The X virtuous men of history or whatever

[erik]

Actually I am not advocating any consequent actions (espeially: not fighting evil, or having/not having religion, as were suggested), or arguing any "angles" per se. I am just introducing a few simple premises:

1) Some adversities yield positive consequences.
2) Religion is not solely a force for evil.
3) Evil is not solely a consequence of religion.

I am not attempting to lay out any further conclusions at this time so I'd appreciate your not assuming any on my behalf =-)

Unless you disagree and state that religion is purely a source of evil, and that adversity never has beneficial effects, then I don't see why you're taking exception with my very weak premises I was attempting to lay down. Instead you seem to be objecting to conclusions that I did not represent.

You can happily cede those premises and counter with a "So fucking what?" as I suspect you might and discussion could move forward. However, if you're objecting to those points then it would be silly of me to attempt further discussion since we'd be working from entirely different precepts and I have no interest in arguing with someone that far off the grid, so I'd just leave it be.

[mean_liar]

Myth and religion make art powerful with social resonance and provide positive inspiration. I seriously doubt that there would be anywhere near the volume of art if there were no religions or myth.

What are you saying here "art needs stories"? So what? Those stories do not need to be ones sponsored by churches.

If what you are saying is remotely true then why the FUCK isn't the Catholic church in charge of Hollywood?

See, I say that myth is a very powerful force. You misinterpret that and then respond with ignorant fuckery.

Those "stories" are so old that there are very, very few that are divorced from religion in Western society, and were the common understanding of those stories until the last few decades.

...to somehow think that Hollywood doesn't traffic in repackaging myth over and over and over and over again is also just ignorance. You can seriously go through just about every major movie ever made and tie it back to some ancient myth or another.

Oh I see, you think the Catholic church already runs Hollywood and every movie ever is a biblical parable!

I don't know why you engage in such bullshit fuckery as this. It's as if you want to be seen as a complete idiot but aren't quite sure how to accomplish that.

You could just post pictures of yourself having sex with your dog. That would be quicker.

You're confusing my use of "myth" to mean Catholicism when I'm really referencing the more general "myth" in a Jungian archetype sense.

So in a discussion about religion and art I'm using a religion as an example of religion.

And your example of religion is in fact just "stories", which you know ISN'T A FUCKING RELIGION.

I think you don't understand how religions work. They're formed on a foundation of those stories. You can't divorce religion from myth. In fact, my very first post on this included myth. You're trying to put words in my mouth and then attacking your made-up strawman position and its strange.

I don't know why you think that religion is somehow divorced from myth.


...

...Or perhaps the rise of atheism and secularism that came with the enlightenment has actually seen the largest boom in the arts, mediums of arts, volume of art and quality of art in all of human history?

I say perhaps, when I mean, it definitely has.

You seem to be confusing atheism with the printing press and usury-driven economies (HINT: Calvinism) giving rise to patronage. Making mad cash was actually a religious endeavor up until very recently.

Do you actually think you know what you're talking about or are you just very convinced? Because it comes off as the latter given your paucity of examples.

[Crissa]

Evil is a result of religion, however.

-Crissa

[mean_liar]

Yes, because if people didn't go to church they would always be nice to each other, the end.

[Maj]

Maj, if you read the entire articles, you find out that while dark people suffer from more vitamin d deficiency than light people...

...You would also find out that they could not actually pin these rates upon the differences in melanin, as diet was a larger factor. Ethnic foods from bright climes includes less milk or fatty fish which is included in diets from darker climes.

We weren't talking about dietary deficiencies. We were talking about evolutionary change - why people are white. Back in the day, when people actually left their houses and went outside and didn't have Vitamin D fortified milk, large amounts of melanin in your skin was a hindrance to soaking up the sun, and thus the production of Vitamin D. Groups of people who live far north, but get large amounts of Vitamin D from their diet (ie: eskimos) didn't need to adapt and retained darker skin.

So everyone needs to fucking eat their vitamin D.

Evolutionarily speaking, that's not really feasible. I don't think it's accurate to assume that every white/light person had access to fatty fish during the course of human evolution. Especially in the quanties needed to stave off environmental adaptation.

Very few foods in nature contain vitamin D. The flesh of fish (such as salmon, tuna, and mackerel) and fish liver oils are among the best sources. Small amounts of vitamin D are found in beef liver, cheese, and egg yolks.

