculation (ontology and religion): Why is it assumed that the void or universe or multi-verse or whatever--- which _could have been here forever_; and _expanded and contracted infinitely_-- that _it_ had to have a Prime Mover or cause? But that God does _not_?

It sounds like special pleading to me.


----------



## KenOC

Jobis said:


> ...Its the importance of having a purpose and the knowledge that you matter; that human life is sacred.


I have never seen any evidence of that. The desire to believe something is unrelated to its truth.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

DavidA said:


> Stephen Hawking also made the statement that 'philosophy is dead.' This, of course, is a statement of philosophy itself. Some of Hawking's theories have as much to do with his philosophy as his physics.


That _ex cathedra_ pronouncement is compelling. I'm utterly convinced.


----------



## Jobis

KenOC said:


> I have never seen any evidence of that. The desire to believe something is unrelated to its truth.


I haven't seen much evidence to contradict it. Some people choose to believe that life is without purpose; I find that much more strange.

Our civilisation is built on the idea that human life matters, although the idea of sacredness has been watered down by secularism, and this idea is being challenged increasingly in our society.


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## Blake

science said:


> The religious belief you have insisted upon in the past is that there is no reality outside of our mind. That's as religious an idea - in every sense of the word "religious" - as the idea that Jesus died for our sins so that God might not have to sentence us to eternal torture by fire. It's also not a particularly abstract or vague idea; it can be discussed with perfect clarity and goodwill.
> 
> What are those realms?
> 
> Why do you think science isn't abstract?


Ok, we'll try one more time. The idea of having nothing experiential outside of the mind is the most pragmatic experience in human-kind. When have you ever experienced something outside of your mind? This is not a religious statement. It's simply the acknowledgement that no dynamics have ever been experienced outside of a mind.

What about your extreme dogmatism? This obsession with your own logical functioning of the brain to the point where you're starting to make up labels and foundations for people because you can't stand not having any.... and you believe it into existence. If that's not religion, then I don't know what is.


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## Guest

Jobis said:


> Because within the laws of science it is impossible for something to come from nothing; if the universe itself did, why is the law so consistent otherwise? Likewise with life arising from dead matter, even at a bacterial level; it just doesn't happen, and yet life cannot always have existed for an eternity.


That's right. There's plenty that hasn't yet been fully understood or explained. Which of the current theories we choose is dependent on a number of factors, and for some, the need to believe in god is the most important.

That's fine by me. I'll not ask further.


----------



## mmsbls

Jobis said:


> Because within the laws of science it is impossible for something to come from nothing; if the universe itself did, why is the law so consistent otherwise? Likewise with life arising from dead matter, even at a bacterial level; it just doesn't happen, and yet life cannot always have existed for an eternity.


There's no scientific law that states that it's impossible for something to come from nothing. There are laws that make statements related to that. One law is the conservation of energy (i.e. the energy of a closed system at time t0 must be the same as the energy of the same closed system at time t1). There are some interesting caveats to that law due to quantum mechanics, but that's too technical.

The universe (our region of spacetime) is thought by some physicists to have been "popped" into existence from the quantum mechanical vacuum through reasonable understood quantum processes. The interesting property of our universe is that the total energy is 0 (the positive energy is balanced by the negative gravitational potential energy) so it doesn't violate the conservation of energy.

Life arising from non living matter violates no scientific law. There is no conservation of living things law.



Jobis said:


> I don't believe Hawking makes any serious argument beyond the claim that 'because the universe exists, it must have just appeared from nothing' without any explanation, scientific or otherwise. He takes for granted the existence of something at all, as so many of the new atheists do.


I think everyone I have ever known (religious or not) assumes the existence of something. We just don't know how to explain the existence of that something.


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## mmsbls

Marschallin Blair said:


> But then, when veering off from science and into metaphysical speculation (ontology and religion): Why is it assumed that the void or universe or multi-verse or whatever--- which _could have been here forever_; and _expanded and contracted infinitely_-- that _it_ had to have a Prime Mover or cause? But that God does _not_?
> 
> It sounds like special pleading to me.


I agree wholeheartedly.


----------



## KenOC

Jobis said:


> Our civilisation is built on the idea that human life matters, although the idea of sacredness has been watered down by secularism...


If the history of our civilization teaches us anything, it's that the winners' lives matter. Certainly not the other guys'!


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## Blake

KenOC said:


> If the history of our civilization teaches us anything, it's that the winners' lives matter. Certainly not the other guys'!


But that everything gets eaten by time anyway, so what's really the big deal about winning or loosing? Life automatically pushes to evolve, it doesn't need a human's anxiety.


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## KenOC

Vesuvius said:


> But that everything gets eaten by time anyway, so what's really the big deal about winning or loosing? Life automatically pushes to evolve, it doesn't need a human's anxiety.


Agree with that. But I was speaking of the mores of our civilization, nothing beyond that.


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## Blake

Hey, this is the religious section. We must unsparingly push deeper. :angel:


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## aleazk

Jobis said:


> Tarot? Seriously?
> 
> The religious search starts, for me, with the question 'why'? 'Why' are we here? Most importantly: 'why' is there something rather than nothing?
> 
> Science will never remove the necessity of God because it can never answer the 'why' questions, only the 'what' and perhaps 'how'.
> 
> The question following that is; does the universe have a purpose? How can meaning exist without one? But a purpose implies a cause I think. Everywhere in science we see a long system of cause and effect, but it cannot be infinite. Surely there has to be a beginning to the whole thing, a first cause.
> 
> I don't see what is illogical about that; perhaps people get confused because they envision God as a big bearded man in the clouds?


A big problem with these type of reasonings is the following: you are seeing the existence of reality as some kind of 'effect', and then you are assuming there must be a 'cause' for this effect; this cause is, of course, 'the creator', "God". The problem is that cause-effect is a thing that is probably valid only inside this reality and only applicable to things that exist in this reality. So, it's only valid inside the system and you can't use it to prove things about the existence of the system itself since that implies an extrapolation of the law to things outside its original domain.

When people says that it's nonsensical to say that something can come out from nothing, they are usually thinking of "nothing" as the vacuum. But that's not the metaphysical nothing. In vacuum you have plenty of things that exist (like space, time, causality, logic, etc.) And yes, classical physics, at least, says that the vacuum will remain vacuum (in quantum mechanics the thing is more complicated since you can have vacuum fluctuations and also the very notion of particle changes according to the observer; an accelerated observer can see a lot of particles when an inertial observer does not see any particle, this is called Unruh effect; nevertheless, the quantum field is always in the vacuum state). But the metaphysical nothing is a very different thing, it's the absence of everything that makes our reality. And you will have to convince me that you know the rules that dominate the passage from this metaphysical nothing to actual existence, if any.

Also, cause-effect is related to time, in the sense of causation of events. This notion of time is very close to the 'presentism' view of spacetime ontology. But the relativity of simultaneity in the Theory of Relativity has shown us that this point of view is then problematic with observation, since this discovery made by the Theory of Relativity tends to favor the 'eternalism' approach. In this sense what exists and always existed is spacetime. Since spacetime contains time, it's rather difficult to even formulate a notion that some creator created spacetime since this act of creation involves a causation of events, but this is nonsense since we are outside time now.

So, I don't claim to have the answers. But many of the reasonings similar to the one you mentioned are simplistic from the point of view of metaphysics and logic, and that's why I tend to reject them.

And, btw, most of these things are not even my original ideas, but very basic metaphysics/ontology. There are entire books dedicated to the study of causation, the ontology of time, etc.


----------



## Blake

aleazk said:


> A big problem with these type of reasonings is the following: you are seeing the existence of reality as some kind of 'effect', and then you are assuming there must be a 'cause' for this effect; this cause is, of course, 'the creator', "God". The problem is that cause-effect is a thing that is probably valid only inside this reality and only applicable to things that exist in this reality. So, it's only valid inside the system and you can't use it to prove things about the existence of the system itself since that implies an extrapolation of the law to things outside its original domain.
> 
> When people says that it's nonsensical to say that something can come out from nothing, they are usually thinking of "nothing" as the vacuum. But that's not the metaphysical nothing. In vacuum you have plenty of things that exist (like space, time, causality, logic, etc.) And yes, classical physics, at least, says that the vacuum will remain vacuum (in quantum mechanics the thing is more complicated since you can have vacuum fluctuations and also the very notion of particle changes according to the observer; an accelerated observer can see a lot of particles when an inertial observer does not see any particle, this is called Unruh effect; nevertheless, the quantum field is always in the vacuum state). But the metaphysical nothing is a very different thing, it's the absence of everything that makes our reality. And you will have to convince me that you know the rules that dominate the passage from this metaphysical nothing to actual existence, if any.
> 
> Also, cause-effect is related to time, in the sense of causation of events. This notion of time is very close to the 'presentism' view of spacetime ontology. But the relativity of simultaneity in the Theory of Relativity has shown us that this point of view is then problematic with observation, since this discovery made by the Theory of Relativity tends to favor the 'eternalism' approach. In this sense what exists and always existed is spacetime. Since spacetime contains time, it's rather difficult to even formulate a notion that some creator created spacetime since this act of creation involves a causation of events, but this is nonsense since we are outside time now.
> 
> So, I don't claim to have the answers. But many of the reasonings similar to the one you mentioned are simplistic from the point of view of metaphysics and logic, and that's why I tend to reject them.
> 
> And, btw, most of these things are not even my original ideas, but very basic metaphysics/ontology. There are entire books dedicated to the study of causation, the ontology of time, etc.


See, you have a much more 'western science' way of approaching the unknown, but there is a lot of openness and space in your words. That's really the most important thing to me. I don't care if it's Buddhism, Christianity, Western Science... the roads are aplenty. And it's not really about the semantics, but where they are coming from.

On the contrary, it's the narrow-mindedness of wanting to obsessively serve one's personal perceptions that I find regressive. If it's not possible to throw everything in the trash at any moment then one should just step aside, because their attachments to this temporary experience are too great to find anything of real value. They have closed their doors in the lack of trust in the natural progression of life. It's a wide-open exploration and a full-on embrace of all grossness and subtleties. I think this fearlessness is what can truly lead us to our origin. The willingness to drop even who you think you are.


----------



## DavidA

aleazk said:


> A big problem with these type of reasonings is the following: you are seeing the existence of reality as some kind of 'effect', and then you are assuming there must be a 'cause' for this effect; this cause is, of course, 'the creator', "God". The problem is that cause-effect is a thing that is probably valid only inside this reality and only applicable to things that exist in this reality. So, it's only valid inside the system and you can't use it to prove things about the existence of the system itself since that implies an extrapolation of the law to things outside its original domain.
> 
> When people says that it's nonsensical to say that something can come out from nothing, they are usually thinking of "nothing" as the vacuum. But that's not the metaphysical nothing. In vacuum you have plenty of things that exist (like space, time, causality, logic, etc.) And yes, classical physics, at least, says that the vacuum will remain vacuum (in quantum mechanics the thing is more complicated since you can have vacuum fluctuations and also the very notion of particle changes according to the observer; an accelerated observer can see a lot of particles when an inertial observer does not see any particle, this is called Unruh effect; nevertheless, the quantum field is always in the vacuum state). But the metaphysical nothing is a very different thing, it's the absence of everything that makes our reality. And you will have to convince me that you know the rules that dominate the passage from this metaphysical nothing to actual existence, if any.
> 
> Also, cause-effect is related to time, in the sense of causation of events. This notion of time is very close to the 'presentism' view of spacetime ontology. But the relativity of simultaneity in the Theory of Relativity has shown us that this point of view is then problematic with observation, since this discovery made by the Theory of Relativity tends to favor the 'eternalism' approach. In this sense what exists and always existed is spacetime. Since spacetime contains time, it's rather difficult to even formulate a notion that some creator created spacetime since this act of creation involves a causation of events, but this is nonsense since we are outside time now.
> 
> So, I don't claim to have the answers. But many of the reasonings similar to the one you mentioned are simplistic from the point of view of metaphysics and logic, and that's why I tend to reject them.
> 
> And, btw, most of these things are not even my original ideas, but very basic metaphysics/ontology. There are entire books dedicated to the study of causation, the ontology of time, etc.


Sorry, mate, but these arguments define Common logic. In every other sphere we look for a cause when there is an effect. In this case we are arguing that there is no cause to the effect because we want to ditch a creator in our mind. Even if science can tell us how the effect happened it still does not rule out the cause. You are making the mistake of saying that because we understand the mechanism then we can dispense with the agent.


----------



## mmsbls

DavidA said:


> Sorry, mate, but these arguments define Common logic. In every other sphere we look for a cause when there is an effect. In this case we are arguing that there is no cause to the effect because we want to ditch a creator in our mind. Even if science can tell us how the effect happened it still does not rule out the cause. You are making the mistake of saying that because we understand the mechanism then we can dispense with the agent.


aleazk and I are physicists. Studying physics shows us that reality often does not abide by human common sense (logic). For example, most people believe every effect must have a cause, but quantum physics dispenses with that notion. The decay of a uranium nucleus is not caused by anything. It just happens randomly. There is no cause. We have no specific desire to exclude a creator. It's just that no cause or creator is necessary to describe certain events.


----------



## Guest

Vesuvius said:


> See, you have a much more 'western science' way of approaching the unknown,


Why the distinction? Is there an 'eastern' science?



DavidA said:


> Sorry, mate, but these arguments define Common logic. In every other sphere we look for a cause when there is an effect. In this case we are arguing that there is no cause to the effect because we want to ditch a creator in our mind. Even if science can tell us how the effect happened it still does not rule out the cause. You are making the mistake of saying that because we understand the mechanism then we can dispense with the agent.


I don't know that we (which 'we' is that, btw?) _want _to ditch a creator. We might not have adopted one in the first place, or we just can't see how one exists.

The 'logic' challenge is to tell us that the laws of physics must apply ("you can't make something out of nothing") and then tell us that an entity exists to whom they don't apply, and that the man who was sent to tell us about the entity could also break them.


----------



## aleazk

DavidA said:


> Sorry, mate, but these arguments define Common logic. In every other sphere we look for a cause when there is an effect. In this case we are arguing that there is no cause to the effect because we want to ditch a creator in our mind. Even if science can tell us how the effect happened it still does not rule out the cause. You are making the mistake of saying that because we understand the mechanism then we can dispense with the agent.


Well, you can reject the first argument if you want. But I think it's an important point. I'm not saying it's necessarily like that; I'm just asking, can that notion be extrapolated in that way?, that's all.

What about the second? explain me how something can be said to be "created" when there's no time for making the causal ordering of these events, creator --> thing created, which is required by the concept of creation. The whole notion of creation means nothing in this context.


----------



## science

aleazk said:


> My beliefs are the following:


Phenomenal!

I say that because I agree, but also because you expressed it well. But I want to modify/clarify a few points that I would have expressed, perhaps not better, but differently.

Something that has impressed itself on me very strongly in the past few years, and which you discussed a bit, is how unreliable our senses and mind are _except_ in a pragmatic way.

Probably best to insist at this point that of course there is a real world independent of our minds. I doubt any honest, sincere person could deny that; denial is either a rhetorical game, a religious belief (by which I mean a "belief" that isn't actually held at the deepest levels of consciousness), or a psychological disorder. There is no philosophical justification or any other kind of justification for arguing that the world is just my imagination. Our imagination, like the rest of our mind, is something our brains do, not something that could create the world. So staying within reality, there is a real world out there, but our perceptions of it aren't ever accurate; our actual perceptions of the world are basically illusions created by our nervous systems.

What is actually out there in the world - elementary particles interacting with each other apparently as quantum physics and relativity describe - is not what we perceive. Instead our perceptions are a creation of our mind's interaction with that world. As an example, caffeine isn't inherently bitter; our perception of its bitterness is an interaction between caffeine and our nervous system. That applies to colors, concepts like "cup" or "table" or "tool" or "animal," all kinds of things. Thinking of something like the interaction between the material of my satin curtains, the light, and my nervous system is enough to awe me. Whoever says science takes the wonder out of things could not have had the slightest knowledge of things like this. Everything winds up this amazing.

And this insight even applies to our conscious experience of our own minds! When I experience myself enjoying a cigar, I don't experience _at all_ whatever is going on in my brain with dopamine and all that. My experience of the enjoyment is as contrived as my perception of the cigar itself is.

But our nervous systems are very good at enabling us to find food, avoid a lot of dangers, figure out what the people and animals around us are likely to want or do, make friends, have kids, etc. That's pretty much the only thing they're good at.

No less amazing than all of this is that _we have figured this out_. I guess this began back in the 17th century when we began to discover that our senses aren't actually accurate guides to the world, and that instead of relying on intuitions we have to create precise models of the world and test them empirically. We began to _transcend_ our nervous systems. And here we are four hundred years later, with models of the world that make absolutely no sense intuitively, but work empirically.

Just amazing.

That's one thing I wanted to write about when I read your post. There's one more but I guess this is enough for one post!


----------



## DavidA

mmsbls said:


> aleazk and I are physicists. Studying physics shows us that reality often does not abide by human common sense (logic). For example, most people believe every effect must have a cause, but quantum physics dispenses with that notion. The decay of a uranium nucleus is not caused by anything. It just happens randomly. There is no cause. We have no specific desire to exclude a creator. It's just that no cause or creator is necessary to describe certain events.


I am also a physicist and, thanks, I do know unanimous decays spontaneously. Quoting that case, of course, does rule out a creator. Why on earth should it? Of course a creator is not needed to explain certain events - ie my visit to the shops this morning. But we are talking, surely, on a much deeper level than uranium decay or visiting the shops!


----------



## DavidA

MacLeod said:


> Why the distinction? Is there an 'eastern' science?
> 
> I don't know that we (which 'we' is that, btw?) _want _to ditch a creator. We might not have adopted one in the first place, or we just can't see how one exists.
> 
> The 'logic' challenge is to tell us that the laws of physics must apply ("you can't make something out of nothing") and then tell us that an entity exists to whom they don't apply, and that the man who was sent to tell us about the entity could also break them.


As was pointed out to me many years ago, atheism is not a logical or intellectual step but a moral one. In saying that we are not saying that all atheists are immoral but that they wish to live their lives in independence of any god figure. Atheism to me is far less logical than theism, as theism explains a lot more.


----------



## science

aleazk said:


> My beliefs are the following:
> 
> The western approach does not give an answer. But, also, I don't think there's an answer. The only thing that I found a little relieving is certain "contemplative and stoic" approach favored by certain Eastern philosophies (I'm speaking in a vague and general sense here). But I take it as some kind of subjective contemplation and do not try to mix it with metaphysics. And, certainly, to listen to music (Scelsi, Cage, Feldman, etc.) that favors these ideas also gives me certain relief. But I think of all that as my own subjective experiences and have no interest in calling them "spiritual" or "religious", since those terms have for me metaphysical connotations in which I'm not interested.


My first post in response was all about science, basically about physical facts.

But there is another thing that the thread has been stumbling toward, perhaps not entirely absent in millionrainbow's OP intentions - when we realize all this stuff about our minds, what of religion, spirituality, music?

