Difference between revisions of "Atheism and culture"
Conservative (Talk | contribs) (→Secular left's denial of objective beauty) |
Conservative (Talk | contribs) (→Secular left's denial of objective beauty) |
||
| Line 87: | Line 87: | ||
''See also:'' [[Argument from beauty]] and [[Secular left]] | ''See also:'' [[Argument from beauty]] and [[Secular left]] | ||
[[File:Autumn.jpg|200px|right|thumbnail|[[Autumn]] foliage]] | [[File:Autumn.jpg|200px|right|thumbnail|[[Autumn]] foliage]] | ||
| − | Author [[John C. Wright]] wrote in his 2014 essay ''How We’ve Been Robbed of Beauty by the [[Leftist|Left]]'': | + | Author [[John C. Wright (author)|John C. Wright]] wrote in his 2014 essay ''How We’ve Been Robbed of Beauty by the [[Leftist|Left]]'': |
{{cquote|There is no discussion of it because by convincing the public that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the Left has placed it beyond the realm of discussion. According to the Left, beauty is a matter of taste, and arbitrary taste at that. There is no discussion of taste because to give reasons to prefer tasteful to tasteless things is elitist, nasty, uncouth and inappropriate. To have taste implies that some cultures produce more works of art and better than others, and this raises the uncomfortable possibility that love of beauty is Eurocentric, or even racist. To admire beauty has become a hate crime. | {{cquote|There is no discussion of it because by convincing the public that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the Left has placed it beyond the realm of discussion. According to the Left, beauty is a matter of taste, and arbitrary taste at that. There is no discussion of taste because to give reasons to prefer tasteful to tasteless things is elitist, nasty, uncouth and inappropriate. To have taste implies that some cultures produce more works of art and better than others, and this raises the uncomfortable possibility that love of beauty is Eurocentric, or even racist. To admire beauty has become a hate crime. | ||
Revision as of 22:35, April 23, 2016
His position as a poet seems to be one of little prominence.[1]
Below is a number of areas where atheism has shown to failed to produce a significant amount of cultural achievements (Art, music, poetry and architecture).
In addition, there is information below shows that atheism lowers the quality of a societies culture.
Contents
Atheism: Art, music and poetry
Relative to Christianity, which has a large collection of art, music and poetry associated it, atheism has a very small collection of art, music and poetry associated with it (see: Atheist art and Atheist music and Atheist poetry).
A common explanation for the relatively smart amount of atheist art/music/poetry is the uninspiring nature of atheism (see: Atheism is uninspiring).
Atheism, culture and morality
See also: Moral failures of the atheist population
Atheism has a variety of effects on a culture including a lowering of its morality (see: Moral failures of the atheist population).
The lowering of a societies morality produces crassness and vulgarity in a societies written and spoken word (see: Atheism and profanity) and its art and music.
Soviet Union and culture
See also: Soviet Union and morality and Atheism and morality
Peter Hitchens is the ex-atheist brother of atheist Christopher Hitchens. In an article entitled Britain needs God Creation Ministries International wrote about Peter Hitchens:
| “ | Peter wrote that his views changed slowly, as he came to see the fruit of atheism. Part of this realisation came when he was working as a journalist in Moscow, during the final years of the Soviet Union. His depiction of this godless society was sobering. He wrote of the riots that broke out when the vodka ration was cancelled one week; the bribes required to obtain anaesthetics at the dentist or antibiotics at the hospital; the frightening levels of divorce and abortion; the mistrust and surveillance; the unending official lies, manipulation and oppression; the squalor, desperation and harsh incivility. Peter wrote of how traffic stops dead in Moscow when rain begins to fall, as every driver fetches wind-screen wipers from their hiding places and quickly fits them to their holders. Any wipers left in place when the car is parked are stolen as a matter of course.
