Response to Lacey Benter's post on Abstract Art, Abstract Music, and Abstract Religion

I like your comparison of Beethoven's music to Polloc's art. The idea of expression through a creative medium is very appealing, since there are things that it seems cannot be expressed any other way. Beethoven and Polloc must then have been extremely imaginative people to have emotions or ideas that could not be expressed with words or action. What is fortunate for us is that they were very talented at finding a way to express themselves in the medium of their choice, so that their audience could try to make their own interpretation or comprehend the message/emotion behind the art. Another artist that I can think of who shares this same talent is Bach with the organ. He creates patterns within his music in which eventually the listener becomes lost in with his own thoughts, in order to reflect about life. Most of Bach's music was composed for church mass in his time, and perhaps this was the intention behind much of his work.

Truth

In the poem On the Road Home, Wallace Stevens questions the idea of absolute truth. He states that there is no such thing as the truth. This is true when considering what source a truth comes from. Truth is only true to the person who believes it. The world must be measured by eye indeed, since truth changes according to the observer. Consider the Kurosawa movie Rashomon, where witnesses called to testify at the trial of a murder each have their own version of the truth, and no story seems to corroborate with the others. When trying to explain truths in the form of religion, obviously they will have different interpretations that do not fit for everyone. In addition, religions may assert untruth, or myths that followers are expected to believe. The danger in belief of untruth occurs when violence is the end result from the beliefs that result. This is what Stevens seems to suggest in the fifth stanza (or at least whoever he was talking to) by saying "The idols have seen lots of poverty, Snakes and gold and lice, But not the truth". What then is the truth? What do we owe to our existence? Or is seeking the knowledge of the truth like seeking sour grapes (first stanza)? I don't believe this, but will instead continue to seek the truth in this existence, since it is up to the observer to interpret what he sees in order to understand a mystery.

Sunday Morning

Wallace Stevens seems to believe that death is the mother of beauty. His assertion is that the paradise that exists is better than the world we see today, where fruit do not go overripe, and women do not stray through leaves of obliteration (VI, V). And yet, he seems to question the existence of a God or world hereafter, by calling Earth an island of solitude, unsponsored (VIII). Perhaps a compromise is reached by believing in a spirit world and paradise after death without God. In addition, Stevens seems to have a solid connection to nature by referencing mother earth as where people go to join after death (VI). He also discredits the idea of a great paradise after death as being more than the paradise we can see here like April's green (IV). However I am confident that he believes that death will be every bit of paradise as life may have been by saying all of our dreams will be fulfilled through death (V). These insinuations about death and life after seem to contradict each other, making the mystery even more mysterious.

There are many religions that seem to claim knowledge of the life after death, or the spirit world. Many claim that belief in a God and some prophet will get you to heaven. However, what is the true nature of heaven? Does it resemble our existence here on earth like what Stevens seems to imply, with a strong connection to life and rebirth, perhaps in a different plane of existence? The closest example paralleling the idea of life after death resembling that of the life we know today can be seen in the movie What Dreams May Come. This movie suggests that in death we will be reunited with those we knew in life, in a world that somewhat resembles what we knew of life alive. The connection to Earth and life on Earth is very strong, with the same settings. However, paradise takes on a surreal aspect like an impressionistic painting, or something Jackson Polloc would paint as well when the main character lives in a painting made by his still living wife. Perhaps heaven or life after death is really what the mind makes it, which is heavily impacted by our alive life. Therefore Steven's idea of fulfilment of dreams would make sense. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause (Shakespeare).

Abstraction and Religion

The creation of art seems to be inextricably tied to religion ever since humans could express themselves. Paleolithic artists undoubtedly drew cave paintings to express dreams, hunting, and thought. Imagination and dreams are often connected to vision quests in Native American religions. The mechanics of belief also ties back into art in the way the brain is structured in a way to make belief in abstractions possible. This goes back to Mithen's description of the difference between neanderthal and modern man. In addition, Golding in Paths to the Absolute captures the relationship between man and art through the quote from John Dewey: "a mode of communication between man and his environment," (pg 114). It seems then that the environment inspires humans to create new environments and visualizations. This is how religions are created by imagining other places foreign to what we can observe, or beings that are also abstract.

Its seems that Jackson Pollock tried to capture the abstract nature of religion in his art by rendering his imagination of what that would be on canvas. Consider the artwork Guardians of the Secret, which mirrors beliefs of Mayas and Ancient Egyptians (Golding, 124). They believed in a sort of underworld linked to the world above through a square hole where people could enter. This is an analogy for abstract thought coming from observation. The Ancient Egyptians and Mayans created art to represent these beliefs. Therefore abstract thought connected to art is no new concept, but has changed through the ages.

Reponse to Catrina Poor's blog on Adam and Eve

This Adam and Eve nonsense was developed in order to explain why people act the way they do. No one knew about genetics or psychology/neurology when the Bible was written. The story is like any other myth created by religions to explain the world when no means existed other than the imagination. My guess is that people wore clothing to protect themselves from the elements, and was incorporated into culture by becoming tradition. Therefore it was incorporated into religion that survives to this day based upon survival techniques.

Red

The movie Red was very philosophical. The Judge questioned basic morality based upon the effects of turning up crime or vice. Red also questioned choices made in life that lead to misfortune. Being a judge made the Judge to make a decision about one case that he felt he wrongly decided. That decision came to haunt him for the rest of his life. I understand that being a judge could lead to deep questioning of morality and laws, but that doesn't mean that it will ruin your life. It seems that those who are judges are highly regarded and generally have families and social lives. The film seems to take awhile to unfold, but is tied up in a twist at the end, like a tootsie roll. I enjoyed the film because of its acoustics and picture. The questions about religion were also interesting, since morality is a seemingly arbitrary agreement. Obviously survival would be at the top of such mutual agreements. However, I wonder about laws today, whether they were conceived through the best means for survival or those that are from religions. Who gets to decide morals for us all? I believe that survival is the best.

Response to comment on Oliver's Atheism as a religion blog

No, scientific theories are not proven, they can only be disproven or supported. They are supported by evidence through experimentation by many different groups of qualified scientists to be as objective as possible. In addition, any finding that is published in a scientific journal is peer evaluated to maintain the objectivity of the results. Therefore change in thinking in the scientific world is a very controlled process. However, any theory believed today as fact could conceivably be disproven or modified in the future in light of new results and conclusions from research. No theory is absolute.

On a different note, I agree with Oliver that Atheism with a capital letter is a religion of its own. Just because someone does not believe in God as a part of their religion does not mean that their religion is not one. A religion by definition is the set of ideals that a person lives his/her life by. Therefore any set of ideals designed to govern how a person lives, no matter how ridiculous, could be considered a religion.