Altho on your side, Musket, I must say that I don't think our view [so far as we share it] is enhanced by what I believe are poor arguments. OK, so music is abstract and has no specific devotional or didactic content. But other arts -- painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry -- are not, & can have. And all have been greatly served by, and have reciprocally served, the religious impulse, to the great enrichment of the world. Credit where due. Would you wish to be without Botticelli's astonishing Nativity, Caravaggio's Supper at Emmaus, Leonardo's Last Supper, Velazquez's Immaculate Conception, the Dome of the Rock, The Sistine Chapel, King's College Chapel, Bourges Cathedral, Dante's Divine Comedy, Milton's Paradise Lost, the Everyman morality ~~ Ecclesiastes and The Song Of Songs, for that matter...?

And add your own list: it could go on pretty well to ∞.

Blowed if I would.

~MichaeL~