The Paradox of Atheistic Art Appreciation

[wynn]

* * * * NOTE FROM THE ARTS & CULTURE MODERATOR * * * *

I have moved this thread to the Comparative Religion subforum. It has more to do with religion than with the arts.

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the way atheists appreciate art.

They ascribe eternal value, transcendence, to what is literally dead matter, like bronze or paint.

But they deny that there is anything more to a human being than mere bio-chemical reactions.

To them, this:

is more alive than this:

How can that be ...

 

[Pinwheel]

Is the second one Sarah Palin? If so she isnt alive, she's a machine from the future sent to kill us with laughter.

 

[spidergoat]

Bio-chemical reactions aren't dead. It is they which ascribe meaning to things, even to artificial aesthetic arrangements of dead matter.

 

[wsionynw]

Signal, you are all on your own with this one.

Art is a form of human expression, something atheists appreciate as much as anybody.

Explain your post please.

 

[spidergoat]

Even mere bio-chemical reactions aren't the same as a living human being. Your strawman is falling apart.

 

[Cellar_Door]

To quote Oscar Wilde, "All art is at once surface and symbol. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors."
The intrinsic value of a piece of art is subjective, and its posterity limited. That's why ascribing "eternal value" to something so mortal is just silly.

Not everyone appreciates art in the same way, so don't be surprised that on creating a strawman with rational beliefs but then your own whimsical take on the significance of art, you find that something doesn't quite make sense.

 

[cosmictraveler]

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the way atheists appreciate art.

I'm an atheist but enjoy many forms of art from Da Vinci to Andy Warhol. I also enjoy music from Chopin to Led Zepplin as well.

 

[spidergoat]

I'm an atheist and an artist. I don't know if art has eternal transcedence or even value. I just know that my brain is able to synthesize data from the external world, mix it around, and spit something back out again that presumably has some relation to the brain's subjective experience.

 

[CutsieMarie89]

I'm an atheist and I hate most art with a passion, but I hated art when I was a Christian too. I think it's because atheists tend to be overly logical about the world we live in, but most atheists know art and strict scientific logic rarely if ever mix. When there is no need to think logically about something you can let your mind soar to where ever it wants.

 

[spidergoat]

The implication is that passion can only come from submitting to a supernatural being. That's silly, passion, love, desire, hatred, these are all evolved traits. Being creative is an evolved trait. Even apes and elephants get a kick from painting.

 

[Doreen]

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the way atheists appreciate art.

They ascribe eternal value, transcendence, to what is literally dead matter, like bronze or paint.

But they deny that there is anything more to a human being than mere bio-chemical reactions.

How can that be ...

Because of compartmentalization. If you speak about art - or music, etc. - they will focus on their own universalized aesthetics - often - especially if the focus is on one work of art or a movement or a type of creation - say Rap. If you shift to the philosophical issue of these being subjective or objective values, they will then assert that these values are subjective, despite how they recently lived.

Consistency over time - and intrapsychically - is not prioritized and exceptions are not really noticed.

There is a cake and eat it too aspect to this.

 

[Doreen]

Even mere bio-chemical reactions aren't the same as a living human being. Your strawman is falling apart.

I am not quite sure what your wording means, but that wasn't Signal's wording. Do you think there is something more to humans than can be accounted for by chemical reactions?

 

[spidergoat]

Of course, in science it's called an emergent property. I don't think that implies that we are anything other than matter. What it means is that matter is capable for forming complex systems with inherently unpredictable behavior.

 

[Doreen]

Of course, in science it's called an emergent property. I don't think that implies that we are anything other than matter. What it means is that matter is capable for forming complex systems with inherently unpredictable behavior.

Emergent properties and unpredictability are separate issues. I am not sure many scientists would say that the complex systems involved in humans create inherently unpredictable behavior. They would likely say that prediction is practically problematic, given the number of variables.

Also your explanation slides past the question, since these emergent properties would be the properties of batches of chemical reactions.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the way atheists appreciate art. They ascribe eternal value, transcendence, to what is literally dead matter, like bronze or paint. But they deny that there is anything more to a human being than mere bio-chemical reactions.