In a way it gets worse before it gets better. Just as colors and tastes and ontological categories are things human brains make out of the world rather than things that exist in the world, so religion and music are things human brains do. We have the kind of brains that make the kinds of minds capable of experiencing a certain wavelength of electromagnetic radiation as "red" light; we have the kind of brains that make the kinds of minds capable of experiencing spirit possession and visionary journeys to "other worlds." We also have the kind of brains that make the kind of minds that find "music" so compelling. We (most of us anyway) have the kind of brains that find some things morally right and other things morally wrong. These are things our brains produce rather than revelations of the truth of the world. How then shall we live?

Well, one answer is that we can try to study these things scientifically. We can try to study what is going on in experiences of spirit possession, for instance. We can try to figure out why we evolved these brains - I endorse the hypothesis that our brains originally produced these experiences (religion, music, also dancing) as a way of creating cohesive human communities that could win wars against less cohesive human communities.

That kind of study is very interesting but isn't the main thing we need to replace religion! There is individual variation, and a lot of scientifically-inclined people don't feel much need for religion. We can see this in people like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris, who insist - even, paradoxically, against the evidence found by people who do study religion! - that religion is nothing but a set of ideas about the world. But religion is for most people a social experience, an experience of belonging and importance, a way of finding out (or creating) who we are and what matters to us. Some new ideas might work for the village atheist sorts for whom religion really is nothing but a set of ideas, but those new ideas aren't going to replace religion for people who actually need and value religion.

So, what is going to replace religion?

One thing we've got to do is realize that things that matter matter because they matter to us, regardless of whether they matter to the universe. A lot of people find this very upsetting - I did too, for months after I realized that I no longer believed in "God" - but in the end it is ok, and even better because I no longer have to submit my own sense of right and wrong to that of the experts in my religion. I now recognize the claim that my values don't matter unless they matter to the universe... or to what the religious professionals have said about the universe... is essentially a political claim, a claim that I have to submit to those religious professionals. Nor can science replace religion in this matter: science can help us by telling us some stuff about the world, but science is not going to tell us what our values are or should be.

Realizing that our values are creations of our brains, of course we suffer ambiguity because we subjectively experience our values as objective truths, and uncertainty because our ideal or future selves might have different values than we know of right now! All this might actually be too much for psychologically conservative people to handle if they've grow up with more comfortable "objective certainties." But for those of us who can handle it - how liberating! I would argue we need to stop telling people that their values are worthless because only God's values matter, and instead encourage more introspection and meditation in order for people to get closer to figuring out what their values really are! (We should probably reinterpret all this as a communal thing - we discover our values together - rather than an individual thing.)

One particular value that I think we should emphasize more is honesty. Psychologists have discovered that honesty is not as easy as we have assumed; we have so many biases that we can't even trust our own brains anymore. It's an uncomfortable fact because it means we have to struggle against ourselves and cannot ever really succeed. But that struggle is an ethical imperative. I believe we ought to emphasize a lot more how unreliable our minds are, and valorize the struggle for honesty a bit more.

There's a lot more that could be said about values, but I should move on to religion more generally.

Just as values don't go away when we realize that they are ours rather than the universe's, religious experience doesn't go away just because we've figured that spirits don't exist. Our brains haven't evolved out of that or anything. But what is the proper object of our religious devotion? This gets to some radical stuff. Science doesn't help us much here either.

Well, _I_ believe that the proper objects for our religious devotion are the human community as a whole (not particular ethnicities or whatever) and the universe as a whole. I further believe that we can actually experience all of human religious behavior, including trance and ecstasy and mystical bliss and all of that, within traditions that fully accept the discoveries of science.

I'm getting uncomfortable because I'm sharing too much about myself, something that I experience (for now at least) as private; something that I cannot articulate or defend well under the attacks I anticipate. Vesuvius must be so pleased! But I did want to share the point that there is still something subjectively real about what people have described as spiritual, and that it is going to remain subjectively real to many of us.

We have been in the process of creating secular traditions that effectively replace religions ones for at least two hundred years, maybe almost five hundred years would be better, and _a lot of the classical music tradition itself has been created as part of that project_. (So this does relate to music after all, my dear moderator friends!)

I doubt that "spiritual" or "religious" is the best label for these things in terms of accuracy, but I don't blame people for continuing to use those terms because at this point we haven't created equally compelling alternatives. Regardless of label, these secular traditions nearly have all the same emotional significance that "spiritual" and "religious" stuff has had, and I believe they will be even more effective than traditional religious traditions someday. Maybe soon.

And music is going to go on being a big part of these traditions!

So millionrainbows' idea that the music of Feldman or Cage or Riley or Beethoven is inherently religious music is true if only he would say it is religious _for him_! And for lots of other people, including Cage (I think). But one of the things he has done wrong in this thread (in my opinion) is try to insist that we all adopt his idea about what religion is or ought to be (that bit about relaxation and so on), and that we describe music in light of that. That's not the only thing he's done wrong - his stereotypes about "the Eastern mind" are indefensible empirically and ethically questionable - but it's one thing. Rather than declaring that any music is religious whether people want it to be or not, we should let people experience and describe it in their own integrity, as they should let us.


----------



## science

DavidA said:


> As was pointed out to me many years ago, atheism is not a logical or intellectual step but a moral one. In saying that we are not saying that all atheists are immoral but that they wish to live their lives in independence of any god figure. Atheism to me is far less logical than theism, as theism explains a lot more.


Maybe you're even right about most atheists. I don't know.

But for me atheism was an intellectual step and a painful one that I did _not_ wish to take. I still wish the religion that I loved were true; I would rather live in its cosmos than in the one science has discovered.

Edit: Also, how do polytheism and pantheism fit into your view? Are they moral choices or intellectual choices or what?


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> As was pointed out to me many years ago, atheism is not a logical or intellectual step but a moral one. In saying that we are not saying that all atheists are immoral but that they wish to live their lives in independence of any god figure. Atheism to me is far less logical than theism, as theism explains a lot more.


Atheism/theism 'explains' nothing. Humanism/Christianity/Buddhism etc are where the 'explanations' come from.

Whoever pointed out to you that atheism is a 'moral' step was wrong.


----------



## Blake

MacLeod said:


> Why the distinction? Is there an 'eastern' science?


Jesus, some of you guys are relentless. Western science tends to study the outer world. Eastern science (Buddhism, etc.) tends to study the inner world.

But science still is science. I was focusing on a specific branch that alaezk was speaking from. And it's so damn obvious that's it's a pity I have to stop and clarify.

And by the way, it's still founded on a belief system... or a religion. As he said 'it's his beliefs' into what can lead him to an origin of existence. That's all any of these systems are good for.


----------



## mmsbls

DavidA said:


> I am also a physicist and, thanks, I do know unanimous decays spontaneously. Quoting that case, of course, does rule out a creator. Why on earth should it? Of course a creator is not needed to explain certain events - ie my visit to the shops this morning. But we are talking, surely, on a much deeper level than uranium decay or visiting the shops!


I was not ruling out a creator. I was simply saying that a creator is not necessary for many physical events. You seemed to believe that people remove cause "because we want to ditch a creator in our mind." I was saying that was not true for most physicists.

I was talking about what people generally refer to as our universe (believed to be an uncaused event) and gave a more familiar example (uranium decay) as another example of an uncaused event.


----------



## millionrainbows

All this pseudo-intellectual rambling is going nowhere. This reminds me of those selfish parents on Dr. Phil who go on and on about themselves, and Dr. Phil has to remind them that this is about the child, not them.

In the same way, everyone here needs to be reminded that all this religion business is not about objective realities or facts; it's about you, as a person.

What does it matter about time? Time is probably just an illusion, anyway. And what does it matter if God created the universe or not? If God is truly omniscient, then he created time as well, and would be beyond its parameters.

It seems that everyone here is couching things in anthropomorphic terms. "Time" is a human concern. Linear time even more so. Most people here can't even grasp the concept of "moment time" enough to even listen to Messiaen in the way he intended. Meanwhile Steven Hawking continues to pop his head in, like some bizarre jack-in-the-box, justifying all this space -time ruminating...

The only thing that matters is _you_, and your experience. Your experience is yours alone. It can't be 'proven' that your experience even exists. "The soul" is Man's invisibility to Man.

_*Yes, The Tarot, seriously.*_ It's all about self-knowledge, not pseudo-intellectual scientific ramblings that ultimately do nothing to help you realize your own being.

Meanwhile, Messiaen's Vingt regards sur l'Enfant-Jesus plays on in the background, as a reminder that only as a realized being will our existence accomplish anything of value.


----------



## mmsbls

science said:


> I doubt that "spiritual" or "religious" is the best label for these things in terms of accuracy, but I don't blame people for continuing to use those terms because at this point we haven't created equally compelling alternatives. Regardless of label, these secular traditions nearly have all the same emotional significance that "spiritual" and "religious" stuff has had, and I believe they will be even more effective than traditional religious traditions someday. Maybe soon.


I am always a bit uncomfortable with the terms religious and spiritual when referring to things outside the traditional realm of religion (associated with a god or gods). Until someone defines them as not related to a god, I'm not certain what connotations to associate with the terms. I do agree that we do not have a good secular term to replace spiritual - something that refers to brain states associated with mystery, other worldliness, profound emotions, etc.. Music certainly can induce these states, and many of us marvel at this wonderful aspect of music.


----------



## science

I guess I'm a pretty realized being, and my existence is accomplishing things.

But my pseudo-intellectualizing has only just begun!

For, brothers and sisters, let us transcend our realized beings, transcend our inner realized beings, transcend our outer realized beings, realize our transcended inner selves, realize our transcended outer selves, for the self is a self that relates to itself, not the relation but the relation's relating itself to itself! The belief system of Eastern science has shown (see Confucius, Sun Tzu, Genghis Khan, Mao, Bhumibol Adulyadej, Li Ka-shing, Bikram Chaudhoury, other pioneers of the soul emancipated from Western rationalist materialism, materialist rationalism, reductive pscyhologicalisms) that the transcendo-realizified self is within as Bach's _The Well-Tempered Clavier_ reminds us! (The tempering is not the clavier, but the clavier's transcended, realized relation to itself, being qua being, the ground of all modality.) This is what is meant by anthropomorphic time, a time that clearly I alone have grasped. I, alone of all humanity! And I matter! Though as it is a vague thing I can only express myself, my self transcendent and triumphant, vaguely. Turning and returning, from and into and re-from our transcendent vaguenesses, absorbing for hours - _hours!_ - on end, delightful explorations of the darkness of the soul, but seeing the whole picture. Thus, Bach:


----------



## Blake

That was strangely clever. And it merits a chuckle.


----------



## science

Vesuvius said:


> That was strangely clever. And it merits a chuckle.


A realized being of Eastern science would send cash.


----------



## Blake

science said:


> A realized being of Eastern science would send cash.


Don't have any. I am a sadhu. I don't even have a computer to chat with you guys. It's simply an illusion I'm playing on myself.


----------



## Guest

Vesuvius said:


> Jesus, some of you guys are relentless. Western science tends to study the outer world. Eastern science (Buddhism, etc.) tends to study the inner world.
> 
> But science still is science. I was focusing on a specific branch that alaezk was speaking from. And it's so damn obvious that's it's a pity I have to stop and clarify.
> 
> And by the way, it's still founded on a belief system... or a religion. As he said 'it's his beliefs' into what can lead him to an origin of existence. That's all any of these systems are good for.


Relentless? I only just popped back in to ask a question. If it was that obvious, I wouldn't have asked. And It's a pity that you get so impatient...


----------



## Blake

MacLeod said:


> Relentless? I only just popped back in to ask a question. If it was that obvious, I wouldn't have asked. And It's a pity that you get so impatient...


You are correct. I was merging y'alls heads as one. Lazy, impatient, emotional pomposity on my part.


----------



## millionrainbows

mmsbls said:


> I am always a bit uncomfortable with the terms religious and spiritual when referring to things outside the traditional realm of religion (associated with a god or gods). Until someone defines them as not related to a god, I'm not certain what connotations to associate with the terms. I do agree that we do not have a good secular term to replace spiritual - something that refers to brain states associated with mystery, other worldliness, profound emotions, etc.. Music certainly can induce these states, and many of us marvel at this wonderful aspect of music.


Watch the Rothko documentary on Simon Schama's The Power of Art series.





As per the OP and ostensible thread subject, "Is religious Music Real?," I am in congruence with Rothko's views, and this would include Morton Feldman and others; that the highest purpose of any music or art is to re-connect us with our spirit and our humanity. In this sense, "religious" or spiritual music should be 'real' and have a palpable effect on us.

"Palpable" does not mean the effect can be measured scientifically; after all this is metaphysics.


----------



## Blake

What do any of these words actually mean? Everyone knows that 'I exist.' The presence of consciousness. The being. The soul. same thing. It's detaching it from the mundanities of our deluded society. And allowing it to move and evolve naturally as the rest of the cosmos does.


Edit: This was in response to a deleted post, so now it sounds wildly out of context, haha.


----------



## mmsbls

I've deleted a couple of posts as they focused negatively on members. Let's try to refocus on the contents of people's posts instead.


----------



## mmsbls

millionrainbows said:


> As per the OP and ostensible thread subject, "Is religious Music Real?," I am in congruence with Rothko's views, and this would include Morton Feldman and others; that the highest purpose of any music or art is to re-connect us with our spirit and our humanity. In this sense, "religious" or spiritual music should be 'real' and have a palpable effect on us.


I'm quite happy with the idea that "the highest purpose of any music or art is to re-connect us with our spirit and our humanity." I would likely use a different word than spirit, but I think I have a reasonable sense of what's meant. Music certainly does have a very real effect on our mental states that can be profound.

Thanks for the link to the video. I started to watch it but didn't have time to finish. I hope to watch it later.


----------



## aleazk

@science, I will read carefully your posts and prepare my next pseudo-intellectual answer!


----------



## Blake

It seems we've all had our share of being pseudo-intellectual. Particularly when it becomes some kind of competitive mind-game like it has been for the last tens of pages.


----------



## science

Vesuvius said:


> It seems we've all had our share of being pseudo-intellectual. Particularly when it becomes some kind of competitive mind-game like it has been for the last tens of pages.


I have been experiencing it differently than you have!

I'm really looking forward to aleazk's response. I don't feel any sense of competition at all, I think I might learn something from it.


----------



## Blake

science said:


> I have been experiencing it differently than you have!
> 
> I'm really looking forward to aleazk's response. I don't feel any sense of competition at all, I think I might learn something from it.


Oh, don't be coy now. We've been jabbing at each other quite obviously.

But yea, aleazk has made some freshly logical contributions so far.


----------



## science

Vesuvius said:


> Oh, don't be coy now. We've been jabbing at each other quite obviously.
> 
> But yea, aleazk has made some freshly logical contributions so far.


I haven't felt any kind of competition with you, or any desire to beat you at anything, or whatever. I think you're wrong about some things, and posts like my recent "pseudo-intellectual" ones addressed those ideas with the intention of giving your "everything is perception" point as much credit as I do, but explaining why I disagree. I'm not trying to win, but to explain myself, and I thought I was being conciliatory and sympathetic to your ideas - not to your way of expressing them, which I find objectionable for reasons that I guess I'd better not explore any more in this context, but to the ideas themselves.


----------



## DavidA

MacLeod said:


> Atheism/theism 'explains' nothing. Humanism/Christianity/Buddhism etc are where the 'explanations' come from.
> 
> Whoever pointed out to you that atheism is a 'moral' step was wrong.


Sorry, he was right! Atheism is an unprovable worldview. It has it's basis in our moral choices.


----------



## DavidA

science said:


> My first post in response was all about science, basically about physical facts.
> 
> But there is another thing that the thread has been stumbling toward, perhaps not entirely absent in millionrainbow's OP intentions - when we realize all this stuff about our minds, what of religion, spirituality, music?
> 
> In a way it gets worse before it gets better. Just as colors and tastes and ontological categories are things human brains make out of the world rather than things that exist in the world, so religion and music are things human brains do. We have the kind of brains that make the kinds of minds capable of experiencing a certain wavelength of electromagnetic radiation as "red" light; we have the kind of brains that make the kinds of minds capable of experiencing spirit possession and visionary journeys to "other worlds." We also have the kind of brains that make the kind of minds that find "music" so compelling. We (most of us anyway) have the kind of brains that find some things morally right and other things morally wrong. These are things our brains produce rather than revelations of the truth of the world. How then shall we live?
> 
> Well, one answer is that we can try to study these things scientifically. We can try to study what is going on in experiences of spirit possession, for instance. We can try to figure out why we evolved these brains - I endorse the hypothesis that our brains originally produced these experiences (religion, music, also dancing) as a way of creating cohesive human communities that could win wars against less cohesive human communities.
> 
> That kind of study is very interesting but isn't the main thing we need to replace religion! There is individual variation, and a lot of scientifically-inclined people don't feel much need for religion. We can see this in people like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris, who insist - even, paradoxically, against the evidence found by people who do study religion! - that religion is nothing but a set of ideas about the world. But religion is for most people a social experience, an experience of belonging and importance, a way of finding out (or creating) who we are and what matters to us. Some new ideas might work for the village atheist sorts for whom religion really is nothing but a set of ideas, but those new ideas aren't going to replace religion for people who actually need and value religion.
> 
> So, what is going to replace religion?
> 
> One thing we've got to do is realize that things that matter matter because they matter to us, regardless of whether they matter to the universe. A lot of people find this very upsetting - I did too, for months after I realized that I no longer believed in "God" - but in the end it is ok, and even better because I no longer have to submit my own sense of right and wrong to that of the experts in my religion. I now recognize the claim that my values don't matter unless they matter to the universe... or to what the religious professionals have said about the universe... is essentially a political claim, a claim that I have to submit to those religious professionals. Nor can science replace religion in this matter: science can help us by telling us some stuff about the world, but science is not going to tell us what our values are or should be.
> 
> Realizing that our values are creations of our brains, of course we suffer ambiguity because we subjectively experience our values as objective truths, and uncertainty because our ideal or future selves might have different values than we know of right now! All this might actually be too much for psychologically conservative people to handle if they've grow up with more comfortable "objective certainties." But for those of us who can handle it - how liberating! I would argue we need to stop telling people that their values are worthless because only God's values matter, and instead encourage more introspection and meditation in order for people to get closer to figuring out what their values really are! (We should probably reinterpret all this as a communal thing - we discover our values together - rather than an individual thing.)
> 
> One particular value that I think we should emphasize more is honesty. Psychologists have discovered that honesty is not as easy as we have assumed; we have so many biases that we can't even trust our own brains anymore. It's an uncomfortable fact because it means we have to struggle against ourselves and cannot ever really succeed. But that struggle is an ethical imperative. I believe we ought to emphasize a lot more how unreliable our minds are, and valorize the struggle for honesty a bit more.
> 
> There's a lot more that could be said about values, but I should move on to religion more generally.
> 
> Just as values don't go away when we realize that they are ours rather than the universe's, religious experience doesn't go away just because we've figured that spirits don't exist. Our brains haven't evolved out of that or anything. But what is the proper object of our religious devotion? This gets to some radical stuff. Science doesn't help us much here either.
> 
> Well, _I_ believe that the proper objects for our religious devotion are the human community as a whole (not particular ethnicities or whatever) and the universe as a whole. I further believe that we can actually experience all of human religious behavior, including trance and ecstasy and mystical bliss and all of that, within traditions that fully accept the discoveries of science.
> 
> I'm getting uncomfortable because I'm sharing too much about myself, something that I experience (for now at least) as private; something that I cannot articulate or defend well under the attacks I anticipate. Vesuvius must be so pleased! But I did want to share the point that there is still something subjectively real about what people have described as spiritual, and that it is going to remain subjectively real to many of us.
> 
> We have been in the process of creating secular traditions that effectively replace religions ones for at least two hundred years, maybe almost five hundred years would be better, and _a lot of the classical music tradition itself has been created as part of that project_. (So this does relate to music after all, my dear moderator friends!)
> 
> I doubt that "spiritual" or "religious" is the best label for these things in terms of accuracy, but I don't blame people for continuing to use those terms because at this point we haven't created equally compelling alternatives. Regardless of label, these secular traditions nearly have all the same emotional significance that "spiritual" and "religious" stuff has had, and I believe they will be even more effective than traditional religious traditions someday. Maybe soon.
> 
> And music is going to go on being a big part of these traditions!
> 
> So millionrainbows' idea that the music of Feldman or Cage or Riley or Beethoven is inherently religious music is true if only he would say it is religious _for him_! And for lots of other people, including Cage (I think). But one of the things he has done wrong in this thread (in my opinion) is try to insist that we all adopt his idea about what religion is or ought to be (that bit about relaxation and so on), and that we describe music in light of that. That's not the only thing he's done wrong - his stereotypes about "the Eastern mind" are indefensible empirically and ethically questionable - but it's one thing. Rather than declaring that any music is religious whether people want it to be or not, we should let people experience and describe it in their own integrity, as they should let us.


