(August 5, 2015 at 4:12 pm)drfuzzy Wrote: I was raised Protestant Pentecostal. Religion only brought me horror, feelings of inadequacy when my fervent prayers never had a hint of an answer (because I wasn't good enough, you know), guilt, boredom in long services, memorizing chapter upon chapter of bible verses, etc. After I became an adult, religion was responsible for the loss of my parents and many of my friends. (Coming out as an atheist is worse for some people than coming out as gay . . . I know, I've done both.) So hell no. Unless you count some pretty music, not one minute of happiness.
One can enjoy the music without being religious. I even attended a church service once while being an atheist because I happened to know the paid guest singer and I knew the music would be good that day. As it happens, the sermon was not as bad as most I have heard, though it was not worth hearing. (To be fair, it was a church denomination that was different from the one I grew up with, so maybe their sermons are generally not as bad as most of them that I have heard.)
Also, I very much enjoy many pieces of religious music. I think Bach's Mass in B minor is a masterpiece. (I like a version conducted by Herreweghe, though from reading reviews, his newer recording might be even better than the one I have.) I did not hear it until after I was an atheist. Bach's secular music is often also sublime (like the Brandenburgs, which I recommend in this version or the same thing in other packaging), so it is not because it is religious that some of it is sublime.
One can also admire some religious architecture. Buildings that were made instead of helping poor people with useful things. But, some of the buildings are quite impressive.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