I'm an atheist and an artist (bass guitar), so it appears that you're in a small minority here. Art is not eternal and it has no intrinsic value (except the incidental value of its ingredients, such as gold jewelry); it has cultural value only so long as there are people to appreciate it.

And for the record, there is much more to a human being than biochemical reactions. But it's all subject to natural laws, none of it is the result or manifestation of supernatural forces. We love humans in a different way than we love art, and we continue to love them after they're dead. They "live on" in our hearts, our memories, their children and their accomplishments.

Art "lives on" in various ways. Music, poetry and stories are essentially abstractions and are carried forward by anyone who learns them, memorizes them, and teaches them to others. However, in the modern era they also "live on" in recorded media. In the past, visual art like paintings and sculptures were "dead" if they were destroyed by catastrophe or decay, but today they too "live on" in recorded media.

People too "live on" that way. We still have Jimi Hendrix's records and Marilyn Monroe's movies.

To them, this: [image] is more alive than this: [image] How can that be ...

You display the classic malady that affects most religionists, perhaps congenitally: inability to understand metaphor. The artwork and the human are not "alive" in the same way. Just as you don't "eat up" your Big Mac in the same way you "eat up" attention from your girlfriend.

Go ponder metaphors and get back to us. Hint: Don't look for the answer in your holy book. Since you don't recognize its stories as the blatant metaphors that are so obvious to the rest of us, it probably won't be any help to you in this effort.

 

[wynn]

Art is not eternal and it has no intrinsic value (except the incidental value of its ingredients, such as gold jewelry); it has cultural value only so long as there are people to appreciate it.

Then why pay 65 million punds for a piece of art?

Then why tell people they are stupid, inept etc. if they don't appreciate some particular artwork on the terms you expect theat they should?

 

[wynn]

Go ponder metaphors and get back to us.

In order to "ponder" and understand metaphors the way you want me to, I would also have to believe that this life, this body, is ultimately all there is, that there is no God, that the Universe is random and chaotic, and that every appearance of order is random, and that whatever seems as "more", are just epiphenomena, basically illusions deriving from matter, and that ultimately, the truth is this:

Oh, and you have a wonderfully respectful attitude. You are truly open-minded.

 

[wynn]

Because of compartmentalization. If you speak about art - or music, etc. - they will focus on their own universalized aesthetics - often - especially if the focus is on one work of art or a movement or a type of creation - say Rap. If you shift to the philosophical issue of these being subjective or objective values, they will then assert that these values are subjective, despite how they recently lived.

Consistency over time - and intrapsychically - is not prioritized and exceptions are not really noticed.

There is a cake and eat it too aspect to this.

But how come they are like that?

Whence this profound separation between art and esp. ontology and epistemology, and philosophy in general?

It's as if art would be a specific way of philosophizing that considers itself to be above and beyond philosophical scrutiny.

 

[kurros]

I have to say, this is a really weird thread. I can't say I've ever met a religious person who expressed an opinion anything like this. Why would it be strange that atheists appreciate art as much as theists? Art really has nothing to do with religion. True, a lot of art is religiously motivated, but that has nothing to do with appreciating that art. I have visited many cathedrals purely to admire their beautiful architecture, interior artwork, statues etc, all of which I can appreciate without sharing any of the personal beliefs of the artists.
Human nature inherently has a creative aspect, I personally consider it one of the most important gifts we have. Even the hard sciences require extraordinarily acts of creativity to progress.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

In order to "ponder" and understand metaphors the way you want me to, I would also have to believe . . . .

No you would not. That assertion manifests your refusal to investigate the concept of metaphor, for fear that you will develop insight into the collective unconscious, begin to understand the possible evolutionary origin of archetypes, and begin to break down your wall of cognitive dissonance--several of the keys to understanding humans and our culture, which I'm sure you're comfortably unaware of.

. . . . that this life, this body, is ultimately all there is . . . .

There is much more to humanity than the lives of any individual humans. To focus on the importance of an individual life is to deny the importance of civilization, the marvelous organism that we have created, of which we are the cells, which transcends our individual selves and lives on.

. . . . that there is no God . . . .

