I was just listening to Tina Turner’s “Better be good to me” and 20 years later, it’s just as moving as it was in 1984. I’m sitting here crying and sniffling, and I can just see her, an abused wife who really loves Ike, but sees herself dead at some point at the hands of her husband if she didn’t somehow get out of that relationship - sad, angry, mournful about what could have been but can never be. Also makes me think about the struggles of black people back when she was with Ike, and how it mirrors somewhat the problems gays and lesbians face.
And it occurred to me, isn’t it miraculous how sound waves from a cassette of titanium dioxide can make people cry? Or laugh or how can inanimate objects elicit such complex emotions and inspire people?
Evidence, if ever there was any, that there is a God. (Just don’t ask me to explain my logic… )
I don’t know if music is evidence of God or not, but it’s always nice when it makes you feel that way. Also, a lot of very condescending posts with many rolleyes smileys will begin to accumulate below. Try not to take them personally.
Well, while everyone else is rolling their eyes, let me answer seriously: Maybe.
One aspect of humankind that isn’t readily explained by science is the transcendent feeling one gets while creating or enjoying art. It isn’t “God” in the sense of a big white guy with a beard, but it’s some intangible thing you may as well call “divine,” and that part of you that enjoys it may as well be called the “soul.” Frankly, when I’m listening to the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Ninth, I feel about as close to believing in some divine thing as I ever do. For that matter, I feel the same way when I listen to song “Let the Mystery Be,” by Iris Dement, which may be the only Agnostic Spiritual ever written.
If you really want to explore aesthetic transcendence as a premise for theology, read the Romantic poets (Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Blake).
While I am generally inclined toward atheism, I have to agree.
Whenever I return home after a particularly tiring day, I listen to Chopin, usually the First Piano Concerto or virtually anything of his performed by Vasary. The emotions these pieces evoke are far more spiritual and powerful than anything I have felt from human contact or several near-death experiences.
The big dualism we need to overcome isn’t mind/body but matter/spirit.
There IS NO difference between the two. Thinking there is so has caused our species millenia of frustration and conflict.
Music is certainly evidence of the power of what can be, the Divine–“God” if you will.
To me, the Divine is the vector of Sat-Chit-Ananda http://www.naturalhealthweb.com/articles/shanbhag2.html (just a nice little explanation here) which is the true nature of the Origin or One (thank you, Plotinus; it has this nature because any system based on evil or other self-destructive principle would not be mathematically coherent); Goodness is the greater actualization of this vector in any system, Evil its lack; Love is the will to promote the vector, Hate the will to hinder it.
But the grand thing about Existance is that it is not just a matter of more or less, but also HOW–and through music we actually take part in the creation and enjoyment of these amazing WAYS of being.
Emotions aren’t explained by science? Sure they are. It’s an electrochemical process occuring in the brain. It’s been demonstrated under controlled conditions. People have been made to experience these types of feelings simply by artificial electrical stimulation of the appropriate area of the brain. Sorry - no God required. And believe me, nobody loves music more than I do.
Emotions aren’t really explained by these experiments. They have just learned to mechanically reproduce them. They cannot explain why auditory input from music affects your temporal lobe so much differently than speech and other sounds. In a healthy brain, pretty much all of our other emotional responses have a catalyst and involve some sort of learned reasoning process. This transcendental type response seems to be instinctive or reflex? It is an involuntary response. Why? Are you sure no God is required, Blowero?
I love music; I love God; I sing in a good church choir. Does anyone really think I popped in here to argue against the OP?
The thing is, even people who are very vocal about their religion may not feel God and music are connected. Several years ago, I worked with a woman who was very vocal and obvious about her Christianity. One day, she was wondering if she was sinning because, instead of listening to the local Evangelical radio station, she listened to country music, instead. Leaving country music aside, I said to her of course God was in music – just listen to Bach!!! Her response was, “Who’s Bach?” My (mental) response was, “Oh, dear.”
I am told there are non-musical people in the world. I suspect I may have dated one recently. To them, I suppose music may be no more evidence of God than my apartment building is. It’s technically well-built enough, but transcendent? As for me, the pleasure I get from music is calorie-free, sin-free, disease-free, and profound. Not bad for arrangements of vibrations.
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My (mental) response was, “Oh, dear.”