I'm glad of your post. Today when I eat my breakfast because of the biases in my brain I will not know whether it is Wheatabix or bacon and eggs! 
When I put on a CD of Beethoven I don't know whether my brain has read it correctly it might be Brahms!


----------



## Blake

science said:


> I haven't felt any kind of competition with you, or any desire to beat you at anything, or whatever. I think you're wrong about some things, and posts like my recent "pseudo-intellectual" ones addressed those ideas with the intention of giving your "everything is perception" point as much credit as I do, but explaining why I disagree. I'm not trying to win, but to explain myself, and I thought I was being conciliatory and sympathetic to your ideas - not to your way of expressing them, which I find objectionable for reasons that I guess I'd better not explore any more in this context, but to the ideas themselves.


I hardly ever find someone's individual perceptions to be objectionable... it is the way it is because of millions of contributing variables. Spices of life. It's the attitudes of communication that can be objectionable, and I was beginning to think you were a contrarian. All's well... no big deal.


----------



## KenOC

DavidA said:


> Sorry, he was right! Atheism is an unprovable worldview. It has it's basis in our moral choices.


The affirmative position (that there *is* a God, something that really should be defined) is normally considered to require the proof. The absence of a supernatural being is the default position and requires disproof, not proof.


----------



## science

DavidA said:


> I'm glad of your post. Today when I eat my breakfast because of the biases in my brain I will not know whether it is Wheatabix or bacon and eggs!
> When I put on a CD of Beethoven I don't know whether my brain has read it correctly it might be Brahms!


Good! Because that is obviously what I meant and a fair reading!

Enjoy your breakfast and music whatever they be. Just be sure your enjoyment really is enjoyment....


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> Sorry, he was right! Atheism is an unprovable worldview. It has it's basis in our moral choices.


In what way is atheism a 'world view' when it's just a simple YES/NO belief? And can you explain in what way it has its basis in moral choices?


----------



## DavidA

MacLeod said:


> In what way is atheism a 'world view' when it's just a simple YES/NO belief? And can you explain in what way it has its basis in moral choices?


Atheism or theism is the lens through which we view the world.

Atheism is a moral choice because it rejects responsibility to a divine being.


----------



## DavidA

KenOC said:


> The affirmative position (that there *is* a God, something that really should be defined) is normally considered to require the proof. The absence of a supernatural being is the default position and requires disproof, not proof.


This is a position put forward by atheists but it is simply not true. For most people have a belief in some form of deity. As the signs in the cosmos and creation in general point to a designer, to say 'God does not exist' is the position that requires proof.


----------



## DavidA

science said:


> Good! Because that is obviously what I meant and a fair reading!
> 
> Enjoy your breakfast and music whatever they be. Just be sure your enjoyment really is enjoyment....


Yes, I've just has my breakfast. The neurons in my bargain which sensed it told me it was Shredded Wheat, but of course my brain might have been making it up and there was nothing there at all!


----------



## science

DavidA said:


> Yes, I've just has my breakfast. The neurons in my bargain which sensed it told me it was Shredded Wheat, but of course my brain might have been making it up and there was nothing there at all!


Did they tell you what the shredded wheat really was? Because problems like that cause chemists a lot of problems, and if you're able to figure it out just by eating it, you could be worth a lot of money to agribusiness firms or nutrition researchers.


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> Atheism or theism is the lens through which we view the world.
> 
> Atheism is a moral choice because it rejects responsibility to a divine being.


A world view is what you see, not only what you see it through. Theism makes only one contribution to that view.

Morals come before recognition of a divine being. But I can see how a theist would want to put the divine being first.



DavidA said:


> As the signs in the cosmos and creation in general point to a designer,


Only in _your _worldview.


----------



## DavidA

MacLeod said:


> A world view is what you see, not only what you see it through. Theism makes only one contribution to that view.
> 
> Morals come before recognition of a divine being. But I can see how a theist would want to put the divine being first.
> 
> Only in _your _worldview.


Atheism is actually no real worldview at all, unless you believe, like Dawkins, that we are just dancing to our DNA.

If there is no divine being and we evolved by a chance series of chemical reactions, then how can there be any objective morality.


----------



## millionrainbows

DavidA said:


> Sorry, he was right! Atheism is an *unprovable* worldview. It has it's basis in our moral choices.


Metaphysical ideas can't be proven.

That being said, how is Atheism _useful_ to us, and what things *can* it prove?

As Salmon Rushdie demonstrated, atheism certainly underscores the dark side of Man and his religion when it is challenged, as the threats on his life proved.

Generally speaking, Atheists are not amoral people, as many intellectuals are Atheist (Salmon Rushdie, Bertrand Russell, Pierre Boulez).

According to Atheists, Man has an inherent sense of morality. Man did not need the Ten Commandments in order to gain a moral sense; it existed before this.

Most inclusively, atheism is the _*absence of belief*_ that any deities exist, not a denial. Big difference!

I see Atheism as not a denial of God (see above) as it is a denial of all the baggage that accompanies the belief in God. I think that this is the true core of denial or absence of belief; a non-belief of the Man-made institution of religion.

Whether or not God exists is still a metaphysical unknowable, even for Atheists.


----------



## DavidA

science said:


> Did they tell you what the shredded wheat really was? Because problems like that cause chemists a lot of problems, and if you're able to figure it out just by eating it, you could be worth a lot of money to agribusiness firms or nutrition researchers.


No because of the chance and random arrangement of neurons in my brain caused by the chance evolutionary process, I recognize something different out of the same packet every morning. Or maybe it's my other self in the parallel universe?


----------



## Marschallin Blair

> DavidA: Atheism is actually no real worldview at all, unless you believe, like Dawkins, that we are just dancing to our DNA.
> 
> If there is no divine being and we evolved by a chance series of chemical reactions, then how can there be any objective morality


How_ could it _have one? It's an epistemological negation. Not believing in God doesn't give me a 'worldview' any more than not believing in faeries, vampires, and leprechauns does. . .

As far as the Good Book goes: What morality do you think it _ has_?-- "Kill these people. Enslave those people. Keep the young women and children for yourself. Stone unruly children and homosexuals to death."

Morality antedates the Bible.

Morality antedates the State.

History and anthropology trump the Nazarene and Hegel.


----------



## DavidA

millionrainbows said:


> Metaphysical ideas can't be proven.
> 
> That being said, how is Atheism _useful_ to us, and what things *can* it prove?
> 
> As Salmon Rushdie demonstrated, atheism certainly underscores the dark side of Man and his religion when it is challenged, as the threats on his life proved.
> 
> Generally speaking, Atheists are not amoral people, as many intellectuals are Atheist (Salmon Rushdie, Bertrand Russell, Pierre Boulez).
> 
> According to Atheists, Man has an inherent sense of morality. Man did not need the Ten Commandments in order to gain a moral sense; it existed before this.
> 
> Most inclusively, atheism is the _*absence of belief*_ that any deities exist, not a denial. Big difference!
> 
> I see Atheism as not a denial of God (see above) as it is a denial of all the baggage that accompanies the belief in God. I think that this is the true core of denial or absence of belief; a non-belief of the Man-made institution of religion.
> 
> Whether or not God exists is still a metaphysical unknowable, even for Atheists.


Oh please, don't start quoting these so called 'intellectuals! It wax Boulez who reckoned the Red Guards were doing a splendid job during the Cultural Revolution.


----------



## millionrainbows

science said:


> ...I believe that the proper objects for our religious devotion are the human community as a whole (not particular ethnicities or whatever) and the universe as a whole. I further believe that we can actually experience all of human religious behavior, including trance and ecstasy and mystical bliss and all of that, within traditions that fully accept the discoveries of science.


That sounds like an apology for the mysteries of ther unprovable. Science has its place, but I don't think everything Human should be subsumed under its umbrella. Human concerns are human in nature, and science is just an objective tool. Metaphysics is the polar opposite of science and objectivity; it is subjective, and deals with unprovable realities, such as the reality of your experience, which is essentially unknowable to anyone else. The soul is Man's invisibility to Man.



science said:


> But I did want to share the point that there is still something subjectively real about what people have described as spiritual, and that it is going to remain subjectively real to many of us.


Ahh, yes, that's why we call it 'subjective.'



science said:


> We have been in the process of creating secular traditions that effectively replace religions ones for at least two hundred years, maybe almost five hundred years would be better, and _a lot of the classical music tradition itself has been created as part of that project_. (So this does relate to music after all, my dear moderator friends!)


I see it the other way, as the Humanities are defined: Man has culture, philosophy, art, science, and all the tools we have developed as a species to make our life better. This is true worldwide, across all cultural barriers.

These are part of our collective Humanity; these are our tools.

Religion is just an institutional tool for furthering these inherent qualities of Man. These inherent qualities of Man existed before religion as an institution existed, as part of our desire to make life better. I would also venture to say that art, as in wall art, probably came before religion, as did music (singing around the fire).



science said:


> Regardless of label, these secular traditions nearly have all the same emotional significance that "spiritual" and "religious" stuff has had, and I believe they will be even more effective than traditional religious traditions someday. Maybe soon...So millionrainbows' idea that the music of Feldman or Cage or Riley or Beethoven is inherently religious music is true if only he would say it is religious _for him_!


I don't think I'm alone in this. Disagree if you wish.



science said:


> But one of the things he has done wrong in this thread (in my opinion) is try to insist that we all adopt his idea about what religion is or ought to be (that bit about relaxation and so on), and that we describe music in light of that.


Getting back to the basic thread premise "Is religious music real?"....Religion should not be an end in itself; it should be a tool which aids and encourages our spiritual growth as people. Religion, and religious music, should have a 'real' effect. It should feed the hungry, and nurture our souls.

"Empty" religion is useless: look at the Catholic Church scandals, with the abuse of young males. This is "empty" religion. Religion must be 'real' if it is to be of any use to us as Human beings.

_*This requires a degree of subjectivity; we must look at ourselves, and strive to be better people; otherwise, religion is just dogma and externals.*_



science said:


> That's not the only thing he's done wrong - his stereotypes about "the Eastern mind" are indefensible empirically and ethically questionable - but it's one thing. Rather than declaring that any music is religious whether people want it to be or not, we should let people experience and describe it in their own integrity, as they should let us.


I'm not going to force anyone to see what they do not wish to see. I'm simply clarifying what makes 'religious' music *'real' *(useful, having positive effect, making us better people) and religious music which is *'not real,'* or a failure in this regard; music which is only emblematic of empty dogma or an agenda diguised as sacred (Onward Christian Soldiers).


----------



## millionrainbows

mmsbls said:


> I am always a bit uncomfortable with the terms religious and spiritual when referring to things outside the traditional realm of religion (associated with a god or gods). *Until someone defines them as not related to a god, I'm not certain what connotations to associate with the terms.*


That's a negative way of looking at all that I've said in this thread.

I'm not trying to define "religion" or spirituality as NOT RELATED TO A GOD; I'm trying to get people to see "religion" or spirituality AS RELATED TO HUMAN BEINGS.

In other words, *we are spiritual in spite of this being related to a God.* That's not a denial; it's a recognition of our innate sacred nature, and the sacred nature of all life that we can see.

We are human beings; we should use religion, and art, and music, as *tools* to reconnect us with our Humanity, and our subjective inner experience, and make us better people.

Otherwise, religion is just a question of dogma, which is useless; dogma is not a tool, and it can't "do" anything humanly useful, except define beliefs.


----------



## millionrainbows

science said:


> I guess I'm a pretty realized being, and my existence is accomplishing things.


...and I suppose this posting of yours is the proof of that.:lol:



science said:


> But my pseudo-intellectualizing has only just begun!


Ahh, but the question is, when will it end?



science said:


> For, brothers and sisters, let us transcend our realized beings, transcend our inner realized beings, transcend our outer realized beings, realize our transcended inner selves, realize our transcended outer selves, for the self is a self that relates to itself, not the relation but the relation's relating itself to itself!


So religion (Western) gets respect, and 'the self' gets dissed? What use will that be? What good is your dogma without a 'self' to realize what that can be, and do?



science said:


> The belief system of Eastern science has shown (see Confucius, Sun Tzu, Genghis Khan, Mao, Bhumibol Adulyadej, Li Ka-shing, Bikram Chaudhoury, other pioneers of the soul emancipated from Western rationalist materialism, materialist rationalism, reductive pscyhologicalisms) that the transcendo-realizified self is within...


You seem to be picking on Eastern thought. They say that behind the humor is always a clue to seriousness.



science said:


> This is what is meant by anthropomorphic time, a time that clearly I alone have grasped. I, alone of all humanity!


See my blog on time.



science said:


> ...And I matter! Though as it is a vague thing I can only express myself, my self transcendent and triumphant, vaguely. Turning and returning, from and into and re-from our transcendent vaguenesses, absorbing for hours - _hours!_ - on end, delightful explorations of the darkness of the soul, but seeing the whole picture.


Well, if I don't care about myself, I can guarantee you that no one else will.

*I don't see this sort of mocking, bullying tone as being productive. I have remained restrained in my responses, and I expect others to do the same.
*


----------



## millionrainbows

DavidA said:


> Oh please, don't start quoting these so called 'intellectuals! It wax Boulez who reckoned the Red Guards were doing a splendid job during the Cultural Revolution.


The point is, as *Marschallin Blair* pointed out, we can't expect any sort of belief system, or Atheism, to "come first" before our Humanity. That's like putting the cart before the horse. Religion, art, and philosophy, came about as a result of our innate Human concerns with making life better, and giving life meaning, and these expressions of our Humanity should be seen as the result of that Humanity, not as ends unto themselves.


----------



## millionrainbows

DavidA said:


> This is a position put forward by atheists but it is simply not true. For most people have a belief in some form of deity. As the signs in the cosmos and creation in general point to a designer, to say 'God does not exist' is the position that requires proof.


Metaphysical ideas can't be proven.


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> Atheism is actually no real worldview at all,


That's what I said already. We agree.



DavidA said:


> If there is no divine being and we evolved by a chance series of chemical reactions, then how can there be any objective morality.


That's right - there isn't, except that theists claim so.


----------



## Blake

I think it's natural for us to be joyful, actually. And when you're joyful you're consequently caring. It takes a lot of work to be unhappy like us. Look at all the effort we put into this misery machine we call society.


----------



## DavidA

Marschallin Blair said:


> How_ could it _have one? It's an epistemological negation. Not believing in God doesn't give me a 'worldview' any more than not believing in faeries, vampires, and leprechauns does. . .
> 
> As far as the Good Book goes: What morality do you think it _ has_?-- "Kill these people. Enslave those people. Keep the young women and children for yourself. Stone unruly children and homosexuals to death."
> 
> Morality antedates the Bible.
> 
> Morality antedates the State.
> 
> History and anthropology trump the Nazarene and Hegel.


With respect, instead of trotting out these tired old cliches would it be better to look at the person and teaching of Jesus Christ?

Of course morality ante dates the Bible and the State. The Bible itself says so!

With respect to historicity, the resurrection of Christ is the historical event you have to trump.


----------



## DavidA

millionrainbows said:


> Metaphysical ideas can't be proven.


Correct. But then many ideas we believe in and make up a large part of our lives cannot be proven.

As for God, there is no absolute proof. But there are very good indications if we care to take note of them.


----------



## DavidA

millionrainbows said:


> Metaphysical ideas can't be proven.


Correct. But then many ideas we believe in and make up a large part of our lives cannot be proven.

As for God, there is no absolute proof. But there are very good indications if we care to take note of them.

But then why do atheists insist so absolutely there is no God? Always seems perverse to me. If you Demand absolute scientific proof for a statement then atheism should be completely out of the question. It cannot be proven!


----------



## KenOC

"The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind." --Mencken


----------



## DavidA

KenOC said:


> "The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind." --Mencken


That is the reason I am not an atheist!


----------



## Blake

DavidA said:


> With respect, instead of trotting out these tired old cliches would it be better to look at the person and teaching of Jesus Christ?
> 
> Of course morality ante dates the Bible and the State. The Bible itself says so!
> 
> With respect to historicity, the resurrection of Christ is the historical event you have to trump.


Well, the whole compounded story is just that... a story. But the words he spoke that were recorded are certainly a testament to a beautiful realization. I have the utmost respect for all of these wise beings. Buddha, Krishna, Mohammad, etc... included.


----------



## science

DavidA, I don't think it's a good idea to try to prove your religion here. But there is a religion discussion group - here is a good thread where you can perhaps compile all of your bon mots into an actual proof: Why do you believe what you believe? Prove your beliefs here!

I think we all have to restrain ourselves if we can't find a way to pull our responses back around to the music aspect of things.


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> *I don't see this sort of mocking, bullying tone as being productive. I have remained restrained in my responses, and I expect others to do the same.
> *


I doubt that you _honestly_ took that post as bullying, but if you actually did, then I'm sorry; I meant it only as teasing. The use of bold and larger size and suggesting that the mods should punish me is closer to bullying. It's ok because I'm a big kid and can handle it. I hope you'll relax a little bit and I hope you'll consider the point I was making in that post.


----------



## science

DavidA said:


> No because of the chance and random arrangement of neurons in my brain caused by the chance evolutionary process, I recognize something different out of the same packet every morning. Or maybe it's my other self in the parallel universe?


Your insistence on misinterpreting the ideas at work here leads me to suspect you feel threatened by them. Hopefully for your sake they're wrong! But you don't have to persuade me. I defer to the physicists and neuroscientists of the world; when you persuade them, you will persuade me.

Meanwhile, enjoy you Beethoven, Brahms, and shredded wheat (or whatever) without so much nervousness!


----------



## DavidA

Vesuvius said:


> Well, the whole compounded story is just that... a story. But the words he spoke that were recorded are certainly a testament to a beautiful realization. I have the utmost respect for all of these wise beings. Buddha, Krishna, Mohammad, etc... included.


Yes, the story of Jesus is a story - but it just happens to be true!


