Hymns/Religious Music You Like

[The Dawktor]

I've always enjoyed Jerusalem!

[Animavore]

I don't get how any atheist could like hymns.

To me its no different to liking mass.

[The Dawktor]

I don't get how any atheist could like hymns.

To me its no different to liking mass.

It's the dark satanic mills reference!

[Beelzebub2]

The only type of religious music I really like are requiems, especially Mozart's. Everything else is too sugary.



[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQBmgDLw ... re=related[/youtube]

[lordpasternack]

I don't get how any atheist could like hymns.

To me its no different to liking mass.

I could enjoy songs about the Greek gods, or any other myth or legend, if it was good music. Just as I enjoy the art on the Sistine Chapel walls and ceiling too. And I enjoy works of fiction even though I don't for a moment hold any of it to be true...

Why should lack of belief in a deity exempt one from enjoying the aesthetic output from those who do believe, or are pretending to believe?

[Shaker]

I don't get how any atheist could like hymns.

It's easy. Either you like the tune, or you don't. Tunes are tunes: they either satisfy your musical taste as being worthwhile, or not. The fact that they have a religious basis is irrelevant.

To me its no different to liking mass.

I wouldn't know - I've never been to one. Musical settings of the same, however - I've heard dozens and dozens and dozens.

Ruling out something that you would otherwise enjoy because it has religious connotations strikes me as as setting yourself up for a terribly impoverished existence. You've got the summits of Western art and culture - Greek myth and legend and everything they've ever featured in; the Canterbury Tales; Titian's Assumption; Milton; Blake; Bach; Mozart et. al - knocked out of the park at a stroke.

[electricwhiteboy]

There are a few artists I don't mind when they get religious, Tom Waits is a good example of this.



"There’s no eye for an eye, there’s no tooth for a tooth
I saw Judas Iscariot carrying John Wilkes Booth
Down there by the train
Down there where the train goes slow"

[Animavore]

I don't get how any atheist could like hymns.

It's easy. Either you like the tune, or you don't. Tunes are tunes: they either satisfy your musical taste as being worthwhile, or not. The fact that they have a religious basis is irrelevant.

To me its no different to liking mass.

I wouldn't know - I've never been to one. Musical settings of the same, however - I've heard dozens and dozens and dozens.

Ruling out something that you would otherwise enjoy because it has religious connotations strikes me as as setting yourself up for a terribly impoverished existence. You've got the summits of Western art and culture - Greek myth and legend and everything they've ever featured in; the Canterbury Tales; Titian's Assumption; Milton; Blake; Bach; Mozart et. al - knocked out of the park at a stroke.

Well to be honest I never said I don't listen to/watch/read stuff that didn't have religious connotations. If that were the case I couldn't enjoy almost anything. I said hymns in particular because the lyrics are directly related to the appraisal of God and Jesus and I just can't relate to that.
I can listen to Mozart or Bach without having to listen to the hymns. I can read The Cantebury Tales and marvel over how much English has changed. I can read The Bible, The Koran and The Tao Te Ching and get a window into ancient thought.
One thing I can not do is listen to a bunch of people sing in mindless wailings akin to the '4 minutes of hate' from 1984 all to massage the ego of an imaginary being. This music is clearly a form of brainwashing. Its rigid, unflexible and terribly annoying.

[ficklefiend]

I'd say anything that me LP, and Thinking Aloud can remember the words/tune (both together is optional). That's entertainment!

[lordpasternack]

Well, I sure feel like Ted Haggard right now - blaring happy-clapper hymns and surfing the web for sexy gay guys...

[lordpasternack]

I said hymns in particular because the lyrics are directly related to the appraisal of God and Jesus and I just can't relate to that... One thing I can not do is listen to a bunch of people sing in mindless wailings akin to the '4 minutes of hate' from 1984 all to massage the ego of an imaginary being. This music is clearly a form of brainwashing. Its rigid, unflexible and terribly annoying.

I treat it almost as I treat music in other languages that I don't understand. Music is emotional. I would suspect it probably existed before the development of language, and certainly, as babas, we all understand and respond at a fundamental level to music before we do to language. I can enjoy the aesthetic of the music, the emotion poured into it, by someone who really means what they're saying - without buying into their worldview.

Par exemple - I haven't the first clue what language this song is in, or what the fuck it's about (it could be about mowing the lawn, or sucking cock, for all I know) - but it's in my YouTube favourites:

[Animavore]

I said hymns in particular because the lyrics are directly related to the appraisal of God and Jesus and I just can't relate to that... One thing I can not do is listen to a bunch of people sing in mindless wailings akin to the '4 minutes of hate' from 1984 all to massage the ego of an imaginary being. This music is clearly a form of brainwashing. Its rigid, unflexible and terribly annoying.

I treat it almost as I treat music in other languages that I don't understand. Music is emotional. I would suspect it probably existed before the development of language, and certainly, as babas, we all understand and respond at a fundamental level to music before we do to language. I can enjoy the aesthetic of the music, the emotion poured into it, by someone who really means what they're saying - without buying into their worldview.

Par exemple - I haven't the first clue what language this song is in, or what the fuck it's about (it could be about mowing the lawn, or sucking cock, for all I know) - but it's in my YouTube favourites:

Well I like forgeign songs and world music but, I really don't think hymns are emotional, well... ok, maybe the ones black people sing but, certainly not those stiff white ones.

[Elessarina]

I love the Christmas carol "Oh Come all ye Faithful", I also love "Lord of the dance" as a song.

I love tonnes and tonnes of classical music ..

[lordpasternack]

Shine Jesus Shine



Another god-rock number. Casting Crowns - If We Are The Body

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I really love this guy's voice - he is a sufi moslem qawwali singer called Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn and his music is hypnotic and transcendant. It helps that he sings in foreign though - so I can just ignore the woo content.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LftlV9u ... re=related[/youtube]

Also, just listen to the delicate beauty of Arvo Pärt's Magnificat.



Or the mathematical precision of Bach's "Nun danket alle Gott"



The feelings of wonder and epiphany that religious music tries to convey (and rarely achieves) are universal and so can be enjoyed both with our without the god's bollocks dangling off of them! For me, the mere fact that the followers of ALL religions are capable of such transcendence in their music is a reminder of the universality of the feelings that are dubbed 'spiritual' and proof positive of the redundancy of any single faith's claim to singular correctness.