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Was JS Bach an atheist?

24K views 113 replies 27 participants last post by  mmsbls 
#1 ·
Is it possible to prove Bach was an atheist, or even why bother trying I expect you'll say? I take some axioms that logically express a path to a possible answer.

Axiom one. JS Bach was a highly intelligent man.

Axiom two. JS Bach was a grieving father and husband.

He lost ten children in infancy and his first wife died while he was away and he didn't even attend her funeral. Taking just these two axioms you could conclude that perhaps he had doubts about the existence of a loving God although unable to express them.

Axiom three. He had access to various reading materials in Leipzig University and he lived around the start of the Age of Enlightenment.

Axiom four. He wrote music because from a young age he realised he had a special talent and spent his entire life making the most of it, sacred or secular. I doubt anyone listens much to the words when listening to his cantatas (which I think are the greatest body of work ever written). Listen to BWV 54 or BWV 4 or BWV 134, they are truly amazing pieces and it is the music that matters.

Axiom Five. He had to 'believe' in God as he may have been burnt at the stake if he expressed doubts. Also the church provided him with an income and a place to show off his talents.

This is an interesting article I came across which puts the argument over better then I can: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/Bach-Atheist.htm

I suppose I have to answer the why bother questions. Same as a mountaineer climbs mountains because they are there. I am interested in important figures in history and possibly what they really thought about religion. Sorry if this offends anyone!
 
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#94 ·
You cheeky so and so, Luke. How big is your head on a good day? There are many more like me you do know that and when the great science god inthe sky comes a calling we are all going to a bigger better planet and stuff. But we taking our Bach with us, too!

I thought religious people where meant to be nice and all that these days? I can imagine a zealot like you would fit in well in 15th century Europe calling for witches to be burnt or drowned. :)
 
#99 ·
You cheeky so and so, Luke. How big is your head on a good day?
Why thank you, my cheeks have been rosy today. I presume my head is about as big on any given day as it is on any other.

I thought religious people where meant to be nice and all that these days? I can imagine a zealot like you would fit in well in 15th century Europe calling for witches to be burnt or drowned. :)
Oh, I have comported myself in about as cordial a manner as I can. Your own expressions here and elsewhere, which routinely either dive within or border on inanity, are such that it's difficult to look at the majority of it without wondering whether or not you are being ironic.

So, pardon any uncharacteristic notes of condescension, if you will. It merely incenses a fellow a teeny bit when you pretend to be a man of letters, while producing content that has all the interest and substance of the paste that goes into Taco Bell meat. If you had registered any of the points proffered to you thus far by your interlocutors in this thread, we might not collectively be making light of your pretentiousness.
 
#104 · (Edited)
I sincerely believe that the Big Bang occurred. After all there are still background microwave radiations from it. How the Big Bang happened I don't know but science hasn't given up and just gone all diest on it! No prime mover, no need. After all how do you explain where the primer mover came from?
 
#105 · (Edited)
After all how do you explain where the primer mover came from?
See part 2 of my ontological argument (re: contingency, necessity, potentiality, and actuality).

I sincerely believe that the Big Bang occurred.
As do I. And for clarity's sake, I am not a Young Earth Creationist either. There is no conflict for me, given copious familiarity with the original languages of the bible and it's text itself, between evolution, the current cosmological models of science, and the biblical texts.

I am skeptical of scientific theories as a matter of course, just as any other academic worth his/her proverbial salt is, but I don't find either theorem (evolution, and the Big Bang as a model of the age of the universe and a description of it's beginning) problematic as a Christian. See my favorite physicists on that very subject. As intimated before, it's more likely than not that you're unaware of what the general shape of my philosophical and scientific ideas can possibly look like as a Christian. That I am a theistic evolutionist by no means makes me a Unitarian.

Moreover, none of this establishes why you aren't as wrong as black is opposite to white in your assumptions about Bach and his intellectual experience of religion.
 
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