Is life more satisfying as an atheist or religionist?

[Istvan]

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.

It doesn't seem that weird to me. Most times we're appreciating aspects of the art that don't involve religion. We can acknowledge the religious context of Chartres Cathedral or Josquin's settings of the Mass, but what we're appreciating is almost wholly aesthetic. Even when we're affected by religious artwork on an emotional or "spiritual" level, it's not usually because of religious devotion. I saw Michelangelo's Pietà in Rome this summer and was stunned by its depiction of the human condition: the real suffering of real people. The Big G, as usual, was neither here nor there.

[FrustratedFool]

If we follow Bel's line, could we argue that being religious for a large part of one's life and then being atheist for a large portion, would grant one the best possible appreciation of art?

Interesting. Lol

[Fake Messiah]

Not to mention that people still enjoy the religious art from ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Persia, Incas, etc. The only ones who are unable to enjoy them and destroy them are Christians and Muslims.

[Ravenshire]

I don't think my life is more or less fulfilling as an atheist. Different fulfillments, perhaps, but that doesn't imply they're 'more' fulfilling.

[Belacqua]

1a) Then we agree that I am right to say that it is false to believe that the best cultural works are religious.

So I guess the questions is: Do I agree with the proposition "The best cultural works are religious." 

I'll go back to what I typed at the beginning: "Like it or not, the best of the arts in Europe was Christian for a very long time." 

So whether that coincides with the much more general term "the best cultural works" I'm not sure. It would be difficult to count up the number of cultural works produced in Europe, it would be difficult to specify which ones are in the category "best." And, as I said earlier, there are many works which, while not explicitly religious, would not exist without the religious roots and background in which they were produced -- so which side would get to claim those works I'm not sure. 

So for example, when Pope or Milton refer to angels, they do so while embedded in a very old cultural tradition, and their readers know what sort of thing they are referring to. But Rilke also gives some importance to angels in his work, without having that cultural framework to rely on. So do his angels count as religious work? Do we have to know what precisely his beliefs were on the day he wrote those poems? The line between religious and secular seems fuzzy to me. Likewise, when he writes about how the experience of beauty inspires an epiphany about the way in which one must live one's life, this is a late example of an old tendency, going all the way back to Plato's description of the Form of Beauty being an eternal and divine inspiration, which filtered through Christianity for centuries. So which list Rilke goes on to might not be clear cut. 

And as I mentioned, in Japanese literature, a traditional poem about autumn leaves, while making no explicit reference to Buddhism, is nonetheless so deeply rooted in Buddhist thought that it would be oversimplifying to say that it is simply "secular." 

1b)  I'm not sure I'd even go so far as to say the majority of great works are religious.  I appreciate that many are, because of history, but the majority?  I'm not convinced.  The amount of art, film, music, literature produced the recent past is enormous.  

Again, I typed earlier: "I'd say this is true of cultural products [which are atheist] from our own time. Recent novels, movies, etc., are unlikely to be religious unless they're specifically aimed at that market. 

But most of the painting, sculpture, literature, architecture made for beauty, and music in European history was religious. There were of course exceptions -- for example, romance novels all through the Middle Ages, or palace architecture. But little of this is of a quality that compares to the religious. And much of it is so closely adjacent to religious themes that it wouldn't exist without the religious culture of which it was a part. So the morality expressed in secular romance novels, or the gothic style used in palaces, are simply secular expressions of the religion of the time. 

Shall we play the game?  I'll start a thread where we simply name great cultural works in turn.  You are restricted to only explicitly religious works, like the Sistine Chapel ceiling, the King James Bible, and Bach's StMatthew Passion, and I am restricted to everything but such, like The Raft of the Medusa, Hamlet, and Mozart's The Magic Flute etc.  I think most people will greatly prefer to live the rest of their lives with only the contents of my list, but I may be surprised.

I'm not going to play, though I see your point. 

I do think that our contemporaries would tend to prefer non-religious works, because they tend to be less interested in religion. Even those who call themselves Christian will find Dante difficult. His work requires effort. But this says more about modern people's taste than about greatness in cultural works. Popularity is not in itself a sign of greatness. 

Granted, "greatness" is not an objective quantifiable category. I do my best to avoid it when teaching, in favor of more specific adjectives. 