In the table below this quote, it lists eggs as a source of Vitamin D (after all the modern fortified foods). Assuming the daily value to be an adequate amount of Vitamin D, you would need to eat seventeen eggs each day to meet the daily recommendation. Or eat twenty-five servings of beef liver each day.

You don't eat your Vitamin D. You go outside.

Yes, because if people didn't go to church they would always be nice to each other, the end.

[PhoneLobster]

Do you actually think you know what you're talking about or are you just very convinced? Because it comes off as the latter given your paucity of examples.

I should say the same of you.

Your entire last post could be summoned up as "No infinity!".

So sorry, but no infinity back. No infinity myth and stories aren't ther same thing as religion to anyone other than you.

And also no infinity the renaissance and the enlightenment were not driven by religious ideas. They were driven by breaking free from the religious oppression of the Catholic church and turning increasingly towards science and democracy, and most importantly secularism ahead of a religious state with carte blanche to terrorize.

No one cares if many of the proponents of early democracy, secularism and science were also protestants. Because they achieved what they did by being proponents of those things, not their fucking religion. It isn't protestant Christianity that is written into our legislation, our science books, or more importantly for this argument our texts about how to paint pretty pictures or our Hollywood movie scripts.

Next you will be telling us all how the USA was founded as a Christian nation by Christian nationalists. Pull the other one. It has bells on.

[mean_liar]

I'm sure that the Sistine Chapel, created during the Renaissance, has nothing to do with religion.

Ditto the Elgin Marbles. That they were carved on the outside of a temple has no bearing on anything.

If you can, come up with a relatively popular painting representing a known myth from antiquity that you don't think has anything to do with religion. Come up with a short list if you want. That'll be a good start, since you traditionally seem long on opinion and short on example.

[Username17]

Holy crap, give me a fucking break. Yes, the Sistine fucking chapel doesn't have a damn thing to do with religion. Michelangelo was a non believer. A homosexual. A person who, had his actual beliefs about man cock come out into the open would have been murdered by the very pontiffs who hired him. Art or no art.

Michelangelo wanted to paint and sculpt sexy man parts, and he was only allowed to do them in a "biblical context" because otherwise he'd be fucking killed. The Sistine Chapel is the worst example you could possibly produce to demonstrate a supposedly positive link between religion and art. We aren't seeing the best of Michelangelo, we're seeing what's left of Michelangelo after he has been forcibly prevented from doing all the other great works he wanted to do.

Religions murder people who make non-religious art. That there is religious art left over after the purges does not mean that murdering people who make non-religious art is positive or neutral.

"David" is not a better statue because Michelangelo slapped a biblical post hoc justification on it to avoid being murdered for making it.

-Username17

[PhoneLobster]

If you can, come up with a relatively popular painting representing a known myth from antiquity that you don't think has anything to do with religion.

Notice how you couch your example in multiple conditional requirements of stupidity.

But hey, remember my argument is that art is better and more prolific now because it is secular and free.

Because back in the era when painting was a dominant art medium you weren't allowed to just paint any old shit. That's the whole point of the argument.

So instead why don't we come up with a short list of popular non religious myth movies like say Star Wars. I'd have turned it around and had you find all the religious ones, but actually since this is an argument against censorship those are encouraged to exist along side the rest anyway, but notably they don't compete well against shit like Harry Potter.

Of course if you want to talk painting anyway. I'm quite a fan of Salvador Dali. But you would know that anyway if you knew anything about art.

[mean_liar]

...and Dali was never influenced by religion. I guess you made your case after all!

No, you didn't. You always, always, always fail to provide examples, PL. You create strawmen - I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you're not doing it on purpose - but you rarely give concrete examples.

Then you reference Harry Potter as high art. Well played!

I have to admit that I was just baiting you, though. I wanted to see if you'd actually bother.

Seriously, though, you have an odd way of communicating that makes you just make assumptions about other people's representations that isn't found in anything they say. I think Absentminded Wizard pointed something like this out to you recently, yes? There's a reason why you're constantly finding yourself misunderstood and its not because of your audience.

...

Frank - Michelangelo's mental contortions don't matter. The results matter.

