Does Music Deny Religion to Children?

Subject: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 07:54 AM

As a merry & Godless vagabond raised in spiritual & economic impoverishment in an entirely secular household in the erstwhile South East Northumbrian coalfield wherein religion was effectively the ambient folklore of English culture, it's always struck me as notable that from the very beginning the music I reached out for was that which spoke of the infinite and the eternal. On one hand it might be the more well known of the two settings Vivaldi made of the Gloria (we had both in our house); on the other it might be Pink Floyd's Interstellar Overdrive. Certainly I saw no condradiction betwen the two as a nipper, and even now I hold them both in a similar lofty esteem as manifestations of an all-too evident human need to prostrate ourselves before the Greater Unknown which both defies and defines the parameters of our Lesser Known world.

When the Strawbs turned their focus to loftier concerns on Grave New World (I was 11 when a copy first found its way onto out turntable) I would pore over the various significances via the lyric booklet, pondering what relation, if any, the songs had to the Durer woodcuts which illustrated them. Visions of Alchemy, Damnation and Earthy Paradise transfigured my vision of the Lesser Known World, even unto opening my eyes, eventually, to the realm of Traditional Song and Balladry, replete with songs of Ritual & Ceremony which were, in any case, a feature of my so-called education at the time.

When I was twelve I might be found down at the local Arts Lab twiddling knobs on VCS-3s and EMS Synthis concocting electronic soundscapes awash with the Dark Imminent Menance of the Extraterrestrial, as I regarded it at the time. The following year I lost all my friends in a single evening when I played them the Third Ear Band album I'd brought back from London containing such wonders as The Egyptian Book of the Dead, Dragon Lines and Stone Circle. No matter, I would make new ones, many via the visionary mythos of the Planet Gong, replete with Flying Teapots, Pot Head Pixies, Octave Doctors and a Utopian Green World one might still tune into via Radio Gnome Invisible. Magma saw things a little differently perhaps, but they told a similar tale of a distant planet on which humanity discovered utopia but failed when they tried to bring it back home. Nothing so cute as a PHP in sight, but I defy anyone listen to Mekanik Destructiw Kommandoh and remain unchanged (or else unhinged) by the experience.

What chance did mere religion have in such a wondrous world? What chance does it have now when the doors of infinity remain firmly open and the Joyful Noise of Intergalactic Mission of Sun Ra still resounds in my heart with a musical catalogue so vast that I'll never get through in my lifetime? And what of those lesser seances to be found at your local singaround where a common faith brings together an otherwise disparate humanity in a communion of beer and song whose only doctrine is the human cause? And after an adolescence further enriched by the Nonesuch Explorer Series (which brought to my hi-fi the ethnic musics of Java, Bali, Bulgaria, Sweden, Japan, Africa & beyond) can I ever trust the blackened Christian heart that has elected by way of salvation to believe in a God that created humanity just to damn them for all eternity? Or any other religion for that matter which - manifestations of music (Music in the World of Islam anyone?), architecture and other Human Stuff notwithstanding - is ultimately just funny hats and hoo-hah. Still I say I elect not to believe in any God because I can't conceive of greater divinity than Duke Ellington - or Don Cherry, Seamus Ennis, John Coltrane, Davie Stewart, Johnny Dyani, Sam Larner, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Peter Bellamy...

When I was a child I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, and I thought as a child. Now I am an adult - it's not that much different to be honest - thanks to the music, which continues to deny me religion and long may it remain so!

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 09:47 AM

Many things deny religion. By any religious reckoning, it just goes to prove religion is not infallible after all.

Bearing in mind religion as a word can mean different things to different people, I find most people divide it between their personal creed, which is a moral compass and may or may not be in tune with an organisation and those organisations themselves; ie being identified as a follower.

As time marches on and we become more sophisticated, are exposed to more and rely on making our own minds up based on what we experience through being better travelled, party to more news and other views etc, humans have less need of medieval interpretations of even older moral based stories. We certainly need religion less as a control mechanism.

For thousands of years, religions were relevant because they exercised their right to be relevant. Now, they have to compete with soap operas, fly on the wall documentaries and media adulation of "celebrities" and sports people.

Oh, and music.

certainly music.