----------



## DavidA

science said:


> Your insistence on misinterpreting the ideas at work here leads me to suspect you feel threatened by them. Hopefully for your sake they're wrong! But you don't have to persuade me. I defer to the physicists and neuroscientists of the world; when you persuade them, you will persuade me.
> 
> Meanwhile, enjoy you Beethoven, Brahms, and shredded wheat (or whatever) without so much nervousness!


As a physicist Myself I do feel I have the right to satirise the more abstruse theories than people put on scientific observation!


----------



## Blake

DavidA said:


> Yes, the story of Jesus is a story - but it just happens to be true!


I definitely think he was incredibly wise and compassionate. As for the rest of the story... well, I'm not here to argue that. It doesn't really matter to me.


----------



## DavidA

Vesuvius said:


> I definitely think he was incredibly wise and compassionate. As for the rest of the story... well, I'm not here to argue that. It doesn't really matter to me.


Unless he rose from the dead. Then it matters a great deal to all of us!


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> As a physicist Myself I do feel I have the right to satirise the more abstruse theories than people put on scientific observation!


I don't think that gives you the right to satirise anything. I think it might be against the ToS if I were to satirise the more abstruse theories people put forward on their religious beliefs. Why would others' scientific beliefs be treated any different?


----------



## aleazk

DavidA said:


> As a physicist Myself I do feel I have the right to satirise the more abstruse theories than people put on scientific observation!


What's your field and which theories do you think are incorrect? can you point out to specific papers so other physicists here like myself or mmsbls could see the technical counterarguments?


----------



## DavidA

MacLeod said:


> I don't think that gives you the right to satirise anything. I think it might be against the ToS if I were to satirise the more abstruse theories people put forward on their religious beliefs. Why would others' scientific beliefs be treated any different?


So W S Gilbert had no right to satirise? Let's chuck out G&S then! And most of Voltaire! And Nozze de Figaro and Cosi.
The list is endless!


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> So W S Gilbert had no right to satirise? Let's chuck out G&S then! And most of Voltaire! And Nozze de Figaro and Cosi.
> The list is endless!


I had no idea any of those folks are posting on TC. But if they were, unless they satire were of subtle and high quality, they might find themselves subject to penalties.

Aside from that, what is it about being a physicist that gives you a special right that a non-physicist doesn't have?


----------



## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> "The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the* palpably* not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind." --Mencken


The key word here being "palpable."

I have no worries, and nothing to prove or disprove. As the OP established, "Is religious music real?,"* I'm only interested in the palpable effects of music which is labelled (or not) as 'religious.'*

If you take *'religious' *to mean representative of a particular religion, then that's your choice; I choose to see art and music in terms of* "the sacred," *and I think that would have been a better term to use in defining this entire forum.

"Religious" is better used as an adjective, as in "He's a religious person." Music can't be "religious," can it?


----------



## DavidA

MacLeod said:


> I had no idea any of those folks are posting on TC. But if they were, unless they satire were of subtle and high quality, they might find themselves subject to penalties.
> 
> Aside from that, what is it about being a physicist that gives you a special right that a non-physicist doesn't have?


Not at all, except you originally mentioned physicists! My remark was in context!


----------



## drpraetorus

I have been away for a while and what I have to say has probably been touched on is the voluminous previous responses. 
First, this is from the perspective of a believer. Just thought you might want to know. 
I do not believe there is anything such as intrinsically religious music. Music is a language. Like spoken language it has its grammar, syntax and other structures that make it intelligible to the listener. Because music is not a specific as spokes language, it is easier to pick up the rudiments and be able to get an idea of what is being communicated but there are huge cultural significances and barriers and baggage that need to be absorbed in order to fully understand what the music is trying to say. The more complex the culture and the music the more there is to absorb. 

In Western culture, we accept that Gregorian chant is religious just as we accept that other forms of music are religious. German Protestant hymns and other hymns are an example. Or, if we think of instruments, the Organ is an immediate link to the religious, or to bad horror movies. Bells have the same effect. Trombones used to have that same association. But do these have the same associations to an outsider? If, as has happened in the past, a Western person were transported to an American Indian, or African or Asian culture would that Westerner be able to distinguish the music as religious? Perhaps but only in the most general sense. It would take time. You may want to try an experiment on yourself. Find some examples of non European religious music. Are you as moved by it as the participants? Why not? Probably because of an unfamiliarity with the language and culture. 

We know what music means because we have been told what it means first. When, as a child, I first heard the music of Wagner, I loved it. Not because I knew what it was about, but because of cultural forces that had already been at work. When I found out what it was trying to convey, I was able to say "Yes, that's exactly what the music means." The Magic Fire music was a perfect musical picture of fire. The Overture to Flying Dutchman was a perfect picture of a storm at sea. But is it really? No, it only is because Wagner said it is and he was very good at getting the sound and the picture right. But what is the difference between the flickering of the magic fire and the pitter pat of a rain shower? Yes there is the lightness of the music, the major key (another cultural issue), the orchestration, the setting in the opera etc., but taking just the 16th note figure in the flutes, which is the main melodic action in this example, it could just as easily be a rain motive as a fire motive. 

Another example, and roughly contemporary is in the Brahms 1st Symphony. In the 4th movement, there is a fine example of a Choral. Everyone hearing that in European cultural terms knows it is a religious reference. What he is actually referring to is anybodys guess since symphonies are usually less concrete than theatrical music and as far as I know the Choral is not an actual hymn tune. But the implication is there. 

We know a piece is religious because our culture tells us it is religious. Knowing the language is helpful and allows us to make a fuller connection with the music, but it is not necessary to let us know if a piece is intended to be religious. Since we are the ones investing the music with it's spiritual sense we are the ones who allow ourselves to be lead by the music to a spiritual state of mind that invites the spirit.


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> Not at all, except you originally mentioned physicists! My remark was in context!


Er, no, you mentioned physicists in your post no. 599!


----------



## ArtMusic

millionrainbows said:


> In other words, is, for example, Gregorian chant actually a form of worship, and a way of actually invoking God or the Holy Spirit, as well as being "just music?"
> 
> The Church fathers thought that it was, indeed, a form of worship; a form of "religious technology" designed to invoke God and create believers.
> 
> In fact, on this very forum, I was criticized by a 'true believer' for saying that I could enjoy Gregorian chant without being a Christian. He said I was "missing it," compared to a believer who listens. What do you say?


A Christian or non-Christian can enjoy Bach's church cantatas. Its musically meaning or perception could differ because one is religious (the Christian listener) versus another who is not. Handel's Messiah for instance, arguably one of the most popular religious works, is enormously popular not least because the Christians enjoy it.

Religious music can be very real in a religious sense to the believer. But musically speaking, it is for sure very real for ALL LISTENERS. Pure and simple.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

> DavidA: With respect to historicity, the resurrection of Christ is the historical event you have to trump.


Oh. Thanks for schoolmarming me. _Now I understand_: the '_historical Jesus_'. . . like the 'historical Batman.'

Yeah, all of this was foretold in DC Comics. . . well, that's not completely true: Moses _was the only one _to describe his own death and burrial.


----------



## Itullian

Marschallin Blair said:


> Oh. Thanks for schoolmarming me. _Now I understand_: the '_historical Jesus_'. . . like the 'historical Batman.'
> 
> Yeah, all of this was foretold in DC Comics. . . well, that's not completely true: Moses _was the only one _to describe his own death and burrial.


With all due respect..........
Some of the greatest minds of all different times have believed in Jesus.
I don't think the same can be said of Batman


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Itullian said:


> With all due respect..........
> Some of the greatest minds of all different times have believed in Jesus.
> I don't think the same can be said of Batman


And, respectfully as well: Some of the greatest minds of all time have believed in slavery, infanticide, anti-miscegenation laws, Bolshevism, Nazism, Fascism, and Islam-- which logically wouldn't make any of those doctrines true or moral either. _;D_


----------



## KenOC

Itullian said:


> Some of the greatest minds of all different times have believed in Jesus.


Well, Christian minds certainly. There are plenty of great minds in other religions who have believed (and still believe) quite differently. Not to mention great minds among the atheists... Hardly proof of anything.

Almost all up-to-date scientists used to believe in the luminiferous aether.


----------



## DavidA

MacLeod said:


> Er, no, you mentioned physicists in your post no. 599!


I was referring to your post I replied to!


----------



## DavidA

Marschallin Blair said:


> And, respectfully as well: Some of the greatest minds of all time have believed in slavery, infanticide, anti-miscegenation laws, Bolshevism, Nazism, Fascism, and Islam-- which logically wouldn't make any of those doctrines true or moral either. _;D_


I see. Hitler and Stalin and Musso were great minds then?


----------



## DavidA

Marschallin Blair said:


> Oh. Thanks for schoolmarming me. _Now I understand_: the '_historical Jesus_'. . . like the 'historical Batman.'
> 
> Yeah, all of this was foretold in DC Comics. . . well, that's not completely true: Moses _was the only one _to describe his own death and burrial.


Sorry, but Without school marming you I could point out that in most biographical material describing death of the subject does not invalidate the truth of what's written. 
And your reference to DC comics is actually no argument.


----------



## DavidA

KenOC said:


> Almost all up-to-date scientists used to believe in the luminiferous aether.


Just as most scientists today are Darwinians!


----------



## KenOC

DavidA said:


> Just as most scientists today are Darwinians!


The theories of Darwin have been and are subject to disproof, like all theories of science. How about yours?


----------



## Marschallin Blair

DavidA said:


> I see. Hitler and Stalin and Musso were great minds then?


By what standard? Your own? Or the Old Testament's?


----------



## Marschallin Blair

> Originally Posted by DavidA View Post
> Just as most scientists today are Darwinians!
> 
> KenOC: The theories of Darwin have been and are subject to disproof, like all theories of science. How about yours?


How do you 'falsify' the imaginary and the mythical?-- by means of non-reality? Or by fairy dust?


----------



## DavidA

Marschallin Blair said:


> How do you 'falsify' the imaginary and the mythical?-- by means of non-reality? Or by fairy dust?


Of course you cannot falsify the imaginary. But we are not talking about that!


----------



## Blake

As someone else pointed out - You can't objectively prove the metaphysical, but that doesn't mean it's not there. I don't think the problem is in religion itself, as it's just a tool... rather it's the rigidity and stiffness of certain believers who don't want to step down from the soap-box.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Vesuvius said:


> As someone else pointed out - You can't objectively prove the metaphysical, but that doesn't mean it's not there. I don't think the problem is in religion itself, as it's just a tool... rather it's the rigidity and stiffness of certain believers who don't want to step down from the soap-box.


And I'd say to those arch-skeptics-- if I can even call them such: "Put your money where your mouth is: Step in front of a speeding bus. Does the external world 'exist'? Or is it really just an elaborate hoax where our senses are just interpreting the data of our own delusions?"


----------



## millionrainbows

drpraetorus said:


> First, this is from the perspective of a believer. Just thought you might want to know.


That's irrelevant; I'm only interested in how music can have a palpable effect on us, and how that can be identified universally, or nearly universally, as 'sacred.'



drpraetorus said:


> I do not believe there is anything such as intrinsically religious music.


I do, and I have shown numerous examples of this.



drpraetorus said:


> Music is a language. Like spoken language it has its grammar, syntax and other structures that make it intelligible to the listener. Because music is not a specific as spokes language, it is easier to pick up the rudiments and be able to get an idea of what is being communicated but there are huge cultural significances and barriers and baggage that need to be absorbed in order to fully understand what the music is trying to say. The more complex the culture and the music the more there is to absorb.


True enough, but art and music are also a 'mapping of experience' from composer/performer to listener or audience. It's negative to state and emphasize _only_ cultural *differences*, without also looking at *commonalities* and *universal similarities;* after all, any good person would tell you that people are more alike than they are different. Isn't that how we overcome bigotry and racism?



drpraetorus said:


> In Western culture, we accept that Gregorian chant is religious just as we accept that other forms of music are religious. German Protestant hymns and other hymns are an example. Or, if we think of instruments, the Organ is an immediate link to the religious, or to bad horror movies. Bells have the same effect. Trombones used to have that same association. But do these have the same associations to an outsider?


The Japanese, Tibetans, and Chinese all use bells in their sacred ceremonial music. Boulez used bells in his instrumentation, and plucked strings, as did Takemitsu, and Japanese Gagaku ceremonial court music uses plucked strings and percussion in a similar way. I think 'sacred gesture' could be established, as well as 'sacred instrumentation,' and a good case could easily be made for this.



drpraetorus said:


> If, as has happened in the past, a Western person were transported to an American Indian, or African or Asian culture would that Westerner be able to distinguish the music as religious? Perhaps but only in the most general sense.


So? That doesn't matter if it's general or not. The effect of the music could be very similar to an outsider, or insider, unless it's a Westerner who is very uptight about religion.



drpraetorus said:


> It would take time. You may want to try an experiment on yourself. Find some examples of non European religious music. Are you as moved by it as the participants? Why not? Probably because of an unfamiliarity with the language and culture.


You're asking the wrong guy on this one. I love Japanese Gagaku music, as did Henry Cowell. And Lou Harrison said that he & John Cage saw more Chinese operas in San Francisco than they did Western opera.



drpraetorus said:


> We know what music means because we have been told what it means first.


That's a ridiculous statement.



drpraetorus said:


> We know a piece is religious because our culture tells us it is religious.


I think it's the other way around; our innate sense of the sacred, common to all humanity, tells us when music is sacred. Unless we are so brainwashed, like an Islamic fundamentalist, that we will only allow ourselves to submit to music which represents our own mindset. The spirit, or being, comes before the mind.



drpraetorus said:


> Knowing the language is helpful and allows us to make a fuller connection with the music, but it is not necessary to let us know if a piece is intended to be religious.


I agree with that, but I prefer the alternate term "sacred"*(just as the forum title uses it interchangeably).
*


drpraetorus said:


> Since we are the ones investing the music with it's spiritual sense we are the ones who allow ourselves to be lead by the music to a spiritual state of mind that invites the spirit.


That is a two-way street; we invest our experience, and the creators/performers have also invested their experience in the music. *The shared 'mapping' of these two experiences, with explicit, as well as implied and universally agreed-upon language signs and meanings common to all art and music (derived from being Human), is what makes the art connect with us, and us with it.*


----------



## millionrainbows

Marschallin Blair said:


> And I'd say to those arch-skeptics-- if I can even call them such: "Put your money where your mouth is: Step in front of a speeding bus. Does the external world 'exist'? Or is it really just an elaborate hoax where our senses are just interpreting the data of our own delusions?"


That's what the gnostic Christians thought, and that's why they were deemed heretics; the sacrifice of Christ had to be a *real sacrifice of life,* not just an illusion.

L. Ron Hubbard modeled Scientology along these lines of Gnosticism; our spirits are trapped within an illusory reality, like The Matrix, and for only $225,643.17 they can show you this.


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> That's what the gnostic Christians thought, and that's why they were deemed heretics; the sacrifice of Christ had to be a *real sacrifice of life,* not just an illusion.


Where did you hear this? I would have expected the early Christians in the "Orthodox" traditions to have rejected gnosticism because of its problems for the idea of theosis ("what is not assumed cannot be deified") rather than for any ideas about sacrifice.


----------



## millionrainbows

science said:


> Where did you hear this? I would have expected the early Christians in the "Orthodox" traditions to have rejected gnosticism because of its problems for the idea of theosis ("what is not assumed cannot be deified") rather than for any ideas about sacrifice.


It's in Bart Ehrman's course, "Lost Christianities."
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=6593


----------



## Marschallin Blair

millionrainbows said:


> That's what the gnostic Christians thought, and that's why they were deemed heretics; the sacrifice of Christ had to be a *real sacrifice of life,* not just an illusion.
> 
> L. Ron Hubbard modeled Scientology along these lines of Gnosticism; our spirits are trapped within an illusory reality, like The Matrix, and for only $225,643.17 they can show you this.


I remember my friend and I were at a used bookstore and he came across a copy of L. Ron Hubbard's _History of Man_. He was on the other side of the aisle, and he was reading me choice passages about the 'Piltdown Man'-- I was laughing so hard I was crying. CRY-ING. Doubling-over on the floor. . .

Yeah, Scientology's the science-fiction religion alright. It's like a mix of Freudianism (where 'engrams' replace the 'Id') and Madame Blavatsky's charlatanism.


----------



## Blake

Marschallin Blair said:


> And I'd say to those arch-skeptics-- if I can even call them such: "Put your money where your mouth is: Step in front of a speeding bus. Does the external world 'exist'? Or is it really just an elaborate hoax where our senses are just interpreting the data of our own delusions?"


Speeding bus or not, you're going to die. So, it's certainly something worth a little pondering. Is this blip of a life really it? Must be a sick joke, aye? I'm not a religious person, but I do wonder.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Vesuvius said:


> Speeding bus or not, you're going to die. So, it's certainly something worth a little pondering. Is this blip of a life really it? Must be a sick joke, aye? I'm not a religious person, but I do wonder.


Indeed it is: every moment that goes by makes life infinitely more precious to me; because I have less of it to live.

Do I know if a Creator or Creators made the universe(s)? Or if they were just always here witout divine guidance just infinitely expanding and collapsing by themselves?

I have no idea.

But I always consider Ockham's Razor; and always tailor my belief in proportion to the evidence and not the other way around.


----------



## DavidA

science said:


> Where did you hear this? I would have expected the early Christians in the "Orthodox" traditions to have rejected gnosticism because of its problems for the idea of theosis ("what is not assumed cannot be deified") rather than for any ideas about sacrifice.


There were many reasons it was rejected but the sacrifice (or lack of it) was prominent.


----------



## DavidA

Marschallin Blair said:


> Indeed it is: every moment that goes by makes life infinitely more precious to me; because I have less of it to live.
> 
> Do I know if a Creator or Creators made the universe(s)? Or if they were just always here witout divine guidance just infinitely expanding and collapsing by themselves?
> 
> I have no idea.
> 
> But I always consider Ockham's Razor; and always tailor my belief in proportion to the evidence and not the other way around.


Hmm Ockham's Razor tells me that the simplest explanation for the amazing complexity of life teeming with information is that an intelligence designed it. Not that not living things designed themselves. That always seems so complicated somehow!


----------



## KenOC

DavidA said:


> Hmm Ockham's Razor tells me that the simplest explanation for the amazing complexity of life teeming with information is that an intelligence designed it. Not that not living things designed themselves. That always seems so complicated somehow!


So the simplest explanation for why a rock falls when we drop it isn't a rather difficult and ultimately arcane description of mass deforming space-time to create a gravity well -- well, since my grasp of general relativity is weak, I don't really know why it falls! So it's simply God pushing down the rock with his thumb. Right? :lol:

Is it God who turns on the light in my refrigerator when I open its door? Again, the simplest explanation!


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> It's in Bart Ehrman's course, "Lost Christianities."
> http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=6593


Thank you!

...


----------



## hpowders

millionrainbows said:


> It's in Bart Ehrman's course, "Lost Christianities."
> http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=6593


I love Bart Ehrman....well not literally. This was a devout baptist minister, who knew the New Testament by heart and who was deeply devoted to Christianity until he couldn't be anymore. Distinguished Professor of New Testament at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is now a devout atheist. His belief is there is no heaven; no afterlife and that we should eat, drink and be merry because this life is all there is; so live life to the fullest.