No one gives a shit about the vast majority of paintings dealing with "my dreams" or "shit I care about in my own head". The most powerful art has cultural significance. Religious art secures that easily by virtue of its parables being commonly understood.

The Rape of the Sabine Women is a powerful story, as is The Crusaders Entering Constantinople. But to disregard the Sistine Chapel, or Michelangelo's Moses, or David as somehow not tied to religion because they were made by a homo is seriously weaksauce.

It's religion that makes David a powerful icon, because without religion David is just a dude staring into space with odd proportions.

That those common cultural resonances come from religion is one of its most powerful aspects, in that it unifies mythic understanding in its audience. If every single person that looked at the Sistine Chapel thought, "wow, that's a lot of fucking people and shit and what the hell is going on" no one would care about it. If it was Michelangelo covering the ceiling in horsecock, no one would care about it. But if they look up and they see their understanding of the myth of Creation played out, then they have a powerful context to appreciate the art.

There's a reason that Kandinsky is rooted in its time and effect on art and Michelangelo will last as long as religion lasts, and its because the common mythic framework of religion allows it to be universally appreciated.

[PhoneLobster]

You always, always, always fail to provide examples, PL.... Then you reference Harry Potter as high art. Well played!

Gee. Don't let an example get in the way of a bare faced lie about no examples.

Look you were the one who said "popular" art and Harry Potter is crazy popular. And though I do not like it personally, and can tell you all the terrible things about it, in it's movie form it is a prime example of an art form that has benefited from science, and would be banned under religious rule, and is incredibly popular.

But hey, you can just say "Harry Potter, Grrrr!" and thus it is no longer an example, and also consumes a similar reference to star wars in the process.

Because you live in a world of magical reverse logic, where examples aren't examples unless you say so.

And Dali being influenced by religion is different to being censored by religion. And the church would NEVER have let him paint the things he did if it had a say, especially the ones with religious references.

I have to admit that I was just baiting you, though. I wanted to see if you'd actually bother.

Oh, the "lulz I waz just trolling!" argument. Well played sir, why now it is clear that religion is good for art, because, er, "lulz you waz trolling!"?

Beautiful. Now you can fuck off to ignore. First person I've used the new feature on since the migrate.

New rule. "Lulz I waz trolling" gets you on ignore. Because if even you declare you are being a stupid lieing fuckwit with nothing but trolling to say then you are probably right.

[mean_liar]

I actually had plenty to say but you ignored it.

Like, popular as in popularly understood to be famous. I suppose I wasn't being clear, but you're a putz and were asking for it. Too bad you can't read this though.

[Draco_Argentum]

I actually had plenty to say but you ignored it.

Like, popular as in popularly understood to be famous. I suppose I wasn't being clear, but you're a putz and were asking for it. Too bad you can't read this though.

And you're being a gigantic, fucking retard. Even PL's most bile filled, insane rants are better than trolling. At least we can read PL's posts and believe that hes not doing it just to piss people off. You on the other hand are wasting posts with non-communication on purpose. On a message board known for aggressive posts we don't need people trolling, the only reason TGD works at all is that we trust that everyone really means what they say. You're eroding that confidence.

[Psychic Robot]

...Or perhaps the rise of atheism and secularism that came with the enlightenment has actually seen the largest boom in the arts, mediums of arts, volume of art and quality of art in all of human history.

Oh, PL. Don't ever stop being you.

[Crissa]

ml, [a] >> does not mean that only comes from [a].

Don't be stupid.

-Crissa

[mean_liar]

Well, for trolling, the entire post wasn't trolling. It actually had substance. The examples thing was a throwaway since the last time I got into it with PL he was difficult to understand until I got him to start talking about concrete examples.

There was still plenty of substance there to talk about, though.

And the full "popular" thing was:

If you can, come up with a relatively popular painting representing a known myth from antiquity that you don't think has anything to do with religion. Come up with a short list if you want. That'll be a good start, since you traditionally seem long on opinion and short on example.

The point was to have an example to discuss his inability to see the connection between art and myth.

I said I was being unclear out of the assumption that I must have been, rather than re-reading this. Well, the quote's there.

He responded with Harry Potter.

At that point he deserves ridicule.

As for Crissa's statement, I'm not sure what to make of it. Frank was the one obsessed with absolutes, such as: religion has never done anything for art, at all, ever.