Bach may have wrote for the glory of his God, but his infinite cadences show a more temporal view of eternity for the likes of me....

No wonder religious organisations are becoming more fundamental (whilst claiming otherwise.)   The Archbishop of Canterbury regards moderates winning a vote on female bishops "causing a schism" whilst the left footers... well, I read that The Vatican today issued a paper putting paedophile priests and ordaining women on the same level in terms of being a Papal sin.

Then people say I knock religion. No, I don't need to. Those charged with looking after the concept are doing a good enough job of killing it off themselves without the need for rational help.

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 10:14 AM

Logical error alert:
Well, Willie, I was wondering when somebody would post that bit about "putting paedophile priests and ordaining women on the same level." People are trying to make hay on that partial truth. It's true that pedophile priests and those ordaining women get the same maximum church penalty of excommunication, but it's also specified that pedophiles will be referred to civil authorities for criminal prosecution.
If two crimes both get the maximum penalty, that doesn't mean that the two crimes are equivalent.

I think women should be ordained, but I think it can only be done with approval from the Central Office - and the Central Office (the Vatican) isn't ready to change its mind yet. So, yeah, you can't ordain a priest unless the Vatican says so.

As for ordaining women as Anglican bishops, it's true that it's likely to cause a schism. That's exactly what happened in the United States with the Episcopalians, which are part of the Anglican Church. Many people aren't ready to accept ordination of women and homosexuals, and it's a real problem to figure out how to accommodate them.

And S O'P, I have to say I don't find music and religion to be mutually exclusive. Why is it so necessary to categorically reject anything? I see good in just about everyone and everything, and I do my best to politely ignore the part that's not-so-good. Why is it that so many religious and non-religious people share such an obsession with seeking Absolute Truth? Why not take things as they come and explore them, rather than judging certain elements to be Evil and therefore demanding categorical rejection?

-Joe, a firm believer in uncertainty-

And I'm moving this down to the non-music section because people seem to feel more comfortable with having religion threads down there. And yes, I acknowledge that there is a musical aspect to this thread. I'm moving it to forestall complaints about "another music thread in the music section."

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 11:35 AM

Ah well Joe, I did read something and this was a wonderful opportunity to use it... You are right of course in saying the church reports dodgy employees to the appropriate authorities, and not just because in many countries it is an offence not to. I agree this Pope has done more to sort the issue out, but my point was away from the secular authorities, the actual papal condemnation is, as you agreed, the same. Excommunication is the best they can do since the Spanish Inquisition went too far....

In terms of seeking absolute truth etc, that really is counting the number of angels on a pin head! No, I reckon S O"P is making a fair point but that the general picture is that it is not quite so black and white as the post asserts.

Religion and music are not mutually exclusive, in the same way that paper is not exclusive either. Music is used as a medium to demonstrate a religious point, (listen to the words of Vivaldi's Gloria and the point is made over and over again, even if you can't understand the Latin, you get the picture,) all the way to Bach cleverly showing glimpses of something we don't understand (infinite cadencing) showing it to therefore be a Holy concept. Or if you like, anything by Cliff Richard in the last 20 years...........

I think the original post could open up beyond music and say that people have other distractions available to them, so religion has to compete more than it used to. So it is more open to scrutiny.

And when you coldly scrutinise the bits that don't follow the laws of physics... that's where many people either dismiss it or at the very least relate to the stories within scriptures as example stories rather than read something more "real" in them.

Hey Joe. Uncertainty is a rational aspect to believe in, but just to cloud things a bit.. I have spouted off a few times on Mudcat about Einstein saying that atheism cannot be the answer because there is not the uncertainty that chaos dictates, and atheism eventually boils down to chaos. the laws of physics hold true all the time so chaos is ruled out.

Perhaps uncertainty is ruled out too? Just that we don't know the plan. but whatever it is, I doubt we have scrolls alluding to it. it ain't interventionist, whatever it is.

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: GUEST,Guest Lurker
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 11:52 AM

Hi there - I'm a long time reader of Mudcat, but I haven't posted before - to be honest, everyone's been more learned than me on most of the topics I've read of. (Not that I'm saying it's otherwise here, you'll understand.)

Does music deny religion to children?

