"Pea Hicks" <phix@optigan.com> wrote in message
news:YEDrf.9317$xF6.5876@fed1read01...

hi all-

i lurk here quite a bit, but rarely post...

anyway, i've been thinking <snip>

So was I.

anyway, here's my thought: it occurred to me that an irrational belief in
a god and subesequent adherence to a religion is very similar in most
respects to a completely secular enthusiasm for art. in particular, i'm
interested in the "either you get it or you don't" phenomenon that seems
to be germane to both god and art. ie, let's take jazz music as an
example (i could easily pick opera, balinese gamelan, or anything else
here). if someone loves jazz music, does s/he have a rational reason for
this? and if s/he is trying to explain this love of jazz to someone who
does not love jazz, can this "irrationality" account for the point where
the two differing tastes reach a brick wall, such that all the jazz lover
can say to the non jazz lover is "don't you get it?" in other words, the
jazz lover can certainly have lengthy discussions with the non jazz
lover, and offer all sorts of inspiration by example and testimony, but
if they want the non jazz lover to come to truly love jazz, logical
arguments and appeals to rationality are generally not going to work.
there's a vague point that the non jazz lover must cross over before
something "clicks" and suddenly the person "gets it" and becomes a jazz
lover themself.

The answer is simple. Jazz is God. Picasso is Jesus. Chess is the Holy
Spirit.

what i've just described seems to me to be basically the same phenomenon
as theistic belief and the process of conversion to theistic belief. ie,
belief in, and thus enthusiasm for, any particular god, is really no
different psychologically than "belief" in and enthusiasm for any given
form of art. it seems to have all the same trappings, from the
mysterious, awe-inspiring, sensual aesthetic experience itself, down to
the cult-of-personality, hero-worship aspect ("jesus christ superstar"
indeed!). to a believer, god is the art/artist, and religion is the fan
club.

but is "belief in jazz" truly a phenomenon which cannot be explained
through logic, reasoning and science? i hold that it only *seemingly*
cannot be explained scientifically, and that any given person's
assumption that it's simply a matter of an irrational "faith in jazz"
simply hasn't had sufficient reason to investigate the nature of this
"faith" scientifically. if they love jazz, they know they do, and they
don't need a scientific explanation for this love in order to somehow
justify it rationally and therefore continue loving jazz.

but if we look closely at the physics/psychoacoustics involved, and more
importantly at the *social* elements that are involved, we can begin to
see a rational basis for "belief in jazz." without going into lots of
detail here, what we ultimately find is that "jazz," or any other form of
art, starts as a sensory stimulus, but ultimately maintains its
significance to a human via pattern recognition and association. it's a
basic cultural tool- humans manipulate the "stuff" of the physical world
(in this case, vibrations in the air) into relatively patterns, and
exposure to these patterns suggests a sense of security through their
inherent predictability (superficial variations notwithstanding- that's a
level of detail which falls out of the scope of my current discussion),
and this sense of security is transferred to the social community which
generates/appreciates these particular patterns. that, in a nutshell, is
your rational basis for "belief in jazz." ultimately, if you want to try
to covert someone into a jazz-believer on rational grounds, you're going
to have to sidestep the aesthetic qualities of jazz entirely and appeal
directly to their sense of community and security.

and to this extent, theism/religion works the exact same way. so it can
be said that, to this extent, enthusiasm for a god and adherence to a
religion is a rational position, because ultimately people find aesthetic
familiarity, security and social benefits from being a "fan of god." it
all starts with pattern generation and recognition. (obviously, religions
have traditionally used art for this very purpose, though i won't go into
a discussion of religious art here.)

Not the exact same way. Religion can be an esthetic experience but then
there is the political activism it engenders, and the control of
adherents' sexuality and the coercive element on the individual.

the main difference, and the reason that i believe that theism deserves a
critical look (whereas enthusiasm for art can usually be summed up as
simply a matter of personal/cultural "taste") is that theistic belief
crosses the boundary into a requirement of supernatural belief, whereas
art, by itself, makes no such requirement. belief in the supernatural can
be shown to be a truly irrational belief- something that at some level
cannot be knowable by humans and can only be accepted on true "faith."
the qualities and effects of art, while vast and complex, are still
theoretically entirely knowable by humans, as art exists entirely in the
realm of the natural. god, in comparison to art, has a supernatural
element that requires a literally irrational leap of faith. and this, to
me, is where theism departs from art and crosses the line into dangerous
territory.

Dangerous indeed, for reasons I have stated above.

in a nutshell, theism's requirement of irrational faith is the source of
its power to brainwash its followers, and thus cause them to justify any
and all sorts of other irrational acts.

There is amatter of opinion as to what constitutes irrational. if the
group[ can get an advantage for its members economically or militarily,
then the group will become dominant over non-members and control more
natural an economic resources. Islam is an excellent case study.

art, by itself, does not

formally have the power to do this. this is fundamentally what
distinguishes these two phenomena. enthusiasm for any given genre of art
can ultimately be boiled down to a matter of "taste," whereas enthusiasm
for any particular theistic belief system usually *begins* as a matter of
"taste" but can quickly move into areas of true psychological abuse,
intimidation and mind-control.

ok, well, as i said, i haven't really worked out all the details of this
line of thought,

Glad to be of help.

but that's the basic thing. to sum up, i contend that

folks who adhere to any given art or religion are seduced into it via
ultimately logical/knowable means (even if they've not arrived there
through a series conscious choices). the difference lies in what happens
after the conversion experience. art, by itself, relies on no more than
continued enthusiasm and involvement. theism, on the other hand, requires
a *true* leap of faith in the form of an irrational belief in the
supernatural, and thru this mechanism, its adherents are made vulnerable
to brainwashing and subsequent psychological and social abuse.


any thoughts or references on this line of thought?

Many.

cheers!
pea

and to this extent, theism/religion works the exact same way. so it
can be said that, to this extent, enthusiasm for a god and adherence
to a religion is a rational position, because ultimately people find
aesthetic familiarity, security and social benefits from being a "fan
of god." it all starts with pattern generation and recognition.
(obviously, religions have traditionally used art for this very
purpose, though i won't go into a discussion of religious art here.)

Not the exact same way. Religion can be an esthetic experience but then
there is the political activism it engenders, and the control of
adherents' sexuality and the coercive element on the individual.