Frankly, that's such a reductionist argument that it's absurd. To take the other side for a second, it's like he's saying that capitalism has never ever done anything for art, because it could be replaced with something else more conducive to art production and quality. Well... I guess? But that's not an argument that something has been a complete and total failure regarding art since the dawn of time, it's saying that there is perhaps a better system or society for creating art. And if that's his point, which is what its boiling down to being, then what kind of response does it deserve?

Sure, if religion was replaced with art classes and hell, no one had to work and public education was far more focused on art then yes, there would be more and better art. But that's not an argument that religion has never done anything for art.

[Username17]

mean liar, you're double standarding all over the fucking place.

David is a great statue. It's great because it looks awesome and it's great because it represents a turning point in European sculpture technique where a guy seriously produces sculptural effects that had been lost in Europe for the previous thousand years. It's an iconic work and if people can name no other statues they can probably name Lady Liberty and David.

But it's not great because of its religious title. It was allowed because of ts religious title. But you'd have to have Stockholm Syndrome to claim that there was any positive religious effects there.

Look, if you want to argue that religion can have a positive effect on the arts, you need to be making an argument about something like the Sutras. And then we can have a spirited discussion about whether the bump from having monks contemplate and codify the arts into something that could be passed down to later generations outweighs the loss from dogmatism and repression caused by presenting future generations with religiously prescribed limits. That's an argument I'd be willing to have, though I would still come down against the Sutras. But seriously, claiming that Michelangelo got a boost in the arts from religion is like claiming that Galileo got a boost in the sciences from religion.

It's an embarrassing argument and I am embarrassed for you.

-Username17

[tzor]

I'm really having a hard time trying to understand what this argument is all about. The Sistine Chapel was commissioned by a pope; of course he is going to want a religious theme; it's his money! All art is going to reflect the desires of the patron. If that patron is religious so is the art, if that patron is royalty, so will be the art, if that person is upper middle merchant class, so will be the art.

One of the greatest Middle Ages paintings is just a painting of some merchant couple; but the presence of perspective and the reflection of a concave mirror was big stuff in that time. In India, the royalty had portrait paintings made so that the eyes literally seemed to follow you around the room (it's a 3d painting technique) in addition to all the various religious paintings they also commissioned. (Yes I did jump not only across a continent but a couple of centuries.)

It is not the advent of atheism that freed up the artist but the increase in the patron population. (That and the rise of artists who would paint without an immediate patron whose paintings might sit for years before being sold, while they themselves were mostly broke.)

[mean_liar]

This was my earlier argument but it didn't get much traction.

Frank, I thought I did make the argument about the positive effect of religion on the arts: common framework of appreciation and patronage being the biggest two.

You, on the other hand, are trying to uphold the crazily absolutist position that all religion is negative on the arts without exception. It makes you out as a zealot. I mean, seriously - you actually can't imagine anyone at all being positively inspired by religion to create something beautiful? It just doesn't exist in Frankworld?

Hell, if you said, "religion is a net negative and I feel like its constraining influences outweigh any positive benefit its had" then you'd have some nuance to fall back on. But the fact that one single positive outcome from religion's presence negates your argument is still its most glaring flaw and I cannot understand why you cling to it so fiercely.

[Username17]

You, on the other hand, are trying to uphold the crazily absolutist position that all religion is negative on the arts without exception.

Hell, if you said, "religion is a net negative and I feel like its constraining influences outweigh any positive benefit its had" then you'd have some nuance to fall back on.

Those two statements are the same statement. Your net effects are your effects.

You don't get to claim positive effects for murdering people just because other people survive. The fact that butterfly effects mandate that everyone alive today would not be alive today if any of the major attrocities of the past never occured does not constitute a silver lining. If your net effects are negative, your effects are negative!

-Username17

[Psychic Robot]

mean_liar, don't bother. Crazy cannot be reasoned with.

[Rejakor]

Okay, let me open by noting that this thread has been pretty heated, even by the standards of the den. Religion and Politics, the two things that will cause heated discussion, at best, anywhere. That's because belief causes people to have emotional responses which inhibit their ability to discuss things logically/make logical arguments. That's fact. Whether that's belief in christianity, sarah palin, communism, atheism or truthiness, belief is belief, although i'm not accusing anyone here of anything - that comes later.