I can only speak from personal experience. I'm 24 years old, and something of a folk singer. I have been known to pen a ditty or two, and some people claim to like them well enough. I am deeply religious. The songs I write tend to reference this. Look, I'm not saying it has to be gloria in excelsis and sing hosannas all day long, but my religion speaks through the music I write just as much to me, as those songs written decades and longer ago do.

I was a child not so long ago, and it was through some of the songs that I heard, that my beliefs were expressed then (Rudyard Kipling's "Oak, Ash and Thorn" still gives me goosebumps, when sung by Peter Bellamy (And yes I know this isn't strictly a religious song - but what ya gonna do.)).

My "Goddaughter", Aiofe, listens to me sing now, and has been known to hum along to her favorites.

All in all, I think it depends on the music. Some music will always deny but, equally, some music will always give.

Hope I've contributed something.

Harley.

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: GUEST,Jonny Sunshine
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 12:04 PM

Dunno, but my gradual and painless fall from grace started around the same time I picked up a guitar..

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: GUEST,Rev. Goose 'Goof' Gander (ret.)
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 12:24 PM

I'm starting to think that this perceived dichotomy between music and faith is a British thing. It certainly doesn't hold in the United States, where secular and sacred music evolved together (and where popular music styles developed out of and alongside folk/traditional stuff - but that's another well-worn thread topic). It also occurs to me that when most people talk about religion, they are really only talking about the religion with which they are most familiar. In my experience, the god that most athiests don't believe in is a very specific, culture-bound specimen.

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 12:58 PM

It'd be interesting to me, if someone who knew something of the folklore concerning the umm sinful or at least morally ambiguous nature of some kinds of music in different cultures, would discuss the relationship between 'the fey' or 'the devil' and mastery of say the fiddle or the guitar. Or at least point out some sources, stories, and the like. Bit of a tangent, but pertinent to the topic.

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 01:52 PM

I'm moving it to forestall complaints about "another music thread in the music section."

Man, the bullshit piles up so fast on Mudcat you need wings to stay above it!

Otherwise, we find instruments of all sorts being depicted in as many sacred contexts as secular; I think it's the purpose to which they're put which is at issue - like the difference between a violin and a fiddle. I'm sure such differences existed in the middle-ages too, looking at the cloister boss carvings in Norwich Cathedral we see all manner of devilish music-making on instruments which in other contexts we see being played by angels.

Even now we see popular music instruments being used in churches; I was in Ely the other week and the place was wired up like a stadium gig for ordinary worship with drum kit, keyboards, electric guitars, PA, mixer, lighting rigs, completely ruining the ambience of the place. Unlike the Sacred Music of former times however (Perotin, Machaut, Purcell, Vivaldi, Bach et al), Jesus Pop only inspires vomiting in the discerning music lover. Hell, there's even Wicker Man Jesus Folk Groups out there...

Hold on, what are we doing talking about this stuff below the line? This is a music thread - get it back up there where it belongs!

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: GUEST,Rev. Goose 'Goof' Gander (ret.)
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 02:01 PM

I agree with SO'P,this is a music thread.

G.G.

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 12:18 AM

Yeah, I agreed above that it was a music thread. But we got complaints about the Does Religion Deny Music to Children thread being up top, so I figured it might keep people happier if a thread with such a similar title were down below - where it will stay.

Personally, I don't give a rat's ass whether a "borderline" thread goes above or below the line - so I just make my best guess where most people will want to see it. But no, you can't satisfy all the people all the time; and some people can never be satisfied, so I do my best to ignore them. This was a strictly arbitrary decision - I could argue both sides of the issue, so I gave it my best guess.

And I meant to say, I'm moving it to forestall complaints about "another music thread in the NON-music section"....er, "another NON-music thread in the music section".... or is it "another NON-music thread in the NON-music section".

I give up. Does it really make a difference whether this is classed as a music or non-music thread? I should hope not. There must be far more important things in life to complain about. Those who get all hot and bothered about this, really need to get a life.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: mousethief
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 12:39 AM

I think it's interesting that some (only some) singers of traditional material select so as to avoid songs with a spiritual/religious theme. Now I understand that if you don't believe in something, you might not want to sing about it and be mistakenly thought that you do. But it's also true that Christianity in particular is a huge part in the formation of European culture, and secular (i.e. not in church) songs of a religious nature are numerous.

