>
>
> i'm no expert on science and will take it on faith that dawkins is one
> of the great biological scientific minds in the world. but, outside
> science, this guy says some really dumb things. if chomsky should
> stick to linguistics, dawkins should stick to science. at any rate,
> please stay away from arts and culture.
>
> in Foreign Policy, the shupid fool shares one of his epiphanies with
> us. he says 'if bach had been brought up in an atheistic culture, he
> might have produced oratorios just as sublime, but inspired by the
> universe by the galaxy, by plate tectonics.'
> what a dumbass. for starters, bach WAS inspired by the stuff dawkins
> mentions--okay, not plate tectonics since that theory came much later.
> at any rate, bach's religiosity was inseparable from his sense of
> wonderment of nature, moon, stars, and such stuff. he gazed at sky
> filled with countless stars. baroque and classical composers were
> closer to the natural state and rhythms of the universe. religious or
> not, they were in wonderment of the beauty of the world all around
> them.
>
> but more importantly, dawkin's epiphany shows that he's such a radical
> self-centered and self-righteous shitter that he can't give religion
> ANY credit for anything. so, why was bach a great composer? religion
> or spirituality had NOTHING to do with it; under different
> circumstances, bach would have created music just as profound, says
> doc dawkins. now, i wouldn't argue that religion is necessarily good
> for art; there are too many cases of religious dogmatism getting in
> the way of or stifling creativity--due to external censorship or
> internal inhibition. the creative explosion of modernism had much to
> do with rejecting traditional notions of art--though culture had
> already been remarkably secularized even before the modernist age; it
> could just as well be argued that modernism--and romanticism before
> it--were rejections of rationalism of the sort dawkins champions
> much. the romantics felt that rationalism limited imagination, and
> moderns thought rationalism was afraid to look honestly into the dark,
> twisted labyrinth of the human soul. indeed, even much of the
> greatest works of secular artists have little to do with rationalism.
> after all, sublimnity is beyond rationality. if it can be dissected
> by the rational mind, it cannot sublime. the sublime makes perfect
> sense within a part of us that's neither purely emotional nor purely
> rational. it's both and neither at the same time. it makes us say
> 'yes, yes', but we are not sure why. something in us--the conscious
> and subconscious mind, the intellect and emotions, etc--makes us
> experience something powerful that is, at once, contradictory and
> harmonious. there is no way to understand this reaction by scientific
> understanding. consider a beautiful sunset over a lake. one can
> describe the water as H2O, the nature of ripples, how rays are
> refracted, and so on. all such would be interesting and worth probing.
> but, it still doesn't explain why the image has such power over us. of
> course, we can try to understand the workings of the human mind and
> how the sense of 'sublimnity' is produced as a biochemical reaction.
> that too would be a fascinating and a worthy endeavor, but it still
> doesn't do justice to the sublime moment. it's something one feels
> than understands.
> god is crucial in the case of bach because his wonderment at nature
> and stars was linked to the idea of spiritual wholeness. it's the
> fusion of the spiritual and scientific--and between the metaphysical
> and mathematic--that makes bach's music sublime.
> of course, bach was born with natural talent. had he grown up in
> different circumstances, he might have produced a different kind of
> great music. had he grown up in the 60s, he might have started a rock
> band. had he been a muslim, he may have come up with great islamic
> music. and so on. but, the fact is he grew up in a world which was
> both spiritual and scientific. the world he knew respected the
> humanities, sciences, and mathematics. it was also very devout and
> religious. much of bach's music--even music strictly composed as
> church music--expresses the fusion of the sacred and secular--and
> spiritual and sensual. bach was never either/or. he was both. that
> made him sublime.
>
> can there be sublime art made by an atheist? yes, because atheism
> doesn't negate imagination, creativity, emotional depth, and so on.
> and, one doesn't have to literally believe in god or in the sacredness
> of things to tap into idea or sense of the sacred. even non-believers
> can feel the grace of spiritual mystery or some such. carl sagan was
> an atheist but his series COSMOS was filled with a sense of higher
> mystery, of the sacred specialness of all things. there was the idea
> of wanting to know more because of the awesome mystery of the cosmos
> that becomes just a bit clearer from our observations of the universe
> on both the macro and micro scale.
> so, one can argue that an atheist bach in the modern era could still
> have composed beautiful, sublime music. true enough. but, that
> fascination with mystery and beauty would still not be rational. even
> without god, it is spiritual, metaphysical, and otherworldy--or beyond-
> material-worldly. even so, bach of the modern atheist age would have
> produced very different kinds of music--rather than the same kind of
> music except on different themes-- as one of the main themes of
> modernity is loss of faith and the embrace of the neurotic and even
> pathological. the beauty of bach's music derives from its harmony
> based on faith in god's universe. and, this faith is goes beyond
> respect or awe at god-as-engineer but god-as-spiritual-and-moral-guide
> for all of us. bach didn't see god as merely construction worker or
> even master builder. he saw god as an artist and moralist. god didn't
> just create laws of phyics that govern the universe but filled the
> universe with love which bach expressed thru his music.
