Infidels Enjoying the Emotional Impact of Religious Sounds

Speaking of which, I just picked up Music of Afghanistan on Folkways and it is awesome.

I guess because it conjures up feelings of awe, or it hints at a transcendent realm which I highly doubt exists. (In fact, I hope the God of the Qur'an doesn't exist. The orishas I might be able to live with.)

Listening to Qur'anic recitation (and I hardly own any recordings of it) sometimes makes me feel much the way looking at a starry sky makes me feel. The idea of bowing down before something greater suddenly seems slightly seductive. Some of the Afro-Cuban chanting also appears to express a reverence I don't really feel for anything (not that I am an extreme cynic).

Speaking of emotional depth, I often find that religious music has an unusual degree of it. (On the other hand, I don't particularly like most classical music or jazz, which I suspect would compete with it in this.)

Martin, Muslims say that whereas other prophets performed miracles, in Islam, the Qur'an itself is regarded as a miracle, vouchsafed to Mohammed. What scares me is that I can at least entertain that idea when I look at its poetic and sound aspects. (Granted, the musical modes used in recitation existed prior to Islam.)

I confess that I have been reading Michael Sells's Approaching the Qur'an: the Early Revelations, which includes a CD of recitation. This book was assigned as freshman reading for the U. of North Carolina, and some conservative Christians filed a law-suit claiming that it violated the religious rights of students to be assigned this. (A judge just ruled that this was not the case, and I can't imagine an appeal being any more successful.) The group of conservative Christians was worried that it might make converts of the students, and ironically I can kind of see why they would be worried. And they do have a point that these early suras are among the least likely to offend, but Sells also has good reasons for focusing on them, aside from any desire he may or may not have to put a positive spin on Islam. (He is not himself a Muslim, at any rate.)

And this obviously isn't limited to religious beliefs - I love Mishima's books but I hardly agree with his ideas on anything. I love lots of old sexist rock music and books. There is plenty to love in all kinds of art that doesn't have to involve buying into the beliefs at all.

I agree with what you say, but have been questioning it a little--that's all. Beauty does seem like no guarantee of the truth. However, I have been at least entertaining the idea that some sort of beauty might be so wonderful that it would be evidence of a supernatural orign.

I once had a conversation with a couple of religious co-workers, on this very subject, started by my commenting on the often poor quality of the art associated with what are considered to be cults. (I remember that when I was a religious seeker in high school, knocking on all sorts of strange doors, I thought the very poor drawings of Eckankar's supposed founders somehow made it seem less likely that it could possible be THE TRUTH. Any decent God would presumably ensure that his message was communicated in a more beautiful for.) Anyway, I made a somewhat innocent comment about it, and they both ran with it, suggesting that maybe only authentic religious traditions bring forth great art. (They both could loosely be considered Christians, but of very unorthodox stripe. One largely accepts the ideas of Fritjoff Schuon on the Absolute being expressed in different ways by different religions; the other remains pretty agnostic about the exact truthfulness of her beliefs, and is open to even more alternatives than the former.)

Anyway, I find something engagingly audacious about Islam's apparent claim that the beauty of the Qur'an is partial evidence of the truthfulness of its claims.

Still, when the day is over, to use a corny expression, I think I would have to side with the views quoted at the top of this post. What makes me sad is that these forms of beauty that I love could not, I think, have been born out of a secular society; not that other forms of beauty can't come out of such a society. (I think some of it relates to wholeness v. fragmentation, too. The true aesthetic representation of our society would probably have to exist in fragmented form. But I don't want to be a good postmodernist and listen to John Zorn.)

Martin, your examples are good. (An aside: I've never read Mishima, but I have felt almost certain for a while now that I would like his writing.)

Christianity has undermined itself fatally in the West (and a good thing too) by tolerating poplular secular culture whose humanistic heart proves sufficient succour for most people. By contrast, the anti-alcohol, anti-dancing, anti-pop, anti-fashion, anti-tv, anti-sex, anti-everything-that’s-fun mullahs ensure that the average muslim has no viable alternative to the belief system he’s been born into.

