Musings on music and atheism
Feb. 3rd, 2008 04:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylHere's a question: is it hypocritical for an atheist to listen to religious music? For example, Richard Dawkins selected Mache dich, mein Herze, rein on Desert Island Discs, while Martin Rowson picked Kommt, ihr Töchter, helft mir Klagen on Private Passions; both are atheists, yet both chose music from JS Bach's St Matthew Passion. Is this coherent?
The answer, it seems to me, is quite clearly yes.
One of the characteristic features of art is that it helps us to fully explore the human condition. To understand the desires and passions of others; to know which emotions motivate and drive them to become the people that they are; to empathise with them in moments of grief or to rejoice with them in moments of happiness. In short, art draws us out from ourselves, makes identify with the ideas of the artist and to grants us an improved understanding of humanity as whole.
When an atheist listens to the Matthew Passion, they gain access to the emotions that motivated the Bach and, through and beyond that, they are able to identify with the feelings — the passions — of the participants in the crucifixion of Christ. It is possible to listen to Mache dich and feel the sorrow Joseph of Arimathea when he offers to bury Christ — his Christ — with his own hands, despite the fact that the listener might not believe in any of the religion ideas being expressed. For, in the same way that it is possible feel Romeo's ardour without ourselves being in love Juliet, it is possible to understand the sentiments expressed by Joseph without requiring the acceptance of the surrounding system of beliefs — we believe in the emotions because they accord with our own emotions, not necessarily because the causes of the emotions are identical.
Perhaps, then, the atheist may actually get more from the experience of listening to religious music than the believer. For the believer already believes and while the colour of those beliefs may be altered by degrees by a work of art, the shape of their essential beliefs remains relatively constant.
For the atheist, the change in awareness is more substantial. The religious sentiments of the composer, from the mysticism of Messiaen to the transcendence of Tallis, suddenly become accessible making it possible to understand — to empathise, rather than to directly experience — what it means for a person to believe. It may be that the non-believer achieves their understanding in a different way — for example, Dawkins, writing on the splendours of nature, is every bit as rapturous as a religious mystic — but the end result of the process is a greater understanding of the nature of belief.
So, in essence, my argument is that music gives an insight into the human condition and that religious music gives an insight into the nature of belief in God. By listening to religious music, an atheist is able to identify the religious sentiments in the music with aspects of their own life and leads to a better understanding of the part religion plays in the human condition. Thus, it is not only coherent for an atheist to listen to religious music but it is, in fact, positively desirable!
The answer, it seems to me, is quite clearly yes.
One of the characteristic features of art is that it helps us to fully explore the human condition. To understand the desires and passions of others; to know which emotions motivate and drive them to become the people that they are; to empathise with them in moments of grief or to rejoice with them in moments of happiness. In short, art draws us out from ourselves, makes identify with the ideas of the artist and to grants us an improved understanding of humanity as whole.
When an atheist listens to the Matthew Passion, they gain access to the emotions that motivated the Bach and, through and beyond that, they are able to identify with the feelings — the passions — of the participants in the crucifixion of Christ. It is possible to listen to Mache dich and feel the sorrow Joseph of Arimathea when he offers to bury Christ — his Christ — with his own hands, despite the fact that the listener might not believe in any of the religion ideas being expressed. For, in the same way that it is possible feel Romeo's ardour without ourselves being in love Juliet, it is possible to understand the sentiments expressed by Joseph without requiring the acceptance of the surrounding system of beliefs — we believe in the emotions because they accord with our own emotions, not necessarily because the causes of the emotions are identical.
Perhaps, then, the atheist may actually get more from the experience of listening to religious music than the believer. For the believer already believes and while the colour of those beliefs may be altered by degrees by a work of art, the shape of their essential beliefs remains relatively constant.
For the atheist, the change in awareness is more substantial. The religious sentiments of the composer, from the mysticism of Messiaen to the transcendence of Tallis, suddenly become accessible making it possible to understand — to empathise, rather than to directly experience — what it means for a person to believe. It may be that the non-believer achieves their understanding in a different way — for example, Dawkins, writing on the splendours of nature, is every bit as rapturous as a religious mystic — but the end result of the process is a greater understanding of the nature of belief.
So, in essence, my argument is that music gives an insight into the human condition and that religious music gives an insight into the nature of belief in God. By listening to religious music, an atheist is able to identify the religious sentiments in the music with aspects of their own life and leads to a better understanding of the part religion plays in the human condition. Thus, it is not only coherent for an atheist to listen to religious music but it is, in fact, positively desirable!