The atheist, humanistic ideology of the state, he believed, had even affected the Russian language. Peter spoke to a descendant of an exile, whose grandparents had fled Moscow in the days of Lenin. Having been brought up to speak pure Russian in his American home—the elegant, literary language of his parents—he was shocked when he visited Russia to hear the coarse, ugly, slang-infested and bureaucratic tongue that was now spoken, even by educated professionals.[2] |
” |
Atheism and architecture
See also: Atheism and architecture
Postmodernism is an antichristian,[5] far-left, 20th century worldview and academic movement characterized by denial of objective truth, and which asserts that assertions of objective knowledge are essentially impossible.
The Christian apologist Norman Geisler wrote about postmodernism: "In short, the root of Post-modernism is atheism and the fruit of it is relativism — relativism in every area of life and thought."[6] Atheists played a significant role in terms of postmodernist leadership and its following (see: Postmodernism and atheists).
The architect of the first postmodern modern building said that he designed it with no design in mind.[7]
Jackie Craven, a writer who writes on architecture, indicates about postmodern architecture:
| “ | Postmodern architecture evolved from the modernist movement, yet contradicts many of the modernist ideas. Combining new ideas with traditional forms, postmodernist buildings may startle, surprise, and even amuse. Familiar shapes and details are used in unexpected ways. Buildings may incorporate symbols to make a statement or simply to delight the viewer.[8] | ” |
Ravi Zacharias on postmodern architecture
The Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias said about postmodern architecture:
| “ | I remember lecturing at Ohio State University, one of the largest universities in this country. I was minutes away from beginning my lecture, and my host was driving me past a new building called the Wexner Center for the Performing Arts.
He said, “This is America’s first postmodern building.” I was startled for a moment and I said, “What is a postmodern building?” He said, “Well, the architect said that he designed this building with no design in mind. When the architect was asked, ‘Why?’ he said, ‘If life itself is capricious, why should our buildings have any design and any meaning?’ So he has pillars that have no purpose. He has stairways that go nowhere. He has a senseless building built and somebody has paid for it.” I said, “So his argument was that if life has no purpose and design, why should the building have any design?” He said, “That is correct.” I said, “Did he do the same with the foundation?” All of a sudden there was silence. You see, you and I can fool with the infrastructure as much as we would like, but we dare not fool with the foundation because it will call our bluff in a hurry.[9] |
” |
Soviet Union and Museums of Atheism
The Soviet Union closed down many churches and converted some of them into Museums of Atheism rather than build magnificent buildings dedicated to promoting atheistic ideology.[10]
Wikipedia on church architecture
On April 23, 2016, Wikipedia, a wiki founded by a an atheist and agnostic, declares in its church architecture article:
| “ | These large, often ornate and architecturally prestigious buildings were dominant features of the towns and countryside in which they stood. But far more numerous were the parish churches scattered across the Christian world, the focus of Christian devotion in every town and village. While a few are counted as sublime works of architecture to equal the great cathedrals, the majority developed along simpler lines, showing great regional diversity and often demonstrating local vernacular technology and decoration.[11] | ” |
In its April 23, 2016 article on postmodern architecture, Wikipedia does not describe postmodern architecture in terms of it being sublime, great or prestigious.[12]
In fact, Wikipedia's article on postmodern architecture indicates that Alex Todorow in one of his essays, A View from the Campidoglio, to that effect when he says that:
| “ | When [he] was young, a sure way to distinguish great architects was through the consistency and originality of their work...This should no longer be the case. Where the Modern masters' strength lay in consistency, ours should lie in diversity.[13] | ” |
Secular leftists often put an excessive focus on diversity and often fail to focus on excellence.
Secular left's denial of objective beauty
See also: Argument from beauty and Secular left
Author John C. Wright wrote in his 2014 essay How We’ve Been Robbed of Beauty by the Left:
| “ | There is no discussion of it because by convincing the public that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the Left has placed it beyond the realm of discussion. According to the Left, beauty is a matter of taste, and arbitrary taste at that. There is no discussion of taste because to give reasons to prefer tasteful to tasteless things is elitist, nasty, uncouth and inappropriate. To have taste implies that some cultures produce more works of art and better than others, and this raises the uncomfortable possibility that love of beauty is Eurocentric, or even racist. To admire beauty has become a hate crime.
