(November 9, 2023 at 8:10 am)FrustratedFool Wrote: 1) So you would argue that the best cultural works are religious?
No, as I said, I would argue that in the history we have, the majority of great works are religious.
If you want to say that the "best" are secular, then I guess that's a matter of taste. If you really want to make a list of painters that are greater than Giotto, Duccio, Cimabue, Masaccio, Masolino, Fra Angelico, Botticelli, Raphael, Michelangelo, van Eyck, Bosch, Breughel, Rembrandt, Rubens, the Pre-Raphaelites, Blake, and many etc., you might have a hard time selling it to historians.
Quote: We have no idea what these same geniuses would have done in a parallel secular world. They could have produce greater works, or nothing. We can say nothing other than the goods they produced were done within an atmosphere saturated by religion and that the works were good. But they were not religious texts. and that's the point.
Well sure. If we conjure up alternate timelines, then who knows.
I've seen people argue on this forum (or maybe one like it) that they enjoy religious art works from past by ignoring the meanings and enjoying the color and line. But to me, this is like listening to a poetry reading in a language you don't understand. And I think that works made by religious believers, in religious cultures, that are not explicitly on religious themes, nonetheless require us to have sympathy with their views of the world. A painting of autumn grass by an anonymous Japanese craftsman, for example, though it doesn't explicitly refer to a Buddhist sutra, is nonetheless a painting expressing a Buddhist worldview.
As for Scorcese, I know nothing about his movies. But one of his most recent ones was on an explicitly Christian theme, based on a novel by a Japanese Christian writer. So he may be thinking more about religion than it first appears.