> now, suppose bach had been born in the modern world without faith. he
> might have still been a great musical composer but also a very
> different kind of composer. his music might have been more alienated,
> avant-garde, prickly, disturbing, or some such. now, such kind of
> music can be just as great as what the real bach gave us. perhaps,
> bach might have been more like philip glass, john adams, or pierre
> boulez. now, i'm not knocking the modern composers; all i'm saying is
> different values, ideas, and times produce different kinds of art. so,
> what the real bach produced in his lifetime is inextricably linked to
> what he believed during his lifetime. had he grown up in modern
> secular times, he might still have been a great artist but a very
> different kind of artist. he would not have created the same or
> similar kind of music inspired by or based on the dynamics of
> different stuff. that's like saying had beethoven been born today, he
> would have produced the same kind of music except for the MTV
> audience.
>
> now, suppose scientists argue that there's no such thing called
> 'love'. suppose they say it is a social construct or myth created by
> humans to explain--rather foolishly--a set of biochemical processes
> that make us feel certain emotions. so, all romantic notions of love
> are foolish, misguided, false, ignorant, and even dangerous. so, we
> must understand the true nature of our emotions and not give into
> concepts such as love which suggest that there is something romantic
> or spiritual about our capacity to feel this emotion. 'love' is just
> a smoke screen, an opiate of sexes.
> now, we know that many great songs, operas, poems, paintings,
> sculptures, novels, etc have been inspired by love. so, would it make
> sense to say that if verdi had understood the true scientific
> understanding of love, he would have composed the same or similar kind
> of operas but inspired by the mechanism of hormonal production,
> functionality of our organs, the respiratory process, etc, etc. now,
> such kind of opera or whatever could be fascinating and i'm all for
> it. come to think of it, david lynch has made some movies in that
> mode--exploring the regions where bodily fluids form into animal
> drives which form into emotions which form into longings. so, if verdi
> produced that kind of opera, it might have been interesting. but, the
> fact is the operas that he did compose has everything to do with
> verdi's understanding and belief in traditional kind of love.
> anything can inspire art, but the nature of the source of inspiration
> changes the nature of the art. had leni riefenstahl grown up in the
> 60s and hung around hippies and then became a filmmaker, she would not
> have made Triumph of the Hip. she might have made a great movie about
> hippies but it would have been very different than her nazi films.
>
> so, at the very least, dawkins ought to respect great works of art
> that were inspired by religions. great talents can be inspired by
> anything, but the fact is many artists thru the ages were inspired by
> spirituality, just as many today are inspired or motivated by science,
> intellectual theories, commerce, or commitment to the New. it would
> be stupid for a religious person to say about a great secular
> architect, 'had he lived in the 17th century, he would have designed
> the same great buildings but in the name of god than in the name of
> postmoderism.' also, artists have different predispostions that
> favor success under different circumstances. i doubt that if bach
> had grown up in today's black neighborhood, he would have been much
> good at hiphop. and, wagner's personality and temperament were
> naturally powerful and tumultuous , and so he might not have been as
> successful during the baroque and classical era which demanded more
> controlled expressions. and, it's hard to imagine an artist like f.
> scott fitzgerald--who was wrapped up in personal notions of
> romanticism--to have flourished under a communist system writing about
> the virtue of the proletariat. had he lived in mao's china, would he
> have written a communist version of the Great Gatsby?
> also, if bach lived today and wanted to compose baroque style music,
> many musical conservatories may have rejected him as too old-
> fashioned. to make a living, he might have had to go into
> accounting.
>
> whether one likes religion or not, we mustn't separate genius from
> spirituality when it comes to works of art inspired by religion. if
> michelangelo lived today, would he made a great naked sculpture out of
> richard dawkins than of david? had the builders of the great
> cathedrals lived today, would they have built the same kind of
> structures in the name of science? now, their innate talents may have
> been utilized to build something very different but just as awesome.
> but it would still be very different. while an atheist bach might
> have composed great music, his music would not have been the music the
> actual bach created. indeed, as art is about inspiration that bursts
> forth at unforseen moments, it's also likely that had bach started
> composing music at different moment in life, his works might have been
> very different. suppose the idea of a certain concerto came to him at
> a certain moment on some day. he would have been able to put it down
> on paper and leave it for posterity because he was in the right place
> at the right time. but, suppose few minutes before the inspiration
> came to him, his roof collapsed and he had to spend all day cleaning
> up the mess. the inspiration may never have came to him, or even if
> it had come to him, he might not have been able to work on it and put
> it down on paper because he was too busy cleaning up the mess.
>
> when we look at a great hindu temple, we must honor and respect for
> what it is. human genius fused with and serving spiritual concepts.
> human genius can serve just about anything, but the fact is that there
> is a long history of it serving spiritual and sacred notions and
> principles. also, even as spirituality often functioned as obstacles
> to creative genius in many occasions, it also functioned as the
> inspiration, the muse, and stimulant that imbued the artist with the
> power, the vision, and faith to create great art.
>
> and, art is not a science. sublimnity is beyond rationality. it's
> about the power of the irrational. the idea of approaching the sublime
> thru rational scientific understanding is stupid. it's like arguing
> that one can use art and creative imagination to learn the truth about
> how atoms work.
>