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then there is no difference between fine art as opposed to mere decoration, no difference between Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and wallpaper. Obviously there is a difference: we decorate an otherwise useful tool to make it more pleasing to look at or handle, like painting details on a car or putting embroidered images on fabric. Popular art is meant for entertainment; it is meant to please the eye and wile away the time. But an episode of I Love Lucy is not made for the same purpose as Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. Art is not meant to be useful. When you hold a baby in your arms and look at him, merely look at the wonder and miracle of new life, you don’t do that because the baby is useful. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then there is no such thing as training the taste. One can sit down and watch well done popular entertainment – for example, a Mickey Mouse cartoon – with pleasure and enjoyment, and no study is needed to prepare you to appreciate and understand it. But to sit down and read Milton’s Paradise Lost for pleasure, one needs a passing familiarity with classical and Biblical figures to which he alludes, and one’s pleasure is increased if one is familiar with the epic models, the Virgil and Homer, on whose themes Milton plays out so creative and striking a variation. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then anything, anything at all, can be declared to be beautiful merely by the artist... The strongest argument against the atheism so beloved of the Left is not an argument that can be put in words, for it is the argument of beauty. If you see a sunset clothed in scarlet like a king descending to his empurpled pyre, or wonder at the gleaming thunder of a waterfall, if you find yourself fascinated by the soft intricacy of a crimson rose or behold the cold virgin majesty of the morning star, much less see and enter a cathedral or a walled garden...or Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, if indeed you see real beauty and for a moment you forget yourself, then you are drawn out of yourself into something larger. In that timeless moment of sublime rapture, the heart knows even if the head cannot put it into words that the dull and quotidian world of betrayal, pain, disappointment and sorrow is not the only world there is. Beauty points to a world beyond this world, a higher realm, a country of joy where there is no death. Beauty points to the divine. The Left hates this argument, because – since it is not put into words – it cannot be refuted in words.[14] |
” |
Ritualistic atheists
Ritualistic atheists find beauty in certain religious traditions, symbols or rituals.[15] See also: American atheists and church attendance
The Christian Post reported:
| “ | In a new study of the various types of nonbelievers, researchers from The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga say "one of the most interesting and unexpected" types they examined is the "ritual" atheist or agnostic, who finds some value in religious teachings and practices.
Those who fall into this category, according to the researchers, are nonbelievers who may have a philosophical appreciation for certain religious teachings, who like being part of a community, who want to stay in touch with their ethnic identity or who simply find beauty in certain religious traditions, symbols or rituals. "The implication of this particular typology is that you could be sitting next to somebody in church right now who may, in fact, not buy into the theology that the rest of the congregation buys into," said principal researcher Christopher F. Silver in an interview with The Christian Post.[16] |
” |
See also: American atheists and church attendance
See also
Notes
- ↑ Greek Lyric Poetry: A Complete Collection of the Surviving Passages from the Greek Song-writers by George Stanley Farnell, page 269
- ↑ Britain needs God
- ↑ Ravi Zacharias on Postmodern Architecture at Ohio State
- ↑ Ravi Zacharias on Postmodern Architecture at Ohio State
- ↑ John F. MacArthur, "Think Biblically!"[1]
- ↑ A Response to Philosophical Postmodernism by Norman L. Geisler
- ↑ Ravi Zacharias on Postmodern Architecture at Ohio State
- ↑ Modernism - Picture Dictionary of Modern Architecture
- ↑ Ravi Zacharias on Postmodern Architecture at Ohio State
- ↑ Militant Atheist Objects: Anti-Religion Museums in the Soviet Union by Crispin Paine
- ↑ Church architecture- Wikipedia.
- ↑ Postmodern architecture - Wikipedia
- ↑ Postmodern architecture - Wikipedia
- ↑ How We’ve Been Robbed of Beauty by the Left
- ↑ Researchers: 'Ritual' Atheists and Agnostics Could Be Sitting Next to You in Church
- ↑ Researchers: 'Ritual' Atheists and Agnostics Could Be Sitting Next to You in Church