This is one reason I like Maddy Prior's repertoire -- she doesn't shy away from songs with a religious theme. I have no idea whether she is a believer or not, and I certainly wouldn't conclude that from her choice of material. Really it's none of my business, is it? But I'm glad she includes those songs in her setlists. They're part of the heritage of folk song in English.

The material is there, and gingerly singing around it denies part of our heritage.

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 02:25 AM

Those who get all hot and bothered about this, really need to get a life.

The only one wanting a klife around here is you, Joe - taking the hot & bothered descision to get involved and move the bloody thing instead of leaving it where I put it. If it doesn't matter, then why move it?

This thread is intended a celebration of MUSIC in lieu of RELIGION; it is about how MUSIC reaches the parts that mere RELIGION cannot. Even religious music is greater than the religions that gave rise to it; for sure certain religions are so interwoven with their cultures as to be part & parcel, but in Western Culture, the UK especially, RELIGION is a residual throwback that, at best, lingers like FOLKLORE to add colour & sentuiment to our seasonal festivals. MUSIC, on the other hand, is the life and soul of the moment; it is the experience, expression and salvation of every single one of us.

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: GUEST,Rev. Goose 'Goof' Gander (retired)
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 05:11 AM

It sounds like SO'P believes we can uproot the tree and still enjoy the fruit.

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: GUEST,Silas
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 05:17 AM

Anything that denies religion to children is a good thing.

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: Smokey.
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 01:03 PM

Plenty deny religion to music.

It's the words which are relevant here, not the music. The music is innocent.

(I'm an instrumentalist, not a singer.)

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 01:24 PM

I think all good music is inspired from the same place, it's the very same creative place we originate from. As for inspiration, I run with the Greeks on that. As for the old git in the sky, I run with the Gnostics on that.

In other words, I feel all music is naturally divinely inspired. But an ugly mad "jealous" creature deposed "nature" and set himself up as the one and only. And it's the legacy of the usurper, that most of us think of, when we think of "religion".

Otherwise, I believe Music and Song is at the very heart of reality and creation. Mystics speak of "the song of creation". But then mystics tend to get burned as irreligious heretics..

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: Smokey.
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 03:38 PM

I just write the stuff and let people make up their own minds..

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 03:46 PM

Lol! So unbecoming..

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: mousethief
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 06:34 PM

Anything that denies religion to children is a good thing.

Richard? Richard Dawkins? Is that you?

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: GUEST,Rev. Goose 'Goof' Gander (retired)
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 01:42 AM

Religion is simply a belief system based upon faith. It may or not have a supernatural element, a deity, a pantheon, etc. Some have argued that marxism is a political religion. Any belief in linear progress toward a steadily improving state has parallels to religion. One of my biggest problems with today's celebrity atheists (Dawkins, Hitchens, etc.) is the shallowness of their thinking. Nietzsche argued famously that "God is dead" but he seriously considered the implications of the the twilight of faith and the death of God in the hearts of men and women. I find no similar depth in the writings of the aforementioned writers.

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 03:18 AM

As a Christian, I have to say that I don't believe in the same God that the atheists don't believe in.

As for religion, there were some early religions that built temples so that they could lock their gods inside to keep them from interfering with every day life, and I'm afraid a lot of modern "religious" people do the same.

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: GUEST,Rev. Goose 'Goof' Gander (retired)
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 03:20 AM

How do you know that, Dave?

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 06:20 AM

fascinating... when I was in my late 20's I turned away from what my peers listened too... pop and rock and roll in the mid eighties just didn't do it for me. As I described it at the time... it was like eating twinkies instead of proper meals. I was getting no "nourishment" from the popular music of the day.

So the radio was always switched to classical music station as soon as my then partner left for work. I found this continued until I discovered NPR and The Thistle and Shamrock radio hour. There was a very brief stint of (oh the shame) Christian Contemporary when I was heavily zombified by local baptist church. Luckily that is now a vaguely uncomfortable memory.

In late 90's I went through a phase of classic classic rock (stuff from before my time and from when I was a wee little thing.) Then rediscovered trad folk of British Isles via my daughters' involvement in the medieval Society for Creative Anachronism. When I moved to UK in 2003 promptly discovered late 70's early 80's Punk. Wonderful stuff. And more recently turned to the folk of my own country. Woodie Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Odetta. And now I am heavily into blues.