A couple of responses here, to a couple of things that haven't been responded to already:

One.

Mean_liar, regardless of your personal belief in your crusading mighty logic and the sheer unfairness of other people making arguments against your mighty points... regardless of any points you might be trying to make... you're being a dick.

'Oh, right, I was only making that argument to see how you would act, hah, and look you fell for it' - Seriously? You made an argument that was a bit silly, a bit stupid, maybe it was late at night or something...but rather than man up and admit that you're wrong, or present points to reinforce it, you go 'haha you fell for it' - do you honestly have that low a sense of self-esteem?

Not only is that indicative of a bunch of things, it's incredibly, mind-boggling assholish to the person you're arguing against. PL is arguing honestly, putting forth points and presenting his view of the facts, which conflicts with yours, and you respond by lying. Either in your original argument, or in your half-assed retraction statement. I really like the Den. I really like the Den because people here are incredibly, almost ludicrously more honest about themselves, their opinions and what they think than anyone else on the internet which is almost immeasurably better than the way people act in RL, at least as far as honesty goes. And you abused that trust. I personally disagree with your arguments, but I don't give two shits about that. Someone with an opposed point of view is a good thing, as it forces me to think about my beliefs and assumptions. But the lying thing? That's a black mark against you in my book, and it will be a long time, if ever, before I forget it.

Also, PR, are you roying or what? Your comments are shrouded innuendo at best and canned spam at worst.

Now, actual points that haven't been answered.

This was my earlier argument but it didn't get much traction.

Frank, I thought I did make the argument about the positive effect of religion on the arts: common framework of appreciation and patronage being the biggest two.

Whoa, whoa, hold on there bucko. You're trying to say that if the only art-jobs going around are art-jobs drawing religious stuff then every time someone views art of a human they know it's a saint or jesus or something, and that's a good thing? Restriction of creativity = good arts? That is literally what you are saying. Before you deny it or try to talk around the point, read it, it's right there ^, I think you might be surprised to find that that's exactly what you're fucking saying.

Oh, and patronage? Uh. Okay, so the theocracy takes all the money. And then it uses some of it to create religious art. That's good, right, cause otherwise no money whatsoever would be spent on art at all, right? Wrong. The reason the theocratic authority, despite the fucking prohibition on idol worshiping, spends so much on creating idols to worship is because it was a way to show power and wealth - and who had those? And... if the theocratic authority didn't have them, wouldn't someone else have them? And wouldn't those people want to show it through art and idols and shiny jewellery and crap? So... perhaps patronage would exist without the christian church? You know, like before the roman catholic church, when the arts fucking flourished, oh, and after the fall of it's stranglehold on wealth and power, the fucking renaissance? Perhaps when the wealth and power are not in the christian church's cold dead hands, even more is spent on art, and not just religious art, but all damn kinds of art?

Wow!

You, on the other hand, are trying to uphold the crazily absolutist position that all religion is negative on the arts without exception. It makes you out as a zealot. I mean, seriously - you actually can't imagine anyone at all being positively inspired by religion to create something beautiful? It just doesn't exist in Frankworld?

Strawman, see below.

Hell, if you said, "religion is a net negative and I feel like its constraining influences outweigh any positive benefit its had" then you'd have some nuance to fall back on. But the fact that one single positive outcome from religion's presence negates your argument is still its most glaring flaw and I cannot understand why you cling to it so fiercely.

Religion has positive effects.

Religion has negative effects.

Religion's negative effects outweigh it's positive effects.

Religion is a negative influence.

I'm sorry, do you not fucking speak english or something? Something being a negative influence does not in any way suggest that it cannot have positive effects. In fact, the world being the way it is means that something with negative effects will without a fucking doubt have some kind of positive effect, somewhere.

Absolutism is absolutely horrible. Don't subscribe to it. It's based on simplification of complex concepts by discarding all but the most important point of data, and then making assumptions based on the 'fact' that it is the only piece of data. Yeah. Have you spotted the logical inconsistencies there yet?

[mean_liar]

Mean_liar... you're being a dick.

I can accept that. It was a mistake, but re-reading it above I can't imagine anyone having the sort of patience to put up with PhoneLobster's talking past you to his strawmen. Harry Potter and Star Wars aren't high art.

Realizing that is not stupid or wrong.