From devout Christian to devout atheist. Why? He couldn't conceive of an omniscient, omnipotent and merciful God not interceding and stopping the suffering of innocents on our planet.

Religious music? Nice and inspiring, but as a hymn to God, I'm afraid it is all falling on deaf ears.


----------



## Blake

To be devoutly anything when there is still so much ignorance to burn is a mystery to me.


----------



## Lukecash12

millionrainbows said:


> In other words, is, for example, Gregorian chant actually a form of worship, and a way of actually invoking God or the Holy Spirit, as well as being "just music?"
> 
> The Church fathers thought that it was, indeed, a form of worship; a form of "religious technology" designed to invoke God and create believers.
> 
> In fact, on this very forum, I was criticized by a 'true believer' for saying that I could enjoy Gregorian chant without being a Christian. He said I was "missing it," compared to a believer who listens. What do you say?


Of course it's different for you because it's not sacred to you. Religious music is plenty "real" if people are *religious about it*. You are missing something, whether or not you're right or wrong or it's a good or bad thing, because religious people not only enjoy sacred music but they worship with it like you said. It isn't that the music actually *is* anything, music is what you make it. You are right that Gregorian chant isn't worship, we do like to worship *with it* however and we tend to agree on the themes.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

DavidA said:


> Hmm Ockham's Razor tells me that the simplest explanation for the amazing complexity of life teeming with information is that an intelligence designed it. Not that not living things designed themselves. That always seems so complicated somehow!


If 'order' presupposes an 'orderer'; and if God is the 'ultimate complexity,' then, using your own logic: Who designed _Him_?

Do stars, galaxies, snowflakes, crystals, ecosystems, law, language, morals, and economies have an 'intelligent designer'?-- or are they ordered phenomena that have spontaneously evolved without a central planner?

Magical-thinking anthropomorphism isn't an explanation of anything; except perhaps for wishful thinking.


----------



## aleazk

Vesuvius said:


> As someone else pointed out - You can't objectively prove the metaphysical, but that doesn't mean it's not there. I don't think the problem is in religion itself, as it's just a tool... rather it's the rigidity and stiffness of certain believers who don't want to step down from the soap-box.


Do you even know what metaphysics is?, have you ever read a book about it?. Well, I did, and also took courses about it in philosophy departments, as well as courses in epistemology. Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy, and it's all about logic and the study of reality. The prefix "meta" was originally put there because they thought that, while the object of study was reality, the topics discussed where beyond physics. But today we have a different approach. In scientific theories you have a lot of metaphysical assumptions ingrained in the theories, simply because metaphysics consist of statements about reality, and in this sense these statements emerge sometimes naturally in scientific theories since their object of study is also reality. And this often provides you an actual mechanism for falsifying (in the Popperian sense) metaphysical ideas. Examples in the modern physical theories like general relativity and quantum mechanics abound. As well as in biology with Darwinian evolution, for example. In fact, perhaps the most valuable thing we learned with all these modern scientific theories is that metaphysics is always an important part in scientific theories, and in fact when we change (forced by the empirical evidence) to a more precise theory, the shock often comes because we are forced to abandon these metaphysical ideas that were behind the previous theories, ideas that we thought to be unquestionable and even beyond the reach of the experiments. So, no, in metaphysics, the line between the demonstrable and not demonstrable from the empirical point of view is very unclear.

And that's why I prefer to assume only the ontological assumptions made by scientific realism and to see where that leads me.

And this is why I rejected the idea of religious music, since it forces me to assume more metaphysical assumptions than the ones I'm willing to assume, and new ideas that conflict (both at the logical and even, potentially, at the empirical realm) with these ideas I'm do assuming.

Science and its relation to metaphysics are very complex things, and I don't think that someone not qualified in both of these things can expect to be taken seriously by those who are indeed qualified, even more when they make patently misinformed claims.

And this is not a personal attack to you, Vesuvius, but a call of attention. Because it's impossible to have a constructive discussion if we don't know the correct definitions and implications of the terms we are using. You are intelligent and skeptical, that's an excellent start. But you have to know the data and the works of previous thinkers also, and Metaphysics is a huge field with a rich history.

By reading what you write, I can imagine what is going on in your mind (with regards to this specific topic, of course) because I experienced similar things: a sense of complete chaos in which everything seems to be unreal. Today, my approach to this has evolved, it's no longer a chaos, but a network of connections between the different possibilities. I recommend you to read extensively the huge available amount of bibliography on the topic and to make yur own network. I guarantee you that you will learn much more than with your current approach, which seems to consist in vagueness of concept. And if you don't like logic, you will be better prepared to make a case against it ;-)


----------



## DavidA

KenOC said:


> So the simplest explanation for why a rock falls when we drop it isn't a rather difficult and ultimately arcane description of mass deforming space-time to create a gravity well -- well, since my grasp of general relativity is weak, I don't really know why it falls! So it's simply God pushing down the rock with his thumb. Right? :lol:
> 
> Is it God who turns on the light in my refrigerator when I open its door? Again, the simplest explanation!


Sorry, Ken. But We're talking about origins here not stones falling off rocks and opening fridge doors!
A better analogy would be for you to suggest the software programme in your computer wrote itself.


----------



## DavidA

Marschallin Blair said:


> If 'order' presupposes an 'orderer'; and if God is the 'ultimate complexity,' then, using your own logic: Who designed _Him_?
> 
> Do stars, galaxies, snowflakes, crystals, ecosystems, law, language, morals, and economies have an 'intelligent designer'?-- or are they ordered phenomena that have spontaneously evolved without a central planner?
> 
> Magical-thinking anthropomorphism isn't an explanation of anything; except perhaps for wishful thinking.


To me the spontaneous evolution of huge complexity from nothing is wishful magical thinking. Actually I'm going to open the window and see if the breezes can write me an essay if I splash enough ink around for long enough!


----------



## DavidA

hpowders said:


> I love Bart Ehrman....well not literally. This was a devout baptist minister, who knew the New Testament by heart and who was deeply devoted to Christianity until he couldn't be anymore. Distinguished Professor of New Testament at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is now a devout atheist. His belief is there is no heaven; no afterlife and that we should eat, drink and be merry because this life is all there is; so live life to the fullest.
> 
> From devout Christian to devout atheist. Why? He couldn't conceive of an omniscient, omnipotent and merciful God not interceding and stopping the suffering of innocents on our planet.
> 
> Religious music? Nice and inspiring, but as a hymn to God, I'm afraid it is all falling on deaf ears.


Professor CS Lewos wax a devout atheist who became a devout Christian. So was Professor Alistair McGrath. And Dr Francis Collins. All clever men!

Besides truth is truth whether everyone believes it or no-one believes it!


----------



## aleazk

DavidA said:


> To me the spontaneous evolution of huge complexity from nothing is wishful magical thinking. Actually I'm going to open the window and see if the breezes can write me an essay if I splash enough ink around for long enough!


Oh, please, these are 19th century arguments. I invite you to find this "huge complexity" in the fossil record that corresponds to 3000 million years ago. There's no "huge complexity" at all, only extremely simple forms of life that even challenge the definition of life...

Evolution is a fact, buddy...


----------



## aleazk

KenOC said:


> Is it God who turns on the light in my refrigerator when I open its door? Again, the simplest explanation!


God must be a very busy man if he really cares about all that! maybe that's why his beard is white!


----------



## DavidA

aleazk said:


> Oh, please, these are 19th century arguments. I invite you to find this "huge complexity" in the fossil record that corresponds to 3000 million years ago. There's no "huge complexity" at all, only extremely simple forms of life that even challenge the definition of life...
> 
> Evolution is a fact, buddy...


You must be joking, buddy! There is huge complexity in every life-form. Every living cell has an incredible amount of information. You think it all came from nothing? What sort of thinking is this?
Sorry, mate, but it's not. Even Dawkins has stated that no-one knows how life began. The gathering together of non-living matter to form complex cells of life by unguided forces has never been proved! Yet people somehow try and get round the problem by the simple saying that 'evolution did it'.


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> Sorry, mate, but it's not. Even Dawkins has stated that no-one knows how life began. The gathering together of non-living matter to form complex cells of life by unguided forces has never been proved!


Your "gathering together..." is not "evolution" so telling us that "even Dawkins" says no-one knows how life began cannot stand as an objection to the assertion that evolution is a fact. Dawkins says in the preface to his _The Greatest Show On Earth_ (2009) that



> the theory of 'evolution' is actually a fact - as incontrovertible a fact as any in science.


----------



## science

DavidA said:


> You must be joking, buddy! There is huge complexity in every life-form. Every living cell has an incredible amount of information. You think it all came from nothing? What sort of thinking is this?
> Sorry, mate, but it's not. Even Dawkins has stated that no-one knows how life began. The gathering together of non-living matter to form complex cells of life by unguided forces has never been proved! Yet people somehow try and get round the problem by the simple saying that 'evolution did it'.


I realize that we're not going to persuade you; you need to realize that you're not going to persuade us.

But as ever, I will defer to the scientists with the relevant expertise. When you persuade most biologists, you will have persuaded me.

From here, let us return to music.

I say religious music is real! My taxi driver today was listening to Korean shamanistic music. Probably not within MR's definitions, but definitely religious, definitely music, and definitely real.


----------



## KenOC

aleazk said:


> God must be a very busy man if he really cares about all that! maybe that's why his beard is white!


God must also be a painstaking and even fussy workman. There are a hundred times more creatures in the fossil record, long extinct, than exist today. Are we, too, doomed to be found unsatisfactory? I wouldn't want to be the oddsmaker on that one!


----------



## aleazk

DavidA said:


> Sorry, mate, but it's not. Even Dawkins has stated that no-one knows how life began. The gathering together of non-living matter to form complex cells of life by unguided forces has never been proved!


Evolution doesn't explain the origins of life, it explains how life changes, and how life can evolve from simple forms to complex forms. Evolution is a fact, and that's enough for killing your "huge complexity" argument, since, as I said, evolution provides a mechanism for explaining that "huge complexity".

We still don't have a successful scientific model for explaining how these extremely primitive life forms arose, but we are certainly working on that and we have many promising hints and even empirical evidence.

LOL you now can call these extremely primitive life forms "complex" if you want, but the "huge complexity" argument certainly doesn't sound that impressive in this context... 

And what's next?, if we actually discover this scientific model for primitive life you will say "yeah, but how you explain those 'very complex' hydrogen atoms that compose the matter of which this life is made?" Yeah, 'very complex'...


----------



## aleazk

KenOC said:


> God must also be a painstaking and even fussy workman. There are a hundred more times more creatures in the fossil record, long extinct, than exist today. Are we, too, doomed to be found unsatisfactory? I wouldn't want to be the oddsmaker on that one!


Not sure what's your point... yes, and through history there existed more people than the quantity of people actually living today...

Sorry, Ken, if you retrodirect time enough, you will find only very simple and primitive life forms...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_common_ancestor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromatolites

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_history_of_life

_"Stromatolites are a major constituent of the fossil record for about the first 3.5 billion years of life on earth, peaking about 1.25 billion years ago."_

Unless you are one of those thinking that the dinosaurs and the humans coexisted at some time...


----------



## KenOC

aleazk said:


> Sorry, Ken, if you retrodirect time enough, you will find only very simple and primitive life forms...


Not sure there are such things as "very simple and primitive life forms." To be self-replicating, any life form has got to be pretty darned complex.

In any even, my point was that a denial of evolution as the driver in the way organisms have changed over time is quite silly.


----------



## Guest

It's astonishing that 44 pages later, a debate rumbles on, allegedly inspired by an OP that asked about what he called "religious music".

The current debate explores an irrelevance - whether the theist or atheist has the right answer. The fact is that over a long time, people have written music for religious purposes. Whether such music was written in vain (ie in praise of something that might not exist) is neither here nor there. Whether it has the effects that some claim for it is perhaps worth exploring, but surely that has been done well enough?


----------



## aleazk

KenOC said:


> Not sure there are such things as "very simple and primitive life forms." To be self-replicating, any life form has got to be pretty darned complex.
> 
> In any even, my point was that a denial of evolution as the driver in the way organisms have changed over time is quite silly.


They are very simple and primitive life forms in comparison with what came after... and also, even when they are complex when compared to non-living matter, this complexity was assembled in small and simple steps and in simple ways we can understand: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIE2bDetailsoforigin.shtml

Anyway, we seem to agree, considering your last sentence. Maybe I misunderstood your post because seemed to contradict my previous ṕost.


----------



## ArtMusic

Fact is ever since the Romantic to today more and more non-believers are listening to religious classical music for the sake of enjoying the music. For example the concept of a concert mass did not exist until after well past the Baroque and maybe into late Classical. Bach's B minor mass and other mass settings were always originally performed in a church. Then came the Romantic when large pieces like the Verdi requiem were becoming standard then to be performed in a concert hall. Like today.


----------



## KenOC

aleazk said:


> They are very simple and primitive life forms in comparison with what came after... and also, even when they are complex when compared to non-living matter, this complexity was assembled in small and simple steps and in simple ways we can understand: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIE2bDetailsoforigin.shtml


Simple and primitive? "The largest genome currently known belongs to Amoeba dubia (about 230 times more DNA than humans)." I haven't fact-checked this, but I know there are quite a few organisms with longer DNA/more base pairs than humans have, some of which may seem to us primitive. How do you define "primitive"?


----------



## aleazk

KenOC said:


> Simple and primitive? "The largest genome currently known belongs to Amoeba dubia (about 230 times more DNA than humans)." I haven't fact-checked this, but I know there are quite a few organisms with longer DNA/more base pairs than humans have, some of which may seem to us primitive. How do you define "primitive"?


Complexity in life is not defined in terms of "who has the longest DNA", but in terms of the biological processes the lifeforms display and the complexity of these processes, this is just basic biology...

And in this sense, Multicellular organisms are more complex than the Unicellular ones. Also, since this process of evolution in complexity has a well defined arrow in time as the fossil record shows, that's why we say the Unicellular organisms are "primitive" both in the temporal sense and in terms of their complexity.


----------



## Blake

aleazk said:


> Do you even know what metaphysics is?, have you ever read a book about it?. Well, I did, and also took courses about it in philosophy departments, as well as courses in epistemology. Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy, and it's all about logic and the study of reality. The prefix "meta" was originally put there because they thought that, while the object of study was reality, the topics discussed where beyond physics. But today we have a different approach. In scientific theories you have a lot of metaphysical assumptions ingrained in the theories, simply because metaphysics consist of statements about reality, and in this sense these statements emerge sometimes naturally in scientific theories since their object of study is also reality. And this often provides you an actual mechanism for falsifying (in the Popperian sense) metaphysical ideas. Examples in the modern physical theories like general relativity and quantum mechanics abound. As well as in biology with Darwinian evolution, for example. In fact, perhaps the most valuable thing we learned with all these modern scientific theories is that metaphysics is always an important part in scientific theories, and in fact when we change (forced by the empirical evidence) to a more precise theory, the shock often comes because we are forced to abandon these metaphysical ideas that were behind the previous theories, ideas that we thought to be unquestionable and even beyond the reach of the experiments. So, no, in metaphysics, the line between the demonstrable and not demonstrable from the empirical point of view is very unclear.
> 
> And that's why I prefer to assume only the ontological assumptions made by scientific realism and to see where that leads me.
> 
> And this is why I rejected the idea of religious music, since it forces me to assume more metaphysical assumptions than the ones I'm willing to assume, and new ideas that conflict (both at the logical and even, potentially, at the empirical realm) with these ideas I'm do assuming.
> 
> Science and its relation to metaphysics are very complex things, and I don't think that someone not qualified in both of these things can expect to be taken seriously by those who are indeed qualified, even more when they make patently misinformed claims.
> 
> And this is not a personal attack to you, Vesuvius, but a call of attention. Because it's impossible to have a constructive discussion if we don't know the correct definitions and implications of the terms we are using. You are intelligent and skeptical, that's an excellent start. But you have to know the data and the works of previous thinkers also, and Metaphysics is a huge field with a rich history.
> 
> By reading what you write, I can imagine what is going on in your mind (with regards to this specific topic, of course) because I experienced similar things: a sense of complete chaos in which everything seems to be unreal. Today, my approach to this has evolved, it's no longer a chaos, but a network of connections between the different possibilities. I recommend you to read extensively the huge available amount of bibliography on the topic and to make yur own network. I guarantee you that you will learn much more than with your current approach, which seems to consist in vagueness of concept. And if you don't like logic, you will be better prepared to make a case against it ;-)


Yea, I have looked into metaphysics quite a bit, and I realize it's used in coherence with logic. I love logic, as I've said many times. But this is a 'spiritual' section of the forum where I carelessly spill all these abstract ponderings that I go through. And it seems I often go too far into abstractions, while leaving basic logic behind, than most people here like. It may seem objectively vague, but it's certainly subjectively experiential.


----------



## millionrainbows

Lukecash12 said:


> Of course it's different for you because it's not sacred to you. Religious music is plenty "real" if people are *religious about it*. You are missing something, whether or not you're right or wrong or it's a good or bad thing, because religious people not only enjoy sacred music but they worship with it like you said. It isn't that the music actually *is* anything, music is what you make it. You are right that Gregorian chant isn't worship, we do like to worship *with it* however and we tend to agree on the themes.


I disagree; I can listen to Jewish chant and get a sacred effect from it. I can be gay while I'm doing it, too.

It is a tragic mistake to assert that my sacred birthright as a human being to experience the sacred through music and art is invalidated because I don't subscribe to a certain religious belief which is ostensibly connected to that art.

Good, sincere, effective music and art, which is intended, or not, to be sacred in nature, has *universal qualities *which are accessible to whomever is able to access these qualities.

_*If the music produces a sacred effect, I shall 'appropriate it' and use it. and it will be just as valid as a 'true believer's' use of it, regardless of dogma or belief.*_

_The sacred comes first, as an inherent aspect of our humanity. Our humanity supercedes all questions of doctrine and belief._

Even if the song or chant embodies scripture, and is specifically 'religious' in that regard, the 'sacred' aspect of it can be accessed regardless and *independently* of that.

This is because there are too many *other* universally-accessible 'human' factors in music, song, and art, _which can supercede any specific textual or scriptural content, since these doctrinal factors always come after the fact of our inherently sacred existence as human beings. _To the degree the music does this is a gauge of how effective it is in this regard.



Lukecash12 said:


> ...It isn't that the music actually *is* anything, music is what you make it.


Music is not *only* what we make of it; music is a two-way street. It is a 'mapping' of experience from composer to audience. There are inherently agreed-on meanings and signs in it. Therefore, there is wiggle-room on each side.



Lukecash12 said:


> You are right that Gregorian chant isn't worship, we do like to worship *with it* however and we tend to agree on the themes.


I think that effective Gregorian chant is a form of religious technology, and therefore can be a form of actual worship. *This point was cleared up way back at the beginning of the thread.*

Thematic agreement is an afterthought. The sacred effect of chant would supercede this.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

> Originally Posted by Marschallin Blair
> 
> If 'order' presupposes an 'orderer'; and if God is the 'ultimate complexity,' then, using your own logic: Who designed Him?
> 
> Do stars, galaxies, snowflakes, crystals, ecosystems, law, language, morals, and economies have an 'intelligent designer'?-- or are they ordered phenomena that have spontaneously evolved without a central planner?
> 
> Magical-thinking anthropomorphism isn't an explanation of anything; except perhaps for wishful thinking.
> 
> DavidA: To me the spontaneous evolution of huge complexity from nothing is wishful magical thinking. Actually I'm going to open the window and see if the breezes can write me an essay if I splash enough ink around for long enough!