Have to say... it has been a long weird slog through music. But I find blues really hits me where I live. I get great endorphins from Lightin Hopkins jazzy liquid guitar in Guitar Lightin' and that wonderful blues slide in Blind Willie Johnson's Dark Was the Night. Talk about a religious experience.

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 07:34 AM

Lovely post, VT!


Otherwise...

It sounds like SO'P believes we can uproot the tree and still enjoy the fruit.

Not at all; humanhity was here before religion, which I accept by way of cultural experience and diversity, but not in terms of righteousness or truth. Culturally I am Abrahamic, but whilst I don't quite see religion as the opiate Marx suggested, I regard fundamentalism as a very worrying evil in our world. Human life is an enrichment via diversity, and in this day & age one might wish (as Nietsche did) that humanity has reached a stage of objective enlightenment whereby we might live without the darkening fear & terror engendered by religious belief concocted for the purposes of mass subjugation.

So the tree is Humanity - I might enjoy the best of its fruits, be it the Psalms, the teachings of Christ, the Tao Te Ching, episodes of Top Cat and the films of Marx Brothers. But Music is that which connects me to the very universe in a breath that is at once as Infinite as it is resolutely Human.

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 10:51 AM

How do I know what?

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 12:12 PM

I gotta ask this... does anyone here actually feel music pulsing in them... not to do with how much bass or how high the volume...

Some music just gets into the blood, bones, nerve, muscle. Sometimes you can physically hear it feel it long after it has stopped. I don't mean memory of it... It is like an ongoing echo resonating inside of you.

Church bells and clock chimes do it for the hang around for the longest time. I "hear/feel" the sound for so long that it can keep me awake at night.

Am I mad? I do often smell burning too, when there is nothing burning. In fact, I sometimes get memory smells come back at me. Like Niagra spray starch, Cornsilk face powder, the smell of my brand new third grade spelling book are the good ones.

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 12:14 PM

More than words, simply nature, and simply Music...

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 01:30 PM

This post is a bit more ope to interpretation than the post with the words the other way around? People seem to be responding to different interpretations of the original question. (Ironic that we are talking religion then.)

I am not quite in tune with Richard Dawkins on everything, but I have to take issue with Rev Goose gander saying he has shallowness of thinking! He is possibly the most gifted evolutionary biologist we have seen to date. The leaps in understanding how we got to where we are today and why we have, for instance ten fingers (put in anything you wish at this point) are down to the work of Dawkins and those he inspires.

In the meantime, evolutionary biology doesn't exactly fall in line with what religious scriptures dictate, so naturally he came under fire from an early stage from those who think scriptures are "true." (as opposed to representing the science of the day, which they were really doing, and are useful historical documents for all that. The Principia is still a good historical document despite some of the fundamental basis not holding up to more recent findings.)

So just because people who claim to be learned told him he was wrong, he quite rightly questioned their evidence base. the knives have been out since, and all because he regularly proves the Emperor has no clothes.

Strange that the casual dismissing of him came from somebody with Rev in his title eh? If a family member needed treatment and genetic breakthroughs were to provide that treatment.. well let's put it this way, beats the hell out of praying for them!

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 06:20 PM

"I gotta ask this... does anyone here actually feel music pulsing in them... not to do with how much bass or how high the volume..."


I don't think so Tam. But I'm very easily frustrated by music. I'll never be a 'music conosur', I can't treat music like literature - it's too body-based and immediate.

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 06:35 PM

Nietsche never 'said' or 'argued' that God was dead. he put the words into the mouth of a raving lunatic in a fable. The madman shouts 'God is dead', then points his finger at the crowd and accusus them thus....' and you have killed him!' he was pointing out that our old certainties no longer held, and yet we had not bothered to work out an alternative basis for our values. Hence his final, unfinished project... the re-evaluation of all values.

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: mousethief
Date: 26 Jul 10 - 02:34 AM

Willie, if all Dawkins did was evolutionary biology, nobody would take issue with him because nobody in the anti-evolution group would have heard about him. When he went from being a top-rate biologist to being a ten-cent philosopher, then people started to notice him. He now goes out of the way to step on religious toes, so he can't exactly whine about unfair treatment when people who don't like their toes stepped on say so.