PL is arguing honestly, putting forth points and presenting his view of the facts, which conflicts with yours, and you respond by lying.

That's total bullshit. PL was certainly NOT arguing honestly. Or, if he was, it was presented so poorly and fumblingly that for his sake I assumed he was arguing dishonestly, since the alternative is that he's got some serious problems with his ability to communicate.

But the lying thing? That's a black mark against you in my book, and it will be a long time, if ever, before I forget it.

Considering I don't know you and so don't respect you that much or consider it lying so much as being a dick to a dick - in a minor way, mind you - I don't care.

PL was out of line and his fuckery had reached whitehot magnitudes.

I apologize and accept that it was not the right way to respond, but I can't see how his sustained bullshittery goes uncommented.

It also ignores that the rest of what I sent his way was direct and reasonably lucid, and he ignored it to yell past me again.

This was my earlier argument but it didn't get much traction.

Frank, I thought I did make the argument about the positive effect of religion on the arts: common framework of appreciation and patronage being the biggest two.

Whoa, whoa, hold on there bucko. You're trying to say that if the only art-jobs going around are art-jobs drawing religious stuff then every time someone views art of a human they know it's a saint or jesus or something, and that's a good thing? Restriction of creativity = good arts? That is literally what you are saying. Before you deny it or try to talk around the point, read it, it's right there ^, I think you might be surprised to find that that's exactly what you're fucking saying.

I'll admit it cuts both ways, but there's a reason why most commonly-considered "good" art falls into two categories:

1. Commonly-understood themes
2. Novel presentations

Van Gogh and the impressionists are considered shit-hot for their use of color and space. Kandinsky and the abstracts are shit-hot for their re-examination of what art is. Their work is novel.

When someone these days comes along and does up a brightly-colored and emphatic expression of their mental difficulties, most of the public yawns and moves on because it doesn't speak to them and their technique has already been done.

Art that doesn't speak to its audience in some way generally fails. In the West, religion provided a strong way for that communication to occur for a very long time.

When you explore the same theme over and over again, that's bad and that's the pitfall of religion. But if you're babbling to yourself and not trying to connect your audience with the art, then that's generally bad too.

Oh, and patronage? Uh. Okay, so the theocracy takes all the money. ... So... perhaps patronage would exist without the christian church? You know, like before the roman catholic church, when the arts fucking flourished, oh, and after the fall of it's stranglehold on wealth and power, the fucking renaissance? ...

There's merit to this, but where do you draw the bounds? What sets the bar?

Is capitalism and patronage itself a net negative because if art was extolled above everything else, only then would it truly flourish? Does reliance on patronage inherently mean that because some people have to work rather than create that art is limited and suffering?

You're setting the bar to say that religion, despite its patronage, could have given MORE towards the creation of art. That can be said about a lot of things and it needs a better defining to really be considered.

Now, all that said, most of the paintings produced by the Renaissance were religious in nature. So it seems that your conception of religion as "The Catholic Church pays for art and merchants pay for more/better art" needs to recognize that those merchants are paying mostly for religious art.

So, is that still negative? Only when it's personal portraits and pastoral scenes and what-not is it positive?

Not only that, but its a profoundly Western view. Eastern poetry and art is generally tied up in Taoist, Shinto or Confucian mindsets, so you have a similar problem there as far as common context and religious themes, but you also have it divorced from an overarching church in control of the economy.


...

Religion is now, and always has been, a negative influence on artistic endeavor. No exceptions.

I can't imagine where I got the idea that Frank was talking in absolute terms.

Always been a negative influence? No exceptions = no exceptions.

This is not a "net effect" argument.

[Username17]

I can't imagine where I got the idea that Frank was talking in absolute terms.

Always been a negative influence? No exceptions = no exceptions.

This is not a "net effect" argument.

Net effects are absolute effects.

You are trying to convince us that one step forward and two steps back constitutes one step forward that we should be grateful for when in fact it is one step backwards which we should be angry about.

-Username17

[Crissa]

I don't get the difficulty of this argument.

Religion paid for great art, yes.

Religion killed and suppressed other artists, including and possibly especially, art produced by prior or other religions.

Someone here seems to be arguing that the creation of Christian frescos seems to outweigh the Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Cathar, and etc art and artists smashed to pieces under the same regime.

-Crissa