So did any of that magical ink make that God of yours?-- I only feel impelled to ask since you very graciously ignored my original question.

I am of course speaking of the One True God: the great 'I Am I Am' who created the mud man, the rib woman, and the walking-talking snake; beliefs that can_ clearly withstand _the critical scrutiny of that Ockham's razor you seem to so cherish.


----------



## millionrainbows

aleazk said:


> And that's why I prefer to assume only the *ontological* assumptions made by scientific realism and to see where that leads me.
> 
> ...this is why I rejected the idea of religious music, since it forces me to *assume more metaphysical assumptions* than the ones I'm willing to assume, and new ideas that conflict (both at the logical and even, potentially, at the empirical realm) with these ideas I'm do assuming.


Experiencing the sacred through music is not dependent on any belief, thought process, or assumption; it is an experience of our sacred nature, which is ontological and experiential.

Scientific realism does not have an exclusive claim to 'ontology;' in fact, science has nothing to do with our being or our subjective experience, which is essentially unprovable to anyone else, and therefore metaphysical. You're trying to stuff a horse into a suitcase.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

aleazk said:


> Evolution doesn't explain the origins of life, it explains how life changes, and how life can evolve from simple forms to complex forms. Evolution is a fact, and that's enough for killing your "huge complexity" argument, since, as I said, evolution provides a mechanism for explaining that "huge complexity".
> 
> We still don't have a successful scientific model for explaining how these extremely primitive life forms arose, but we are certainly working on that and we have many promising hints and even empirical evidence.
> LOL you now can call these extremely primitive life forms "complex" if you want, but the "huge complexity" argument certainly doesn't sound that impressive in this context...
> 
> And what's next?, if we actually discover this scientific model for primitive life you will say "yeah, but how you explain those 'very complex' hydrogen atoms that compose the matter of which this life is made?" Yeah, 'very complex'...


_Oh! But'chya do, Blanche! Ya do!_

Noble laureate biochemist Christian de Duve's book _Vital Dust: the Origin and Evolution of Life on Earth _serves as a great primer.

http://www.amazon.com/Vital-Dust-Or...TF8&qid=1406044615&sr=1-1&keywords=vital+dust


----------



## millionrainbows

MacLeod said:


> It's astonishing that 44 pages later, a debate rumbles on, allegedly inspired by an OP that asked about what he called "religious music".
> 
> The current debate explores an irrelevance - whether the theist or atheist has the right answer.* The fact is that over a long time, people have written music for religious purposes. Whether such music was written in vain (ie in praise of something that might not exist) is neither here nor there. *Whether it has the effects that some claim for it is perhaps worth exploring, but surely that has been done well enough?


The original implication of my opening post was

*"Is there any real aspect or effect (meaning a* *self-evident ontological subjective state of being which is produced independently of any unprovable doctrinal belief system) which is produced by **'religious' music?"*


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> The original implication of my opening post was
> 
> *"Is there any real aspect or effect (meaning a* *self-evident ontological subjective state of being which is produced independently of any unprovable doctrinal belief system) which is produced by **'religious' music?"*


No need to raise your font at me, sir! 

Besides, I know that. I gave my answer ages ago. I was just pointing out the futility of a prolonged discussion about side issues, and that your question had probably been covered - but there's always newbies who'll be happy to give it a second or third airing. (Or a fourth or a fifth).


----------



## hpowders

millionrainbows said:


> I disagree; I can listen to Jewish chant and get a sacred effect from it. I can be gay while I'm doing it, too.
> 
> It is a tragic mistake to assert that my sacred birthright as a human being to experience the sacred through music and art is invalidated because I don't subscribe to a certain religious belief which is ostensibly connected to that art.
> 
> Good, sincere, effective music and art, which is intended, or not, to be sacred in nature, has *universal qualities *which are accessible to whomever is able to access these qualities.
> 
> _*If the music produces a sacred effect, I shall 'appropriate it' and use it. and it will be just as valid as a 'true believer's' use of it, regardless of dogma or belief.*_
> 
> _The sacred comes first, as an inherent aspect of our humanity. Our humanity supercedes all questions of doctrine and belief._
> 
> Even if the song or chant embodies scripture, and is specifically 'religious' in that regard, the 'sacred' aspect of it can be accessed regardless and *independently* of that.
> 
> This is because there are too many *other* universally-accessible 'human' factors in music, song, and art, _which can supercede any specific textual or scriptural content, since these doctrinal factors always come after the fact of our inherently sacred existence as human beings. _To the degree the music does this is a gauge of how effective it is in this regard.
> 
> Music is not *only* what we make of it; music is a two-way street. It is a 'mapping' of experience from composer to audience. There are inherently agreed-on meanings and signs in it. Therefore, there is wiggle-room on each side.
> 
> I think that effective Gregorian chant is a form of religious technology, and therefore can be a form of actual worship. *This point was cleared up way back at the beginning of the thread.*
> 
> Thematic agreement is an afterthought. The sacred effect of chant would supercede this.


I agree. I'm Jewish yet I love Bach's b minor Mass, Handel's Messiah, Haydn's 6 late masses and Mozart's Great c minor mass.

Religious devotion has nothing to do with it. I love and respect great music; pure and simple.


----------



## DavidA

Marschallin Blair said:


> If 'order' presupposes an 'orderer'; and if God is the 'ultimate complexity,' then, using your own logic: Who designed _Him_?
> 
> Do stars, galaxies, snowflakes, crystals, ecosystems, law, language, morals, and economies have an 'intelligent designer'?-- or are they ordered phenomena that have spontaneously evolved without a central planner?
> 
> Magical-thinking anthropomorphism isn't an explanation of anything; except perhaps for wishful thinking.


That is such an old one! Of course no-one designed God. The God (of the Bible at least) is eternal and therefore outside our space-time concept.

Every cell in your body is packed with information of great complexity. The only thing we know that produces information of that sort is intelligence. Hence logic would suggest intelligence is behind the creation. It's not magical thinking at all. To my mind it's magical thinking to believe these things evolved from non-living matter. It simply is not logic!


----------



## DavidA

aleazk said:


> They are very simple and primitive life forms in comparison with what came after... and also, even when they are complex when compared to non-living matter, this complexity was assembled in small and simple steps and in simple ways we can understand: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIE2bDetailsoforigin.shtml
> 
> Anyway, we seem to agree, considering your last sentence. Maybe I misunderstood your post because seemed to contradict my previous ṕost.


This complexity was assembled. Your words imply there was an intelligence behind the assembling!


----------



## DavidA

Marschallin Blair said:


> _Oh! But'chya do, Blanche! Ya do!_
> 
> Noble laureate biochemist Christian de Duve's book _Vital Dust: the Origin and Evolution of Life on Earth _serves as a great primer.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Vital-Dust-Or...TF8&qid=1406044615&sr=1-1&keywords=vital+dust


Interesting. I was listening to a guy who wrote a primer used in schools on the subject. Now realises he was wrong and his theory didn't fit!


----------



## DavidA

I love the B minor mass. I also love the fact that the notes self-assembled in small steps over a long, long period of time. JSB had nothing to do with it!


----------



## Blake

DavidA said:


> This complexity was assembled. Your words imply there was an intelligence behind the assembling!


I don't think science has ruled out the possibility of a formless, collective intelligence. Where does nature get it's ambition to evolve? It's amazing. Evolved all the way to our arrogant species to question itself....


----------



## science

Bach's Mass in B minor actually _would_ evolve in a world where musical compositions reproduced with variation and similarity to Bach's Mass in B minor was adaptive.


----------



## drpraetorus

Tom state my thesis more succinctly; musical meaning and significance is an extrinsic thing imposed on the music by the listener. There is no intrinsic meaning to music. Lenny agrees with me on this, or rather I agree with him. 
http://www.leonardbernstein.com/ypc_script_what_does_music_mean.htm


----------



## Lukecash12

Marschallin Blair said:


> If 'order' presupposes an 'orderer'; and if God is the 'ultimate complexity,' then, using your own logic: Who designed _Him_?
> 
> Do stars, galaxies, snowflakes, crystals, ecosystems, law, language, morals, and economies have an 'intelligent designer'?-- or are they ordered phenomena that have spontaneously evolved without a central planner?
> 
> Magical-thinking anthropomorphism isn't an explanation of anything; except perhaps for wishful thinking.


Meh, I'd rather not get into this whole can o' worms but that is a gross oversimplification of the anthropic principle and teleology in general.


----------



## Lukecash12

millionrainbows said:


> I disagree; I can listen to Jewish chant and get a sacred effect from it. I can be gay while I'm doing it, too.
> 
> It is a tragic mistake to assert that my sacred birthright as a human being to experience the sacred through music and art is invalidated because I don't subscribe to a certain religious belief which is ostensibly connected to that art.
> 
> Good, sincere, effective music and art, which is intended, or not, to be sacred in nature, has universal qualities which are accessible to whomever is able to access these qualities.


And those universal qualities, however valid and good they are, happen to be something different. The very fact that you downplay the themes themselves underscores this distinction. I think what's really in question here is how we're going to define validity. Of course you can experience something sacred. That doesn't necessarily mean it's the same thing, and it certain doesn't necessitate the idea that you experience is any better or worse. Seeing as there is no such thing as perfect empathy we simply can't compare experiences, not even between the religious. However, what you describe lacks key commonalities to the experiences that people have when the text itself is in agreement with the listener.

Simply put: your experience isn't diluted or inferior, it's just not the same.



> The sacred comes first, as an inherent aspect of our humanity. Our humanity supercedes all questions of doctrine and belief.
> 
> Even if the song or chant embodies scripture, and is specifically 'religious' in that regard, the 'sacred' aspect of it can be accessed regardless and independently of that.
> 
> This is because there are too many other universally-accessible 'human' factors in music, song, and art, which can supercede any specific textual or scriptural content, since these doctrinal factors always come after the fact of our inherently sacred existence as human beings. To the degree the music does this is a gauge of how effective it is in this regard.


You are coming at this with all kinds of ideas that are actually foreign to most people who write religious music. Much like the anachronisms we tend to perform in our heads when we assess material from other cultures, especially ancient cultures, you are trying too hard to equate your frame of reference to people who are simply very different from yourself. You are basically saying "it has to be this" and "this has to be predominant" when what you have proposed really isn't the case at all. Religious people don't all tend to feel "warm and fuzzy", for lack of a better expression, about music regardless of the text. Quite the contrary, we can tend towards the opposite and not be very open about sacred music (or even philosophically inclined music in general) that disagrees with what we believe.

It wouldn't be a stretch at all for you to look at something and wonder "why is it that everyone doesn't see this" when others can be right next to you thinking "that is downright repugnant".

Here's what you are saying:

1. There is something sacred in this music.
2. I can recognize it just like any other listener.

Here's what we are saying:

1. It's not just *something* sacred but a specific thing that is sacred.
2. If you don't recognize and agree that that specific thing is sacred, then no you simply aren't having the same experience.
3. The real distinction here is between someone vaguely saying they recognize some thing(s) under subset "x", but the text isn't talking about "x". The text and subsequently the music is specifying members of the set such as "x1" and "x2". Not only is the text expected to express the theme but the music is expected to as well, in a very programmatic fashion. This is how sacred music and secular music is often utterly different, as sacred music tends to be *purely programmatic*.



> Music is not only what we make of it; music is a two-way street. It is a 'mapping' of experience from composer to audience. There are inherently agreed-on meanings and signs in it. Therefore, there is wiggle-room on each side.


And that I do recognize. But for all we know, considering that you don't necessarily agree with the text, you could think we're just talking about "shapes" and see a "square" in your head when we are all seeing a "triangle" together. That is obviously an oversimplification, but the analogy still works if you consider that not all triangles look the same, nor do squares, yet all triangles and all squares can be distinguished from the other type, and all triangles are triangles while all squares are squares.



> I think that effective Gregorian chant is a form of religious technology, and therefore can be a form of actual worship. This point was cleared up way back at the beginning of the thread.
> 
> Thematic agreement is an afterthought. The sacred effect of chant would supercede this.


Thematic agreement is *your afterthought*. For religious folk thematic agreement can become so important in music that there are a number of baptist organizations that won't do church together or organize events together because their hymns disagree. Hell, members of the Church of Christ (a baptist offshoot) often even pronounce anathema/damnation on those who use different hymnals or more modern forms of worship.

As you can see the whole thing can get quite out of hand, but what I want to emphasize is that you shouldn't be mistaken for a moment in recognizing this trend in religion around the world and the whole history of religion, that the theme clearly does come first in sacred music.


----------



## Lukecash12

aleazk said:


> Evolution doesn't explain the origins of life, it explains how life changes, and how life can evolve from simple forms to complex forms. Evolution is a fact, and that's enough for killing your "huge complexity" argument, since, as I said, evolution provides a mechanism for explaining that "huge complexity".
> 
> We still don't have a successful scientific model for explaining how these extremely primitive life forms arose, but we are certainly working on that and we have many promising hints and even empirical evidence.
> 
> LOL you now can call these extremely primitive life forms "complex" if you want, but the "huge complexity" argument certainly doesn't sound that impressive in this context...
> 
> And what's next?, if we actually discover this scientific model for primitive life you will say "yeah, but how you explain those 'very complex' hydrogen atoms that compose the matter of which this life is made?" Yeah, 'very complex'...


And herein lies the heart of the whole issue of Occam's Razor, simplicity versus complexity. What are simplicity and complexity really, when they are examined in relation to one another? I would like to establish that because I would actually posit that what Occam's Razor should be getting at is not a principle based on such an ambiguous concept but another trend altogether.

Let's try another analogy for "simple vs complex":

Imagine a reality made entirely out of pixels. The individual pixels are "simple", yet groups of pixels and different resultant interactions between pixels is "complex". But ultimately it all boils down to something simple. So what "simple" and "complex" are really getting at is that with simple things there is less to consider and with complex things there is more to consider. It has nothing to do with the individual considerations, merely the amount of considerations to be had.

And that is why Occam's Razor cannot work within such a circular paradigm, because then it would be an utterly irrelevant principle. There will always be more or less to consider and no good reason to say why one or the other should be the case _a priori_. In this case it seems that all we can assume _a priori_ is that there must be this axiom that "some things involve a lot and some things involve less". What I would posit that Occam's Razor really is, is a more easy to understand and use _a posteriori_ principle, based off of a real trend in empiricism that is often discussed when people get into statistics: *contrivance*. There are things that are statistically unlikely, and when unlikely things, or "unapparent things" as metaphysical philosophers and even physics professors retreat to the assumption of when speculating, are compounded upon yet more unlikely and/or "unapparent" things we reach a clearly tenuous position. This concept, when it comes to modal logic such as that pioneered by Kripke and Leibniz, can even be brought further to try and make statements like "this is *impossibly contrived*", or as Kripke would say: "possibly necessarily untrue".


----------



## science

Lukecash12 said:


> members of the Church of Christ (a baptist offshoot) often even pronounce anathema/damnation on those who use different hymnals or more modern forms of worship


Is that in the Campbellite tradition? There are several Churches of Christ and some of my family members are in the Campbellite tradition but I've never heard of that so I want to find out if it is.


----------



## Lukecash12

Vesuvius said:


> I don't think science has ruled out the possibility of a formless, collective intelligence. Where does nature get it's ambition to evolve? It's amazing. Evolved all the way to our arrogant species to question itself....


And what is inherently ambitious about evolving? What is it that is ambitious about genes merely doing what they do, replicating themselves as best they can? Genes that aren't replicated don't set the trend, while the genes that do get replicated more do set the trend. Whatever your model of evolution, or your ideas on the modes of change in evolution, that is the basic idea behind it. What you are doing is anthropomorphizing that basic idea.


----------



## Lukecash12

science said:


> Is that in the Campbellite tradition? There are several Churches of Christ and some of my family members are in the Campbellite tradition but I've never heard of that so I want to find out if it is.


There is only one tradition as regards that in the COC, and that is it. There are also a number of other requirements that members have, and any who don't meet those requirements are anathema. Of course lay people in the COC may feel different and even individual ministers too, but what I am talking about is their official positions as a group.


----------



## Lukecash12

millionrainbows said:


> The original implication of my opening post was
> 
> *"Is there any real aspect or effect (meaning a* *self-evident ontological subjective state of being which is produced independently of any unprovable doctrinal belief system) which is produced by **'religious' music?"*


And your opening post smuggles in a whole host of premises. Let's take a look at all of these premises that have been smuggled in next to the main question of whether or not something real is being produced by religious music:

1. There might be a self evident ontological state.
2. Ontological states might be able to stand independent from dogma.
3. Dogmas are unprovable.

You seem to be expecting the discussion to follow certain lines, but just look at these issues you have introduced! A self evident ontological state? That's a huge philosophical discussion unto itself, as are the other two. And in order to grant the three of them in order to conduct this discussion in that universe of discourse, "playing pretend" that they are possibilities so to speak, we wouldn't even be able to give you much of any meaningful input at that point.

Typically when you try to have a discussion with a universe of discourse attached to it, you want to grant as little as possible in terms of necessary premises for the discourse. Why should we have to agree to all of that just to talk about the question? You are working towards such a specific end that it is cumbersome and you have found that there aren't really all that many people willing to stick to that specific end with you.


----------



## science

Lukecash12 said:


> There is only one tradition as regards that in the COC, and that is it. There are also a number of other requirements that members have, and any who don't meet those requirements are anathema. Of course lay people in the COC may feel different and even individual ministers too, but what I am talking about is their official positions as a group.


There are several Churches of Christ actually. I'll look this up and try to find out what is going on.


----------



## DavidA

Vesuvius said:


> I don't think science has ruled out the possibility of a formless, collective intelligence. Where does nature get it's ambition to evolve? It's amazing. Evolved all the way to our arrogant species to question itself....


You speak as if 'nature' was a person!

A formless, collective intelligence? Never seen one of those, I must admit!


----------



## Blake

DavidA said:


> You speak as if 'nature' was a person!
> 
> A formless, collective intelligence? Never seen one of those, I must admit!


Never seen this god you talk about either. I also never implied that nature was a person... I wouldn't insult it like that. But I don't think it's a stretch to say it's collectively intelligent. Kind of like the Universe is one big organism.


----------



## Blake

Lukecash12 said:


> And what is inherently ambitious about evolving? What is it that is ambitious about genes merely doing what they do, replicating themselves as best they can? Genes that aren't replicated don't set the trend, while the genes that do get replicated more do set the trend. Whatever your model of evolution, or your ideas on the modes of change in evolution, that is the basic idea behind it. What you are doing is anthropomorphizing that basic idea.


For anything to do anything there needs to be a sort of originating 'push' to do so. It's pretty basic.