He has taken the "god" of a small number of shrill fundamentalists and determined that that is the Christian god, and then any Christian who believes differently, he attacks as not being really Christian. He has about as much understanding of theology as I have of the human genome, and is proud of his ignorance of the thing he spends so many words talking about! He's a character study in bad philosophy of religion, and in how to be a bully. But he gets away with it because he was a great biologist, as if that means everything he says on any other subject should be assumed to be at the same level. (And of course he is supported by fawning atheists who agree with his conclusions and lack the ability to logically evaluate his arguments.)

He's the Joe McCarthy of atheism and it's time somebody on that side of the tracks stood up and said, "Have you no shame?"

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 26 Jul 10 - 03:15 AM

John Lee Hooker's Black Man Blues kept taunting me last night. Every time I woke, there it was pulsing my brain. Not pulsing in my brain... actually pulsing it.

A few days ago a friend on Facebook commented on my wall
"and tomorrow perhaps you'll wake up in the mornin wid dem blues all roun' your mind."

Well yeah!

I have to agree with Mousethief on the Dawkins thing. I am a recovering baptist with atheist leanings.   I think it is bad form to cram my way of thinking down anyone else's throat. Dawkins' tactics smack of same used by fundamental christians. Also his tactics make atheism look like a belief system rather than an empirically based conclusion. He just stirs it, he is a self publicist. Got to sell the books and interviews and television shows, don't you know.

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 26 Jul 10 - 03:30 AM

BTW.... I have no compunction about singing gospel songs, hymns and spirituals. Don't have to be a believer to get into the music itself. Even how the message works with the melody.

If I felt that you have to be a believer in order to perform it, I would never sing anything. I am middle class middle aged, American, white woman, but I love to sing blues and traditional English. I think I can do justice to both regardless of the demographic labels attached to me.

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 26 Jul 10 - 04:29 AM

I don't wish to get into a protracted defending of Dawkins, but looks like I am about to...

His work on genetics and his disdain for religions are two sides of the same coin. He sees the value of scientific discovery in solving some of the issues we face and is held back by the influence of superstition.

it is not a case of pointing out fundamentalists and tarring every church goer with the same brush, it is deeper than that. Every time ethic approval for research is put forward, there is a legitimate (in legal terms) viewpoint allowed based on scripture. One area where Dawkins and I would strongly agree is that you can have a moral argument without reverting to interpreting teachings that by their very essence fly in the face of scientific discovery. I don't think it is asking too much for a scientist to question the right of somebody who has an imaginary friend commenting by legal right on the rights and wrongs of advancement of science.

I see his frustration, and I reckon in the same public position, I too would be writing thought provoking books.

Incidentally, my better half's family are rather religious and her brother and wife have just had a baby. I bought him a cuddly dinosaur. I heard this morning that they have put it in a cupboard because dinosaurs would corrupt him.

Says it all really.....

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 26 Jul 10 - 04:36 AM

...and I have to say I object to the "imaginary friend" bullshit. It's a classic example of argumentum ad absurdum - redefining another's point of view to the point where it becomes absurd, and then arguing against the self-created absurdity.
It's a very common practice here at Mudcat, especially when it comes to discussing the religious beliefs of others. It's trivializing what others hold as sacred.

And I admit that the Catholic Church itself has a long history of practicing argumentum ad absurdum.

But whatever the case, argumentum ad absurdum is unfair and bigoted, no matter who practices it, even if it's the recently-canonized Mr. Dawkins.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 26 Jul 10 - 07:26 AM

Joe - I know you've used your divine & infallible powers to junk this thread into BS because it offends your righteous sensibilities, but if you do insist on posting here at least try and keep it relevant to the issue - which is my proposal that MUSIC is greater than RELIGION can ever be.

I would argue whilst both MUSIC and RELIGION are entirely HUMAN, MUSIC is more significant because:

1) MUSIC was around before RELIGION and outlives all religious association. Thus ATHIESTS might sing the VIVALDI GLORIA as an act of joyful MUSIC MAKING regardless of the WORDS, which, being in Latin, don't mean a fat lot anyway and any meaning they do have is completely lost in translation.