[Belacqua]

If we follow Bel's line, could we argue that being religious for a large part of one's life and then being atheist for a large portion, would grant one the best possible appreciation of art?

Interesting.  Lol

It might. Though sad to say simply being religious doesn't mean that a person has access to the kind of Christian thought that Dante requires of us. Or Michelangelo, or Bach. 

I would say that the deeper our understanding and appreciation for Christian thought is, the more deeply we are able to see into Christian art. This wouldn't necessarily require that a person be a believer himself. Though it would require that one not recoil in disgust from anything non-atheist.

[Ahriman]

If we follow Bel's line, could we argue that being religious for a large part of one's life and then being atheist for a large portion, would grant one the best possible appreciation of art?

Interesting.  Lol

It might. Though sad to say simply being religious doesn't mean that a person has access to the kind of Christian thought that Dante requires of us. Or Michelangelo, or Bach. 

I would say that the deeper our understanding and appreciation for Christian thought is, the more deeply we are able to see into Christian art. This wouldn't necessarily require that a person be a believer himself. Though it would require that one not recoil in disgust from anything non-atheist.

Yeah, I don't even understand that mentality, it's like, you wouldn't even be here if religion wasn't a thing, why do you hate it so much? I mean really, why do you?

[Belacqua]

It doesn't seem that weird to me. Most times we're appreciating aspects of the art that don't involve religion. We can acknowledge the religious context of Chartres Cathedral or Josquin's settings of the Mass, but what we're appreciating is almost wholly aesthetic. Even when we're affected by religious artwork on an emotional or "spiritual" level, it's not usually because of religious devotion. I saw Michelangelo's Pietà in Rome this summer and was stunned by its depiction of the human condition: the real suffering of real people. The Big G, as usual, was neither here nor there.

I certainly agree that non-religious people can get a lot from the aesthetic aspects of art, music, etc. And I think that everyone is entitled to appreciate it in his own way, to the extent that he can. I would never say that an atheist is listening to Bach wrongly. 

That said, there is more to it than simple line and color. Your own example is a good one -- what moved you about the Michelangelo was not simply its form and color, or the skill of its craftsmanship, but the emotional quality of the human condition. This shows that you are way past what Duchamp called "retinal art," or what Blake called "the vegetable eye." The physical object points you to a far more than physical appreciation. 

(And I would expect no less from someone who had a Giacometti as his avatar. That's a high-quality thing.) 

I would say that there are additional layers or references that would be available from the Pietà than the human condition you mention. The guy who ordered it, the guy who made it, and the people who keep it, see it as pointing to a more transcendent reality than the suffering of individuals. For them, the suffering of that individual, who is in a way all of us, is a world-historical event that will have a significant effect on the outcome of all our suffering in the long run. It is, of course, about how people suffer. But it plugs into a much larger system as well. 

Since I have never been Christian, this more religious layer didn't come naturally to me. I do think, though, that through imaginative sympathy we can feel something of what it's like. Think of Coleridge's "willing suspension of disbelief," or Keats' "negative capability." These are tools for our imagination, through which we gain access to messages which, in our daily rational life, we don't believe. Some people will recoil from these fictional layers, but I think they are significantly enriching, no matter what metaphysical beliefs one has. So the closer we can get to the meaning which the Pietà had for Michelangelo and his circle, the more we are getting to its richest aura. 

And as an aside, I've learned not to say that something is "just aesthetic." The aesthetic aspect of things is a way of teaching important messages also. The German Idealists were adamant about this, though I first heard of it from the writings of Kobo Daishi, the monk who introduced esoteric Buddhism into Japan. He said that the theology of such religion is best understood through symbolic spiritual art. And I believe him.

[Belacqua]

Yeah, I don't even understand that mentality, it's like, you wouldn't even be here if religion wasn't a thing, why do you hate it so much? I mean really, why do you?

Yep, the amount of hate we see is unfortunate. I can certainly understand not wanting to be religious, but if people avoid the religious art of the past they're only depriving themselves.

[Ahriman]

Yeah, I don't even understand that mentality, it's like, you wouldn't even be here if religion wasn't a thing, why do you hate it so much? I mean really, why do you?

Yep, the amount of hate we see is unfortunate. I can certainly understand not wanting to be religious, but if people avoid the religious art of the past they're only depriving themselves.

They're depriving everyone around them as well. Someone's lack of appreciation for something objectively good will spread to others.