----------



## millionrainbows

Originally Posted by *millionrainbows*:

The original implication of my opening post was:

*"Is there any real aspect or effect (meaning a* *self-evident ontological subjective state of being which is produced independently of any unprovable doctrinal belief system) which is produced by **'religious' music?"*



Lukecash12 said:


> And your opening post smuggles in a whole host of premises. Let's take a look at all of these premises that have been smuggled in next to the main question of whether or not something real is being produced by religious music:
> 
> 1. There might be a self evident ontological state.
> 2. Ontological states might be able to stand independent from dogma.
> 3. Dogmas are unprovable.
> 
> You seem to be expecting the discussion to follow certain lines, but just look at these issues you have introduced! A self evident ontological state? That's a huge philosophical discussion unto itself, as are the other two. And in order to grant the three of them in order to conduct this discussion in that universe of discourse, "playing pretend" that they are possibilities so to speak, we wouldn't even be able to give you much of any meaningful input at that point.


I'm just asserting the possibility that it is possible to listen to "religious" music and gain a real experiential effect from it, in spite of its textual and ideological context. And my answer is YES!



Lukecash12 said:


> Typically when you try to have a discussion with a universe of discourse attached to it, you want to grant as little as possible in terms of necessary premises for the discourse. Why should we have to agree to all of that just to talk about the question?


Well, we are all in the same boat here, since these are metaphysical questions.

On the other hand, my personal experience with all kinds of ostensibly "religious" musics is that _they are all accessible to anyone who is flexible and receptive, and not scared-off or discouraged by orthodox believers who seem to think they have exclusive rights or derive exclusive benefits from the music._

Nothing complicated there.



Lukecash12 said:


> You are working towards such a specific end that it is cumbersome and you have found that there aren't really all that many people willing to stick to that specific end with you.


You got to walk...that lonesome valley...:lol:

I'm here to spread the "good news," brothers and sisters! You can freely listen to any "religious music" you want to, with the full assurance *from me* that you might derive a "real" spiritual benefit from it, in spite of the warnings of ideologues who would spook you away!* Fear not,* for thou art with me!


----------



## millionrainbows

Lukecash12 said:


> ...Let's take a look at all of these premises that have been smuggled in...next to the main question of whether or not something real is being produced by religious music...


Okay, slap leather, podnah!



Lukecash12 said:


> 1. There might be a self evident ontological state.


I think there is. I can't prove it to you, though; I can only experience it. That's why I said it is "self-evident."



Lukecash12 said:


> 2. Ontological states might be able to stand independent from dogma.


Well, that's because "being" came first, before dogma. States of being have always been as "real" as our experience seems in its totality; dogma is just a belief system concocted by Man's mind. Unless the dogma was concocted from an ontological state first. And even then, it's unprovable.



Lukecash12 said:


> 3. Dogmas are unprovable.


Well, if the dogmas are about metaphysical ideas, then of course they are unprovable. Too bad they're not self-evident! :lol:



Lukecash12 said:


> You seem to be expecting the discussion to follow certain lines, but just look at these issues you have introduced! A self evident ontological state? That's a huge philosophical discussion unto itself...


No it's not. Just sit there and be silent. It will eventually come to you. :lol:



Lukecash12 said:


> And in order to grant the three of them in order to conduct this discussion in that universe of discourse,* "playing pretend"* that they are possibilities so to speak, we wouldn't even be able to give you much of any meaningful input at that point.


Well, if you don't like it, just take your little red wagon and go play somewhere else.



Lukecash12 said:


> Typically when you try to have a discussion with a universe of discourse attached to it, you want to grant as little as possible in terms of necessary premises for the discourse. Why should we have to agree to all of that just to talk about the question?


Oh, and when somebody wants to spook me away from religious music on the grounds that I'm not a believer in their dogma, I should have to agree with that? Hey, this is a two-way street!


----------



## science

Vesuvius said:


> Never seen this god you talk about either. I also never implied that nature was a person... I wouldn't insult it like that. But I don't think it's a stretch to say it's collectively intelligent. Kind of like the Universe is one big organism.


Smallpox is nature. Parasites are nature.

Nature and nature's god are cruelly indifferent, at best.

Out of their unwilling hands we humans - thanks to science, capitalism, representative government, freedoms of speech and press and religion, and the other institutions of secular modernity - have managed to wrench decent lives for many of us.... not least by making music so cheap and accessible!


----------



## science

Lukecash12 said:


> members of the Church of Christ (a baptist offshoot) often even pronounce anathema/damnation on those who use different hymnals or more modern forms of worship


I haven't found anything about the Church of Christ pronouncing anathema on people for using the wrong hymn books. The Church of Christ suffers a lot of slander from Baptists, and I suspect this idea may have been introduced as part of that. Even then it seems to have been exaggerated from something that has perhaps happened at some time to something that supposedly happens often.


----------



## Lukecash12

millionrainbows said:


> I'm just asserting the possibility that it is possible to listen to "religious" music and gain a real experiential effect from it, in spite of its textual and ideological context. And my answer is YES!


But that's not the question and premises you quoted there, is it? None of what you say here has to be done in spite of religion, it can exist entirely separate from it. Anyone faulting you for doing that is just silly for thinking that "the sacred" in general is exclusive to "him/her self and co." We don't have to agree that there is such a state as you are talking about, however, or that what we believe is unprovable.



> Well, we are all in the same boat here, since these are metaphysical questions.
> 
> On the other hand, my personal experience with all kinds of ostensibly "religious" musics is that they are all accessible to anyone who is flexible and receptive, and not scared-off or discouraged by orthodox believers who seem to think they have exclusive rights or derive exclusive benefits from the music.
> 
> Nothing complicated there.


That's pretty much the definition of complicated. If all we can go off of is ontology, based on circular logic and anecdotal evidence, then we can use the same standards with anything else to prove exactly the opposite of what you think. What about those out there who think that this "sacred" is exclusive to them and their kind? Are their grounds any better than yours?



> You got to walk...that lonesome valley...
> 
> I'm here to spread the "good news," brothers and sisters! You can freely listen to any "religious music" you want to, with the full assurance from me that you might derive a "real" spiritual benefit from it, in spite of the warnings of ideologues who would spook you away! Fear not, for thou art with me!


Earth to mr. million:

We're all "ideologues", yourself included. We just can't help it. The monopoly on being a "non-ideologue" simply isn't yours. And like I said, when we say that "A" isn't "B" we aren't trying to spook you away from anything. Any religious folk who would tell you otherwise is a person using clearly sophomoric logic.



> I think there is. I can't prove it to you, though; I can only experience it. That's why I said it is "self-evident."


So any one think better than any other think? There doesn't seem to be anything to set yours apart.



> Well, that's because "being" came first, before dogma. States of being have always been as "real" as our experience seems in its totality; dogma is just a belief system concocted by Man's mind. Unless the dogma was concocted from an ontological state first. And even then, it's unprovable.


And here is just a sleugh of opinions without a shred of support. What are the underlying premises?



> Well, if the dogmas are about metaphysical ideas, then of course they are unprovable. Too bad they're not self-evident!


And here we have the cart before the horse. What is it about metaphysical ideas that makes them unprovable? What is a valid form of proof?



> No it's not. Just sit there and be silent. It will eventually come to you.


It's not coming to me, it never has, and that certainly doesn't mean that you are the ubermensch. I'm another crusty old Irishman, so as you can imagine it takes me a while at my commode. I've had plenty of silent time 



> Well, if you don't like it, just take your little red wagon and go play somewhere else.


Then what do you really want? An automaton? You've given us a sleugh of divisive premises for the UOD (universe of discourse) and expect there to be an engaging conversation where everyone just parrots you. If we accept all of those premises to start with then of course you're right, there's no discussion even left to be had.



> Oh, and when somebody wants to spook me away from religious music on the grounds that I'm not a believer in their dogma, I should have to agree with that? Hey, this is a two-way street!


And who ever said that I wanted to do that, monsieur?


----------



## Lukecash12

science said:


> I haven't found anything about the Church of Christ pronouncing anathema on people for using the wrong hymn books. The Church of Christ suffers a lot of slander from Baptists, and I suspect this idea may have been introduced as part of that. Even then it seems to have been exaggerated from something that has perhaps happened at some time to something that supposedly happens often.


Nah, I ain't no baptist pal. I just know my fair share of Church of Christ members and they informed me about that. At the very least, I do know that my uncle Benny, for example, would never go to my church because we don't use COC hymns.


----------



## science

Lukecash12 said:


> Nah, I ain't no baptist pal. I just know my fair share of Church of Christ members and they informed me about that. At the very least, I do know that my uncle Benny, for example, would never go to my church because we don't use COC hymns.


Ok, but your uncle Benny not going to your church for that reason is quite a bit different than "often even pronounce anathema/damnation on those who use different hymnals or more modern forms of worship."

You might even have understood Benny, or he might have misunderstood something. Some people in the Church of Christ don't believe in using musical instruments in church. That might've been what he meant.


----------



## SixFootScowl

millionrainbows said:


> In other words, is, for example, Gregorian chant actually a form of worship, and a way of actually invoking God or the Holy Spirit, as well as being "just music?"
> 
> The Church fathers thought that it was, indeed, a form of worship; a form of "religious technology" designed to invoke God and create believers.
> 
> In fact, on this very forum, I was criticized by a 'true believer' for saying that I could enjoy Gregorian chant without being a Christian. He said I was "missing it," compared to a believer who listens. What do you say?


I am a "true believer" and when I listen to Gregorian Chant it is just neat sounding stuff. I have no religioius experience from it (besides it is in a foreign language). The one that does have a real religious aspect is Handel's Messiah because the text is pretty much straight out of the King James Bible. The implications of that for a Christian are immense "For the word of God is living and powerful..." (Hebrews 4:12 NKJV)


----------



## Lukecash12

science said:


> Ok, but your uncle Benny not going to your church for that reason is quite a bit different than "often even pronounce anathema/damnation on those who use different hymnals or more modern forms of worship."
> 
> You might even have understood Benny, or he might have misunderstood something. Some people in the Church of Christ don't believe in using musical instruments in church. That might've been what he meant.


Aside from any of this hooblah, it's exceedingly clear that religious people are very particular about their music and the theme does come first for them, doesn't it?


----------



## Blake

science said:


> Smallpox is nature. Parasites are nature.
> 
> Nature and nature's god are cruelly indifferent, at best.
> 
> Out of their unwilling hands we humans - thanks to science, capitalism, representative government, freedoms of speech and press and religion, and the other institutions of secular modernity - have managed to wrench decent lives for many of us.... not least by making music so cheap and accessible!


How are we separate from nature, exactly? I could've sworn that's exactly what we are... nature continuing to evolve. That's a huge problem with our species. We really think we did this on our own. Nature evolved into us, and we form our individual egos, disown it, and battle it.


----------



## science

Lukecash12 said:


> Aside from any of this hooblah, it's exceedingly clear that religious people are very particular about their music and the theme does come first for them, doesn't it?


Um, I guess so. What matters to me is that evidently the Church of Christ doesn't often pronounce anathema on people who use different hymnals.


----------



## science

Vesuvius said:


> How are we separate from nature, exactly? I could've sworn that's exactly what we are... nature continuing to evolve. That's a huge problem with our species. We really think we did this on our own. Nature evolved into us, and we form our individual egos, disown it, and battle it.


That's fine. I don't think this actually affects the point I was making.

But even if the point had been merely that nature is kind insofar as human beings are kind, I would've demurred on the extent of human kindness. Secular modernity works because it usually depends on selfishness rather than kindness, and we have more of the former than the latter.


----------



## Blake

science said:


> That's fine. I don't think this actually affects the point I was making.
> 
> But even if the point had been merely that nature is kind insofar as human beings are kind, I would've demurred on the extent of human kindness. Secular modernity works because it usually depends on selfishness rather than kindness, and we have more of the former than the latter.


Well, certainly. You made it seem like it was us against nature. Indifferent, cruel, and whatever else. Nature isn't worried about being kind. That's just an idea humans come up with. What are we if not nature studying itself? Rhetorical question. It really makes a different in perspective, not just semantics. It's this idea of fighting for a separate, "special" self against nature that causes so much pain. Which is where selfishness and all that noise flourishes out of. Let go, I say! This body will indefinitely drop. No bout of selfishness or fighting will stop that.


----------



## science

Vesuvius said:


> Well, certainly. You made it seem like it was us against nature. Indifferent, cruel, and whatever else. Nature isn't worried about being kind. That's just an idea humans come up with. What are we if not nature studying itself? Rhetorical question. It really makes a different in perspective, not just semantics. It's this idea of fighting for a separate, "special" self against nature that causes so much pain. Which is where selfishness and all that noise flourishes out of. Let go, I say! This body will indefinitely drop. No bout of selfishness or fighting will stop that.


You can be as accepting as you please, but I advocate fighting those aspects of nature, including human nature, that cause us pain. Hopefully we will eradicate polio soon; maybe we will be better able to treat dementia, maybe we can develop solar energy technology so efficient that we can stop fighting over oil and cut pollution back further, maybe we can have robots do more menial labor to free us up for more leisure and spirituality and music, maybe we can distribute the profits of all that widely enough to eliminate extreme poverty.


----------



## Blake

science said:


> You can be as accepting as you please, but I advocate fighting those aspects of nature, including human nature, that cause us pain. Hopefully we will eradicate polio soon; maybe we will be better able to treat dementia, maybe we can develop solar energy technology so efficient that we can stop fighting over oil and cut pollution back further, maybe we can have robots do more menial labor to free us up for more leisure and spirituality and music, maybe we can distribute the profits of all that widely enough to eliminate extreme poverty.


Why so serious? It's not like you're going to keep this life.


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## science

Vesuvius said:


> Why so serious? It's not like you're going to keep this life.


Every little bit counts while it lasts.


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## Blake

science said:


> Every little bit counts while it lasts.


Maybe if there's a lasting memory of it, which I doubt. If not, it's like it never happened. So again, I say, let go.


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## science

Vesuvius said:


> Maybe if there's a lasting memory of it, which I doubt. If not, it's like it never happened. So again, I say, let go.


In other words, since we're gonna die someday, we might as well die now.

For me, I cherish so much, I'm not gonna let go till I can't hold on any longer.

Too much good music, too many laughing children, too much delicious food, too many beautiful sunrises.


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## Blake

science said:


> In other words, since we're gonna die someday, we might as well die now.
> 
> For me, I cherish so much, I'm not gonna let go till I can't hold on any longer.
> 
> Too much good music, too many laughing children, too much delicious food, too many beautiful sunrises.


Nah, you don't have to hold on. It won't vanish if you do. You can let go and still enjoy. And you'll die when you die.


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## science

Vesuvius said:


> Nah, you don't have to hold on. It won't vanish if you do. You can let go and still enjoy. And you'll die when you die.


Well, now it's just semantics again. When I say "enjoy" you interpret it as some kind of clinging; then you turn around and say "enjoy without clinging."

You can go on being as cleverly insulting as you please. You're not my guru. I'm going to go on enjoying my life regardless of whether you say I'm violating some kind of dharma or whatever.


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## Blake

science said:


> Well, now it's just semantics again. When I say "enjoy" you interpret it as some kind of clinging; then you turn around and say "enjoy without clinging."
> 
> You can go on being as cleverly insulting as you please. You're not my guru. I'm going to go on enjoying my life regardless of whether you say I'm violating some kind of dharma or whatever.


I'm not saying any of the sort. I'm saying there's absolutely no reason to cling when time will rip it from you regardless. And it doesn't mean you can't enjoy life because you're not holding on. And if you get to interpret me, then I shall do the same. What, it's not pleasant, or something? I'm really not so serious. I think you're clever, too.


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## science

Vesuvius said:


> I'm not saying any of the sort. I'm saying there's absolutely no reason to cling when time will rip it from you regardless. And it doesn't mean you can't enjoy life because you're not holding on. And if you get to interpret me, then I shall do the same. What, it's not pleasant, or something? I'm really not so serious. I think you're clever, too.


Without clinging, with the full knowledge that I am going to die and that everyone else is going to die, I intend to go on enjoying my life as much as I can while I can, and in order to help other people do so - without clinging, mind you - I advocate fighting those aspects of nature, including human nature, that cause us pain. Hopefully we will eradicate polio soon; maybe we will be better able to treat dementia, maybe we can develop solar energy technology so efficient that we can stop fighting over oil and cut pollution back further, maybe we can have robots do more menial labor to free us up for more leisure and spirituality and music, maybe we can distribute the profits of all that widely enough to eliminate extreme poverty.


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## millionrainbows

Florestan said:


> I am a "true believer" and when I listen to Gregorian Chant it is just neat sounding stuff. I have no religioius experience from it (besides it is in a foreign language). The one that does have a real religious aspect is Handel's Messiah because the text is pretty much straight out of the King James Bible. The implications of that for a Christian are immense "For the word of God is living and powerful..." (Hebrews 4:12 NKJV)


Yes, I get an immense spiritual kick out of the Messiah, too. The drama carries me away, and I'm not an avowed christian. That's what I call effective art.

The way the word "hallelujah" is used is especially effective and exciting. I see how the piece is designed to 'illuminate' the text, and how it could bolster the belief and spirit of a true believer.
...but it excites and bolsters my sense of the sacred as well. It illuminates the inclusive nature of my sense of the sacred, which does not exclude the positive aspects of good, sincere, humanistic Christianty.

If Christ's purported arrival and resurrection are what drives a person's sense of spirituality, then that's great, as far as their subjective identity is concerned, if it helps nurture that. If it also causes the person to do good acts, be kind, and so forth, in their exterior 'social' identity, then that is great as well.

Just please, no doctrinal preaching, philosophical ramblings, or attempts to objectify doctrine and place it in my purview; I just want to listen to 'sacred' music and nurture my own sense of the sacred, via my sacred 'interior' connection with it. It's my self-evident birthright as a human being, and I don't have to prove it to anybody, nor do I wish to.


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## Lukecash12

millionrainbows said:


> Yes, I get an immense spiritual kick out of the Messiah, too. The drama carries me away, and I'm not an avowed christian. That's what I call effective art.
> 
> The way the word "hallelujah" is used is especially effective and exciting. I see how the piece is designed to 'illuminate' the text, and how it could bolster the belief and spirit of a true believer.
> ...but it excites and bolsters my sense of the sacred as well. It illuminates the inclusive nature of my sense of the sacred, which does not exclude the positive aspects of good, sincere, humanistic Christianty.
> 
> If Christ's purported arrival and resurrection are what drives a person's sense of spirituality, then that's great, as far as their subjective identity is concerned, if it helps nurture that. If it also causes the person to do good acts, be kind, and so forth, in their exterior 'social' identity, then that is great as well.
> 
> Just please, no doctrinal preaching, philosophical ramblings, or attempts to objectify doctrine and place it in my purview; I just want to listen to 'sacred' music and nurture my own sense of the sacred, via my sacred 'interior' connection with it. It's my self-evident birthright as a human being, and I don't have to prove it to anybody, nor do I wish to.


I guess a part of the differences that might be there, is in what we find the most emotional. The hallelujah chorus is great, but _with his stripes we are healed_ and _all we like sheep_ are daggers to the heart, while _worthy is the lamb_ and the beautiful Amen fugue at the end conjures up vivid and overwhelming images from revelation. It's like looking at the throne of God on the day of judgment, with the twelve elders and the whole heavenly host there.


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## millionrainbows

Lukecash12 said:


> I guess a part of the differences that might be there, is in what we find the most emotional. The hallelujah chorus is great, but _with his stripes we are healed_ and _all we like sheep_ are daggers to the heart, while _worthy is the lamb_ and the beautiful Amen fugue at the end conjures up vivid and overwhelming images from revelation. It's like looking at the throne of God on the day of judgment, with the twelve elders and the whole heavenly host there.