2) RELIGION amounts to the acculated FOLKLORIC ignorance of a humanity all-too prone to the HEEBIE-JEEBIES, whereas MUSIC indicates a tendancy towards ENLIGHTENMENT in the light of the FALSIFIABLE. Thus, whilst prone to such distractions, MUSIC serves to indicate the COMMON CAUSE which is the joy of simply being alive without troubling over where we end up when we die.

3) MUSICAL truths are self-evident and operate to the greater good; RELIGIOUS truths are so much inhumane HORSESHIT operating to mislead and misinform. RELIGION is designed to exploit and subjugate; to instill fear in our hearts and repress us into servility thereafter. The DIES IRAE is a classic example of this HORSESHIT, but which of us might remain unmoved by, say, Mozart's setting? Likewise Pucell's setting of Verse 1 of Psalm 102 in Common Prayer, in English. Me, I love it all but only in terms of HUMAN RICHNESS. Likewise the ALLEGRI MISERE which also loses much in translation, but the MUSIC remains TRANSCENDANT.

But that's enough about music; we are below the line after all. But just as I certainly ain't heard no HORSE sing a SONG, I ain't heard one preach no SERMON either, which brings me to Walt Whitman, famously misquoted by Christopher Lee in the Wicker Man:

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and
self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of
owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of
years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

Amen to that!

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 26 Jul 10 - 12:08 PM

'Truth is a pathless land' . Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, nor through any philosophical knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation, and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection. Man has built in himself images as a sense of security - religious, political, personal. These manifest as symbols, ideas, beliefs. The burden of these dominates man's thinking, relationships and his daily life. These are the causes of our problems for they divide man from man in every relationship."
                                 Jiddu Krishnamurti

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Jul 10 - 02:41 PM

Quite amazing how much gibberish is on this thread.

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: mousethief
Date: 26 Jul 10 - 02:50 PM

Suibhne Astray, can you TRY not to SHOUT so MUCH when you POST here? Jeez.

Willie, the existence of people who find dinosaurs threatening doesn't justify what Dawkins does. He's either a liar or a wretched philosopher. He knows fuck-all about theology, and is proud of the fact and refuses to learn more, and yet insists on writing about it like he was a pro. If I knew as little about paleontology as he knows about religion, but wrote books about it, I'd be laughed out of town. But people lap him up because they agree with his conclusions and therefore don't critique his arguments. In short they're lazy, sloppy thinkers who are unthinkingly accepting his authority (sound familiar?).

Joe, argumentum ad absurdam doesn't mean what you think it means. What you are describing is the straw man fallacy. Argumentum ad absurdam is a valid technique in mathematical logic where you assume (for sake of argument) the opposite of what you're trying to prove, and show that it leads to contradiction, which therefore proves the assumption false, and thus what you wanted to prove, true. Sort of a "let's see what happens if we do it your way" kind of argument.

Subject: RE: Does Music Deny Religion to Children?
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jul 10 - 03:04 PM

OF which your snide remark may be shief, Richard.

The problem that the whole Dawkins school is up against is a serious problem which has roiled the history of our kind. Evidentiary reasoning and experiential reasoning are often very much at odds with each other, and either one can lead to assertions about the nature of reality.

Dawkins' camp rightly asserts that it is improper (to say the least) to impose experiential conclusions (such as feeling the finger of God or getting guidance from angelic forms) on other people when those conclusions are not supported by evidence of the shareable sort.

Music is a kind of bridge, because it is made from common forms (frets, intervals, frequencies, defined notes) but it reaches deep into the experiential world and touches individuals in different ways.

IMHO it is foolish to try and impose the rules of one onto the playing field of the other.

Unlike the evidentiary universe, experience is extremely plastic and subject to suggestion, and is therefore a very individual thing. One man's night-light is another man's UFO or ghastly specter. THis is a space within which all the poeple fool themselves all the time, blending the threads of "actual" event with the overlays of personal invention, dramatization, preference or simply creative authorship. It is a highly subjective pot-au-feu which gets easily stirred by music, as well as by poetry and art and flirting and a number of other delightful frequencies. Oh, not to mention beer.

A