Science has not yet found the definitive answer to the origin of the universe. The existence of a god, while highly unlikely, is not so completely impossible as to be dismissed as foolishness. However, most of the supernatural trappings of religion ARE sheer foolishness, since there is no respectable evidence for the existence of a supernatural universe whose forces and creatures whimsically and often angrily perturb the functioning of the natural universe in accordance with its rather simple and elegant laws.

. . . . that the Universe is random and chaotic, and that every appearance of order is random . . . .

You apparently have avoided taking any classes in science, or at least resolutely slept through them or played videogames on your iPhone--or simply went to school in America where "no child is left behind" no matter how much he deserves to be. Randomness and chaos exist in the universe only at the most miniscule subatomic level, where the motions of quarks and leptons balance each other out in a matter of femtoseconds. At the macro level where we exist, the operation of the universe is described by breathtakingly beautiful principles which we have spent 500 years discovering, while you people put on blinders and kept your noses stuck in a book of legends passed down from the Stone Age.

. . . . and that whatever seems as "more", are just epiphenomena, basically illusions deriving from matter . . . .

Even the terminology you pretend to learn in order to poke ignorant fun at science is almost a century out of date. Matter and energy are interchangeable, visible to us with our limited senses as manifestations of intricate interactions between quarks, leptons and bosons in a (possibly) eleven-dimensional universe of which we can only observe four. The workings of the universe are just as wondrous and awesome as your fanciful explanations, with the added feature of being logical, conforming to empirical evidence, and making sense.

. . . . and that ultimately, the truth is this: [large blank space]

Again, you display your willful ignorance of science and rational thought. The truth is so rich and complex that it fills entire libraries, and our comprehension of it grows larger with every passing year. Are you even conversant with the issues that bedevil true scholars, such as the difficulty in relating gravity to electromagnetism and the two nuclear forces in order to arrange them in a neat paradigm? Or are you still wondering how many imaginary angels can dance on a pinhead? Or whether the image on a tortilla is really the face of a biblical character of whom no portraits were ever painted to compare it to? Or whether the plight of the Haitians is the result of a pact with the Devil--the people who welcomed Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany when the United States turned them away?

Oh, and you have a wonderfully respectful attitude.

This is a place of science. It says so in our name, if you wouldn't mind carefully re-reading it. As a Moderator one of my duties is to enforce the scientific method. One of the cornerstones of the scientific method is the Rule of Laplace (or Sagan's Law as it is colloquially known): "Extraordinary assertions must be supported by extraordinary evidence before anyone is obliged to treat them with respect."

The foundation of science is the premise that the natural universe is a closed system (in laymen's terms) whose behavior can be predicted by theories derived logically from empirical observation of its present and past behavior. This theory is recursive and has been exhaustively tested by empirical observation and logical reasoning for 500 years without ever coming close to falsification.

Therefore, the most extraordinary assertion ever made is that the foundation of science is wrong: that a supernatural universe exists from which creatures and other forces interact spuriously with the natural universe in violation of logic and natural laws.

No extraordinary evidence has ever been provided to support this assertion. In fact, there is not even any ordinary evidence in its favor. It is based entirely on unreasoning faith (a primitive instinct hard-wired into our brains along with revenge, suspicion of strangers, and several other evil instincts that civilization helps us overcome), on legends handed down from a benighted era, and on everyday coincidences.

Because of this we are under no obligation to treat theism, religion, or any form of supernaturalism with respect. Neither of course are we obliged to treat them with disrespect. But on SciForums the rule is studiously neutral, and disrespect for religion is both welcome and rather common. Whereas disrespect for science is not tolerated at all.

Get used to it because it's not going to stop. You have the world's other ten zillion websites on which to proselytize Stone Age legends. This one is ours and your discourse is tolerated only so long as it conforms to our rules.

You are truly open-minded.

We are open-minded to anyone who respects the scientific method, or who at least does not flout it except in jest. But blatant superstition has no place in the halls of science and scholarship.

This argument seldom comes up on the Arts & Culture subforum because the discussions are usually light-hearted. But if you are going to use this board to advance your preposterous, antiscientific religious propaganda, I will enforce the rules and direct you to the Religion board, where the scholars who specialize in these arguments congregate. It is my job to keep this particular subforum from being clogged with religious trolling, where no one is waiting to demolish your ridiculous arguments.

--The Moderator