Mousethief is right about my use of "total".    My critic might want to take a course in reading the English language. And another in logic.

It doesn't even matter if Berlioz said he was atheist.   What I would refer to if I mentioned him would be his stirring and majestic Requiem,( which is wonderful to sing and which I have been lucky enough to sing one of my group's Italian tours--we were part of the Spoleto festival and also sang in the Sistine Chapel that year.)   And the music in the street and after midnight when I hooked up with the cultural center of Spoleto after midnight was one of the musical high points of my life.   Too bad the rest of the chorus just wanted to sleep.

My point is that without Christianity the Berlioz Requiem--like the other music I have cited--would not have been written.

It's fine with me if atheists write Christian music--as long as they honor the actual tradition and take it seriously, as Berlioz did.   He is in fact very convincing--if any Mudcat atheist had actually listened to the piece.   Not that that's likely to happen.   It would take away from important Zappa time.

Somehow I tend to doubt a Mudcat atheist's efforts along those lines would be similar.

I can't help but think that I could exist--quite happily, in fact--without ever hearing another Zappa song.   It was fun in Paris to yell "A bas les flics!" when Zappa didn't show up for his concert.   But I suspect the live participatory street theater was more of a kick than his actual concert would have been.   Though I was glad not to be arrested--and the tear gas was unexpected.

So this does not change the fact that it is Christianity--(and probably capitalism, since Berlioz was probably paid for his work)-- and not atheism which is responsible for the glorious Berlioz Requiem.

Therefore my point remains that music due to atheism is, shall we say, not worth the time of any serious music lover.   Not that I would want to call it trash.   Of course not.

Ergo atheism is still virtually worthless as a contributor to culture--unless, as I said, you get off on nihilism. Perhaps all the sales of Being and Nothingness and similar bleak pinnacles of achievement are due to sales to Mudcat atheists.

And of course I have also said that agnosticism is an eminently sensible stance for a thinking person to take.

It's only atheism which has been a disaster for the world and close to a dead loss for culture.   So, as noted earlier, if forced to choose between no atheism and no religion, I'll stay with religion. Thanks for asking.

I can tell you point blank that Brahms was no atheist.   Neither, by the way, was Darwin.
So I'll keep Darwin and you atheists can have Dawkins.   Seems fair.