I agree with the first part (including the "and a good thing too"), but I'm not convinced that most people in the West are satisfied by the secular. In fact, don't statistics show that we agnostics and atheists are exceptions even here? (Or is that only in the United States? Still, you may be correct in that most people spend a lot more time listening to pop music and watching TV and going to Hollywood movies than they do singing hymns or the like.

By contrast, the anti-alcohol, anti-dancing, anti-pop, anti-fashion, anti-tv, anti-sex, anti-everything-that’s-fun mullahs ensure that the average muslim has no viable alternative to the belief system he’s been born into.

I think this is a bit of an exaggeration. Yes, there are mullahs like that, and there are some countries which come close to following those limits, but there are also predominantly Muslim countries, such as Egypt, which has had a very active film and music industry for a while now. The same is true of Lebanon, though I'm not sure what the ratio of Muslims to Christians is there. But you could certainly get a drink in Lebanon. (Realistically, people will often find ways to break these rules, and often rulers will look the other way. Granted, this is a good prescription for corruption. I'm sure that some of the ruling elite in Saudi Arabia are involved in some pretty outrageous orgiastic acitivities. It almost has to be so.) The most fundamentalist mullahs do not have an iron grip everywhere in the Muslim world, nor have they historically (I think).

On the other hand, there is that little matter of various mainstream Hadith (traditions of the doings and sayings of Muhammad) based on which many Muslim jurists uphold capital punishment as the appropriate response to apostasy. That's one way to keep people in line. (There's nothing in the Qur'an to base it on, but there is pretty clear cut justification for it in major Sunni Hadith collections.)

unless it's all absolutely true (and none of them are), surely a belief system is bound to be made up of contradictions, compensations, sublimations, denials, x as figure for y, a means of dream-release and desire channel-flow when truth is blocked or evaded and surcease of hurt not achievable? When i was a kid in school choir, i believed — with absolute convenient conviction — that it was hypocritical to speask along with prayers when i had no faith, so i didn't, but perfectly OK to sing the exact same words, because music is about itself, not about religion.

Much music I've heard over the years is holy in intent or inspiration (not overtly obvious Christian rock stuff or the like per se, more the realm of Prince, for instance, with all its seemingly contradictory impulses). In them I find my own raptures -- and in "Soon," as I've said many times before, I find a secular rapture that never ends.

Ah, you investigated them? One of the main guys behind that actually wrote a song in praise of Eckankar and recorded it -- it makes for amazing listening on the 'what the fuck' front.

Well, Prince and his overt relationship with God and concepts of the divine runs throughout just about everything he's ever done, one way or another...there's more to be said here, but I'm not too sure if I'm the best person to say it. Dan Perry to thread! (I arrive in NZ Aug. 31 -- will be in Auckland off and on, would you be able to make it over there at least?)

I am very happy to believe in monkeys with swords, just not the Hindu religion as a whole. Picking the most fun bits from all the religions is a great idea in theory, until you realise that most religions don't have any.

Their beliefs are a big part of the music. I can enjoy it but not share it.

Who says the devil has the best tunes?

I do think that orthodox 'ordinary' Islam actually is freer and more celebratory of sensual pleasure than its competing monotheisms. Of course there is a puritan strain in the religion, particularly strong at the moment, but this is not part of the Qu'ran and was not part of many muslim societies. The willingness to accept sensual pleasure as part of one's relationship with God I find very attractive - and this quality is one of the most obvious qualities of the art that results.

So then I wonder if there is an irreducible philosophical core to the religion that has other qualities, and I find that there is, and that some of the more liberal Sufis (the traidtion Qawwalli comes from) have spelt it out. The problem is, for mainstream Islam the irreducible stuff is not the philosophical core but the signs of faith - the qu'ran as the perfect word of god, muhammed as the messenger of god, etc - and this I find it impossible to accept in faith.

If Islam had 'modernised' in the way that bits of Christianty and Judaism have, things might be very different.

Shit, baby's woken up. Got to go. I was getting into this ...

So is everything already warming up? I suspect Dunedin can't be completely flowering yet...

I suspect you are right. Those who choose to live in Dunedin are suspect.

*It wasn't really on the agenda.