_That's all well and good, but that imagery does not exclude anyone, nor is it necessary to take it literally.
_
_In Jungian psychology, there is a complete book Jung wrote called *"The Sacrifice"* which considers this as a universal aspect of all growth of the psyche, on its way to wholeness and integration. _

*"...with his stripes we are healed..."* _could be interpreted thusly, as well as_ *"...all we like sheep..."* and *"...*_*worthy is the lamb...", *which could all be seen in the light of "ego death" (being born again_).
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
_*
But this is all a distraction from the music. You seem to be more interested in "content" and doctrine, and literal meaning of text than aesthetic experience of music.*

*Recording has removed music from its original intended social functions and contexts (doctrines, vehicles for religion, religious ceremonies), *and now listening is a* subjective *experience.

Just as art historians can study paintings of religious imagery, and appreciated their formal aspects fully, so too can we listen to music in the same way.

There is no requirement for anyone to acknowledge any other perspective (doctrinal, social, historical) other than their own, unless they are studying the music for extra-musical reasons.

The ideology of a musical work leads towards a repression of the sensual.

Additionally, I do not acknowledge that a work of art's religous or social ideology or social intent are essential formal elements of that art; only the artist's intent, if it comes through, can be essential to the art, and in that sense it transcends outer ideologies and intents, and embodies the artist's subjective connection to the sacred, which communicates universally, because these are universal human qualities which existed first, before ideology or doctrine.

It is necessary to the aesthetic response that we free ourselves from textual and doctrinal content in order to fully experience the aesthetic form.

Music is the 'dynamic' of feelings and emotions and thoughts.

Musical emotion is profound but vague.

*In this sense, modern recording has transformed all music into 'absolute' music, absent of specific meaning.
*
Music is concerned with feelings which are primarily individual and rooted in the body.

*Music's structural and sensual elements resonate more with individuals' cognitive and emotional sets rather than with their cultural or doctrinal sentiments, although its external manner and expression may be rooted in historical circumstances.

*_So I am saying that truly sincere and effective art communicates on the individual level, and is received in the same way, regardless of any social context or ideological baggage which was originally part of whatever utilitarian purpose might have been intended._
_


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## Lukecash12

millionrainbows said:


> _That's all well and good, but that imagery does not exclude anyone, nor is it necessary to take it literally.
> _
> _In Jungian psychology, there is a complete book Jung wrote called *"The Sacrifice"* which considers this as a universal aspect of all growth of the psyche, on its way to wholeness and integration. _
> 
> *"...with his stripes we are healed..."* _could be interpreted thusly, as well as_ *"...all we like sheep..."* and *"...*_*worthy is the lamb...", *which could all be seen in the light of "ego death" (being born again_).
> ___________________________________________________________________________________________________
> _*
> But this is all a distraction from the music. You seem to be more interested in "content" and doctrine, and literal meaning of text than aesthetic experience of music.*
> 
> *Recording has removed music from its original intended social functions and contexts (doctrines, vehicles for religion, religious ceremonies), *and now listening is a* subjective *experience.
> 
> Just as art historians can study paintings of religious imagery, and appreciated their formal aspects fully, so too can we listen to music in the same way.
> 
> There is no requirement for anyone to acknowledge any other perspective (doctrinal, social, historical) other than their own, unless they are studying the music for extra-musical reasons.
> 
> The ideology of a musical work leads towards a repression of the sensual.
> 
> Additionally, I do not acknowledge that a work of art's religous or social ideology or social intent are essential formal elements of that art; only the artist's intent, if it comes through, can be essential to the art, and in that sense it transcends outer ideologies and intents, and embodies the artist's subjective connection to the sacred, which communicates universally, because these are universal human qualities which existed first, before ideology or doctrine.
> 
> It is necessary to the aesthetic response that we free ourselves from textual and doctrinal content in order to fully experience the aesthetic form.
> 
> Music is the 'dynamic' of feelings and emotions and thoughts.
> 
> Musical emotion is profound but vague.
> 
> *In this sense, modern recording has transformed all music into 'absolute' music, absent of specific meaning.
> *
> Music is concerned with feelings which are primarily individual and rooted in the body.
> 
> *Music's structural and sensual elements resonate more with individuals' cognitive and emotional sets rather than with their cultural or doctrinal sentiments, although its external manner and expression may be rooted in historical circumstances.
> 
> *_So I am saying that truly sincere and effective art communicates on the individual level, and is received in the same way, regardless of any social context or ideological baggage which was originally part of whatever utilitarian purpose might have been intended._
> _


1. The imagery isn't there to exclude anyone. The key difference is that while you're thinking in Jungian terms about that content, basically "playing pretend", those who believe in those words identify with them and such amazing and beautiful things are actually a reality to us.

2. "But this is all a distraction from the music". No, monsieur, it's a part of the music. It's anything but extra-musical, don't kid yourself for a second on that. My approach to Christian sacred music is just as valid as your own and it isn't mutually exclusive to your aesthetic approach either. Not to mention that I enjoy the music of other religions as well and use a similar approach to yourself when doing so. The emotions and images are universal, you're right. But the content isn't and content can be just as captivating and intense if not more so *depending on the individual* (who knows? it is for me with my experience and *that is all that I know*, I can only be me).

Like I just said, when listening to a chorus like _Worthy is the Lamb_ doesn't seem abstract to you in the least, it's literally life defining. You identify with it and the idea that such a wonderful thing is going to happen, that everything will be okay, that I'll see my mother again, that God will be greatly pleased and that I will be loved, well that just defies explanation. You can appreciate that that must feel amazing, can't you? And can you appreciate that it's just as valid of an approach? It's not utilitarian, and we aren't merely thinking about "making a chair" because the content matters so much to us.

3. Music is received in whatever beneficial way the listener decides. If it's good and pleasant, and it has a positive effect on that person's life, then who are you to pontificate to anyone about what is "truly sincere and effective", or that "it will resonate more with you this way"? It doesn't resonate more for me your way because I'm not you, bro.

On the other side of the coin I think it's funny that I would criticize you for that. You've got to realize that I get just as frustrated with people who prefer other approaches and even my own approaches, when they say that art should be used this way or that and how they know that their way is superior.

4. Listening already was a subjective experience. People were just as emotional and just as capable of contemplating some other things than the content like yourself. Maybe they didn't as much, but it's folly to think that the subjective experience of music just happened all of a sudden when people started recording it. The other ideas, many being dogmatic, that they took with them weren't baggage in the way of the genuine experience, *they were part of their genuine experience*.

What it looks like to me is you've just put this form of subjectivity in a little box and made it mutually exclusive to anything else. Maybe try reading a book on Romanticism, getting an idea of philosophy before recorded music? Some Romantic philosophers thought that you could confirm pretty much everything, from "what is good" and "what is real and true" to "what is out there" and "how does everything work" just through subjective revelation.


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## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> _There is no requirement for anyone to _


...listen in any specified way at all. Please stop specifying.



Lukecash12 said:


> Music is received in whatever beneficial way the listener decides. If it's good and pleasant, and it has a positive effect on that person's life, then who are you to pontificate to anyone about what is "truly sincere and effective", or that "it will resonate more with you this way"? It doesn't resonate more for me your way because I'm not you, bro.


Exactly so. Thank you.


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## millionrainbows

Lukecash12 said:


> 1. The imagery isn't there to exclude anyone. The key difference is that while you're thinking in Jungian terms about that content, basically "playing pretend", those who believe in those words identify with them and such amazing and beautiful things are actually a reality to us.


I just said that to engage ideologically with you, but my main purpose is aesthetic, not ideological.



Lukecash12 said:


> "But this is all a distraction from the music". No, monsieur, it's a part of the music. It's anything but extra-musical, don't kid yourself for a second on that.


I disagree; I think all the religious content in 'religious music' is extra-musical baggage which is non-essential to the aesthetic experience of the sacred.



Lukecash12 said:


> Like I just said, when listening to a chorus like _Worthy is the Lamb_ doesn't seem abstract to you in the least, it's literally life defining. You identify with it and the idea that such a wonderful thing is going to happen, that everything will be okay, that I'll see my mother again, that God will be greatly pleased and that I will be loved, well that just defies explanation. You can appreciate that that must feel amazing, can't you? And can you appreciate that it's just as valid of an approach? It's not utilitarian, and we aren't merely thinking about "making a chair" because the content matters so much to us.


Whatever. I don't think any of this is actually "in" the music; I think it's your fantasy involvement, and that's fine. 
I have my experience of the sacred, but it comes from the music only.

My sacred experience of truly effective sacred music is not contingent upon extra-musical factors. Extra-musical factors, such as literal meaning of texts, its use in ritual, or social context, are not an essential part of the universal way people experience the abstract nature of music, before all that ideology was attached to it.



Lukecash12 said:


> Music is received in whatever beneficial way the listener decides.


Music, by nature, is abstract, sensual, and non-literal. If we try to attach religious ideology or literal linguistic meaning to it, that is always extra-musical and after the fact.



Lukecash12 said:


> On the other side of the coin I think it's funny that I would criticize you for that. You've got to realize that I get just as frustrated with people who prefer other approaches and even my own approaches, when they say that art should be used this way or that and how they know that their way is superior.


Music is what it is, and it is an abstract experience. That's why everyone can enjoy music, regardless of whether they have technical musical knowledge. Music primarily engages us on a more basic, human, emotional and cognitive level, not an ideological level. That would come after, as an attachment from the mind.



Lukecash12 said:


> Listening already was a subjective experience. People were just as emotional and just as capable of contemplating some other things than the content like yourself. Maybe they didn't as much, but it's folly to think that the subjective experience of music just happened all of a sudden when people started recording it.
> 
> The other ideas, many being dogmatic, that they took with them weren't baggage in the way of the genuine experience, *they were part of their genuine experience*.


Those thing are extra-musical. They are "in the person's experience," not part of the music itself.



Lukecash12 said:


> What it looks like to me is you've just put this form of subjectivity in a little box and made it mutually exclusive to anything else. Maybe try reading a book on Romanticism, getting an idea of philosophy before recorded music? Some Romantic philosophers thought that you could confirm pretty much everything, from "what is good" and "what is real and true" to "what is out there" and "how does everything work" just through subjective revelation.


Music is music, not ideology.


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## Guest

Music isn't an 'abstract experience', anymore than 'love' is an abstract experience. It's very real, concrete, with measurable physiological effects.

Unless I'm doing it all wrong of course! :lol:


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## Lukecash12

millionrainbows said:


> I just said that to engage ideologically with you, but my main purpose is aesthetic, not ideological.


And that's what you're limiting your view to.



> I disagree; I think all the religious content in 'religious music' is extra-musical baggage which is non-essential to the aesthetic experience of the sacred.


It's essential to the whole *experience* of whoever enjoys *that experience*.



> Whatever. I don't think any of this is actually "in" the music; I think it's your fantasy involvement, and that's fine.
> I have my experience of the sacred, but it comes from the music only.
> 
> My sacred experience of truly effective sacred music is not contingent upon extra-musical factors. Extra-musical factors, such as literal meaning of texts, its use in ritual, or social context, are not an essential part of the universal way people experience the abstract nature of music, before all that ideology was attached to it.


And none of your abstracts are actually "in" the music either. All the music really is, is *sound*. *We do the rest*. Abstracts aren't essential either. Nothing is necessarily essential. But there are things that are good and it seems that sometimes we have to get off our high horse and just accept that something else is good too.



> Music, by nature, is abstract, sensual, and non-literal. If we try to attach religious ideology or literal linguistic meaning to it, that is always extra-musical and after the fact.


Music, by nature, is a series of waves that vibrate the air in our atmosphere. Anything else is something that we attach, and "after the fact". The only real fact is that thus and such of a sound had a certain frequency and intensity.



> Music is what it is, and it is an abstract experience. That's why everyone can enjoy music, regardless of whether they have technical musical knowledge. Music primarily engages us on a more basic, human, emotional and cognitive level, not an ideological level. That would come after, as an attachment from the mind.


It's all an attachment from the mind, however we have been conditioned to do it. There is no "primary" because it is different for every person. Your experience isn't any more "pure" than any other person's experience.



> Those thing are extra-musical. They are "in the person's experience," not part of the music itself.


And this is all according to your theory of some self evident ontological entity. But not everyone has to accept that this entity even exists, oh wise and mighty million.

It's like trying to prove Platonic Forms. Plato says there is a perfect, most exemplary "form" of good, bad, triangle, square, tasty, ugly, etc. that we compare everything to. But where are these Forms? Can you see them? Yet Plato says they are self evident because the way we define and compare everything has already proven that we've identified these ontological realities just in our minds. So there is a perfect hammer. A perfect beauty. The most insidious evil. The essence of truth. And so on and so forth.

Can you physically see "truth"? Can you physically see your subjective experience of music? Then quit lording this nonsense over the rest of us "poor ignorant listeners".



> Music is music, not ideology.


And your take on music doesn't make you some magical deity that is somehow a "non"-ideologue. It's all ideology and you do it just as much. You heard something and then you had an idea, which is no different from anyone else. None of it was already there, *you supplied it*.

Like I suggested, maybe try reading about Romance philosophy. They went over all of these subjects like this when the Empiricists started to have their great debates with Romanticists. Moreover, looking at that period gives us a great perspective on modern philosophy and all of the opinions even average people form, taking for granted when and where the "germs" were planted.


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## millionrainbows

yawwn....Oh, here's an unlikely one:










All these are early, written when he was eleven or so; all short, most mvts. 2 to 4 minutes long; all standard 3-mvt, with a couple of minuets thrown in; and all are in the key of D major except one.

I programmed my CD player to exclude the one in C. The net effect, after about 40 minutes, was a sameness of key, resulting in a drone-like effect, not unlike minimalism.

So it's OK if Mozart, at 11 yrs. old, does not convey his soul to me as Mahler does; the effect of his craftsmanship creates the sacred effect of suspended being quite well, and can be used as a 'sacred vehicle.'

Ok BTW, have y'all defined God yet? Good luck with that one. I'm gonna go help a little old lady across the street, because that's just the kind of atheist I am. :lol:


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## Guest

Lukecash12 said:


> 1. I'm not setting aside the empiricist's tools at all. Had we the right circumstances, maybe we could use them to draw inferences about anything outside of our universe. The distinction I'm really making is that we've only observed contingency to be an issue inside of the universe. For all we need contingency is only an issue because of the types of things you find inside the universe. Who is to say if we stepped outside whether or not there would be such a thing as a "sequence of events"?
> 
> 2. "Why" becomes troublesome when we look at creation and other questions become possibly irrelevant. It may be the only one remaining, and ultimately it would be more perplexing than the rest. You say there is no "why", but can you not see that your predisposition not to ask that question as if it is simply an unnatural question, "there is no why", may simply be the result of our shared circumstance?


Of course 'why' is troublesome, and I'm very happy to ask it, not avoid it. But I only said it wasn't necessary for establishing the fact of existence.

I still don't get the value of your modus tollens. Perhaps I'd better let you explain further how it can be used here.


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## Wood

Lukecash12 said:


> You're right that you can't prove a negative friend, but modal logic works perfectly fine in this situation. What I mean by modal logic is: the process of elimination.
> 
> Modus tollens, for example, can be spelled out like this:
> 
> So let's come up with a sensible formula for disproving god with modus tollens:
> 
> If God exists, he is A, B, & C.
> A, B, & C are either internally contradictory, or we have made observations that contradict one or more of the three.
> Ergo, God cannot exist.
> 
> Do you see the difference? Instead of saying "does not exist", by eliminating possibilities we can say that something "cannot exist". Now you might ask me "well how can I do that with something so ill defined". I personally would define it better and any philosopher worth his salt would be expected to in order to compose a decent argument in favor of God/gods. But the scant information you do have in this thread can still be submitted to modal logic, this idea of a necessary creator.


I don't think this approach overcomes my objection for we know what an axe murderer and an intruder is, but we don't know what Dave's God is other than the snippets he's given us.

Also, I'm not sure about this approach. The dog may not have barked because the intruder was known to the dog, or poisoned it. it seems quite a flakey way to prove an existence or non-existence.


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## millionrainbows

hpowders said:


> ...Bart Ehrman....was a devout baptist minister, who knew the New Testament by heart and who was deeply devoted to Christianity until he couldn't be anymore. Distinguished Professor of New Testament at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is now a devout atheist. His belief is there is no heaven; no afterlife and that we should eat, drink and be merry because this life is all there is; so live life to the fullest...From devout Christian to devout atheist. Why? He couldn't conceive of an omniscient, omnipotent and merciful God not interceding and stopping the suffering of innocents on our planet.


This is evidence of how this thread has gotten away from the aesthetic experience of "religious" music and whether it is intended and effective in evoking a 'real' and 'sacred' state of being.

I mentioned Bart Ehrman as a historian, not as an atheist. Whether or not he is an atheist has no effect on his historical methods.

This thread is being perceived more as a debate about religious doctrine.

It was intended by me, its creator, as a discussion of the aesthetic effects of 'religious' music and *whether those aesthetic effects are 'real,' at least in palpable, musical, experiential ways.* _Not _whether the religious doctrine or belief itself is 'real' or true.

I think the main significance of 'religious' music in the classical, pre-Romantic era, is that it is a precursor to the Romantic notion of the ennobled individual and the post-enlightenment rise of reason. Therefore, some of the best aesthetic experiences with Handel, Mozart, and Haydn might appear to be more moving on an emotional level because of their religious nature, but it is really because of their appeal to the human soul, in a general sense, which explains their appeal, not doctrinal or ideological content. The "human to human" message is what comes through, and creates a sacred connection with our collective nature.

This Mozart recording is a good example of what I'm talking about. There is an overall 'sacred' and soothing, reassuring effect which is conveyed: the choral group, a massed group of voices, evokes a "collective" sense, as most choirs are wont to do, and gives credence to the human need to "belong" and be a "part of." The assertive passages by the male chorus seem to be 'backing it up,' and are inspiring. The "question and answer" choruses seem to be affirming and re-affirming some primal, essential fact of our sacred nature, as if in assertive celebration. I mean, who's gonna argue with The Mormon Tabernacle Choir? :lol: Their very existence gives credence to Mormonism, doesn't it?

Of course, this is a human, aesthetic sense of belonging and empowerment, which is conveyed purely by the force of massed voices; no ideology is necessary or essential to the effect. It's a non-verbal, almost unconscious product, perhaps too closely associated with people raised in Church to be separated-out and viewed as an aesthetic, musical effect, as I have done.

Frankly, I haven't seen anyone here who is able to approach my thread question in an objective, dispassionate way. They all seem too emotionally invested in affirming their religious belief system, or of debating as "atheists" or "scientific realists" against such beliefs and ideologies.

That's not my purpose; I came here to discuss the aesthetic effects, sacred in nature, of religious music, and whether this music is a 'real' spiritual technology. I think it is, but perhaps for different reasons than the believers, non-believers, and ideological debaters.


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## Taggart

This thread is now closed.

Members are reminded of the terms of service



> A special forum has been created for Political and/or Religious discussions *that are related to Classical Music*. If members wish to create topics for discussion regarding political and religious topics not related to Classical Music, such will be strictly limited to Social Groups only.


If you wish to discuss religious matters in isolation from the OP then please do so in a Social Group.


----------

