[Serious] The Humanities

[Abaddon_ire]

OK then.

There's an idea that's revived every now and then. It says that as religion loses its influence in society, the arts and humanities are necessary to pick up the slack. I've seen this attributed to Matthew Arnold, though others seem to come up with it too. 

Unevidenced claim.

Like it or not, in European history it was largely through the framework of religion that people considered questions of value, sympathy, and the good life.

Demonstrably false. Morals and ethics existed long before you beloved jebus.

Any standard other than monetary was usually given a Christian setting, and any push-back against the selfishness of the rich was usually framed in Christian terms.

False. You are ignoring ALL human history. Next you will be telling us about what your magic book says.

This doesn't mean it was consistent at all -- Christianity has been used to justify the rich as well as the poor. But Christianity supplied the vocabulary and the tools to consider these issues. 

False. Morals and ethics were abundant before your magic book turned up.

I think there is reason to worry that in the absence of religious values, nearly the only other option we are given is the value of the marketplace. 

I think there is reason to worry that religious values get any purchase on reality. Do you really want to stone people to death on a whim? Because that is a religious commandment.

So Arnold and others said that if we're going to toss out the church, and we don't want to just accept the rule of capital, the humanities are going to have to step in. 

Who cares what some apologist might have said? Like all others, he/she simply made it all up out of whole cloth.

The trouble seems to be that the humanities may not have done the job. People haven't turned from the Bible to Proust and Bach.

Nope.You seem fixated upon the notion that there must be some replacement belief to supplant your god. #Or stand as a proxy. It simply is not so just because you claim it.

They have accepted instead the values of the market and the status quo, which are often propagandized in corporate "cultural" products like hit movies and best selling books. 

How amusing. You seem to think you can read everyone else's minds infallibly. Guess again.

Atheist discussions tend to set up religion and science as a dichotomy, yet science can't do what great literature does. 

False. Have you evidence for your peculiar flavour of god? Evidence is all that matters and you have none.

Here is an article about the subject. The author uses the term "cultural secularization" to talk about how the humanities have been pushed to the sidelines, just as in some circles religion has:

https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/2...OEFmX0hiRQ

and a passage from the article:

Wow. Bias much?

Give it up. Everyone knows you have the hots for an imaginary deity of your choice.