Art and Religion

Prismatic567 · December 23, 2019, 2:57am

Bob:

Prismatic567:

I have mentioned my reference to ‘religion’ is traceable to the evolution of religion since religions first emerged within humans, e.g. primal religions, animism
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animism

In the early days of primitive religions, the dominant emotion was that of ‘fear’ leading to animal, property, human sacrifices to the gods. This is even evident in the later religions, e.g. the disgusting intent of Abraham to chop off his son’s head for God.
How can that be related to the arts or aesthetics?

The artistic tendencies of humans came later in the evolutionary ladder.
Thus art is not akin to religion.
The religious drives preceded the artistic faculty within the human brain.

First of all: I understand how you see this subject from an evolutionary viewpoint. You have mentioned where art and religion are “sparked” in the brain. This is all very interesting, but we are not talking about mankind prior to culture, but the development of culture in mankind from about 3000 b.c., which was a sophisticated journey, not a primal one. It was then that religion became stories told and collected so that they gradually spread across the areas where cultivation was taking place. Being separated from another, the cultures developed in various forms, but they were sophisticated all the same. Karen Armstrong’s “The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions” offers a rich and insightful account of the Axial revolution as the tumultuous period in which the world’s great religions arose. They are all accompanied by numerous areas of art, and in fact, to begin with, were the subject of that art, because the connection between religion and dreams is fact.

What I have presented are recognized facts.

In a way, the world’s great religions did arise within a certain period of say 5000 years or 10,000 years. Note Hinduism [the early Vedas] arose more than 10, 000 years.
Yes, during this period, there was a flourishing of arts from these religions.
You should have qualified this in your OP earlier on, but regardless;
the principle remain, the arts that follow was driven by the inherent artistic drives of SOME of the believers and not because of the religion directly.
Religion preceded the arts and NOT vice versa.

Note the control point:
There is not only art in religion but in every field of human activities and knowledge since the artistic drive in human emerged tens of thousands years ago.

The oldest known cave paintings are more than 44,000 years old (art of the Upper Paleolithic), found in both the Franco-Cantabrian region in western Europe, and in the caves in the district of Maros (Sulawesi, Indonesia).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_painting

Therefore you cannot jump to conclusion that ‘religion’ during the said axial period was responsible for the arts that followed.

I did not take the story of Abraham literally.

I am highlighting the following principle.

My point was, with fear of the existential crisis and God providing the relief, believers will go to the worst extremes to secure that relief from the crisis [re a promise of eternal life in heaven].

This is evident from human sacrifices to please the gods within human history;
then we have Muslims who sacrificed their own lives to expedite their passage to eternal life in paradise, and the range of sacrifices [property, time, finance, social, knowledge, etc.] believers are willing to make for their God [which is an illusion].

Bob · December 23, 2019, 7:20am

Karen Armstrong::

The period 800—200 BCE has been termed the Axial Age because it proved pivotal to humanity. Society had grown much more aggressive. Iron had been discovered, and this was the beginning of the Iron Age. Better weapons had been invented, and while those weapons look puny compared to what we’re dealing with now, it was still a shock.

The first Axial Age also occurred at a time when individualism was just beginning. As a result of urbanization and a new market economy, people were no longer living on lonely hilltops but in a thriving, aggressive, commercial economy. Power was shifting from king and priest, palace and temple to the marketplace. Inequality and exploitation became more apparent as the pace of change accelerated in the cities and people began to realize that their own behavior could affect the fate of future generations.

So the Axial Age marks the beginning of humanity as we now know it. During this period, men and women became conscious of their existence, their own nature, and their limitations in an unprecedented way. In the Axial Age countries, a few men sensed fresh possibilities and broke away from the old traditions. People who participated in this great transformation were convinced that they were on the brink of a new era and that nothing would ever be the same. They sought change in the deepest reaches of their beings, looked for greater inwardness in their spiritual lives, and tried to become one with a transcendent reality. After this pivotal era, it was felt that only by reaching beyond their limits could human beings become most fully themselves.
adishakti.org//a_new_axial … strong.htm

So much to the axial age.

You can see the error in your thinking by just acknowledging that you don‘t have to be an artist to appreciate art. Then you say that religion precedes art, whilst giving me an example where art has been found preceding [by far] the axial age.

What I believe is that art and religion went hand in hand throughout the development of mankind and became equally sophisticated as time went on. In fact, religion without art seems to be dead religion, and the beginning of religious ideology. Living faith (in whatever) has found expression in various forms of art, and this has been the subjects of devotion of millions. Note: art is not just painting. So all I am doing is saying that I believe that religion is a form of expression that goes hand in hand with artistry using various methods of expression.

But that isn’t the issue is it. You have already shown that art in a primitive form was around 44,000 BCE, so it wasn’t anything new for it to be around in a more sophisticated way later.

Well, talking about “chopping off” someone’s head, which wasn’t the sacrificial method, does seem to suggest that.

I see my case as proven.

Armstrong::

Most significantly, it is the time when all the great world religions came into being. And in every single case, the spiritualities that emerged during the Axial Age—Taoism and Confucianism in China, monotheism in Israel, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism in India, and Greek rationalism in Europe—began with a recoil from violence, with looking into the heart to find the sources of violence in the human psyche. The conviction that the world was awry was fundamental to these spiritualities. One of the things that is very striking is that all the great sages were living in a time like our own—a time full of fear, violence, and horror. Their experience of utter impotence in a cruel world impelled them to seek the highest goals and an absolute reality in the depths of their beings.

For example, the China of Confucius and Lao-tzu was engaged for centuries in one war after another. The whole of the very ancient civilization of China was becoming more aggressive. And you have that understanding very strongly in Confucius as he looks out on the world and laments loudly while, at the same time, he tries to rebuild it by recrafting the old rituals in a way that brings forward their compassionate and altruistic potential. That essential dynamic of compassion is summed up in the Golden Rule, which was first enunciated by Confucius around 500 BCE: "Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you.”

On the Indian subcontinent at this time, there was a major economic and political turnaround. Suddenly powerful kingdoms and empires were being created, and they relied on force. People all over India were equating horror with the new violence in their society and in the marketplace, where merchants were preying aggressively upon one another. Many of their philosophies developed a doctrine of nonviolence as a way to counter violence by refusing any form of it whatsoever.

The fifth century was terrifying in Greece as well. While it was a time of great artistic creativity, it was also a time of huge violence. The Greeks were, in many respects, a terrible people, and yet every year in Athens they would stage the political events of that year in their great tragedies. These were written as ways of looking at the tragic implications of what was going on in their midst, of calling everything into question and really plumbing the human experience of suffering. So violence and suffering seem to be a sine qua nonof a spiritual quantum leap forward.

Prismatic567 · December 24, 2019, 3:15am

Bob:

Prismatic567:

…the principle remain, the arts that follow was driven by the inherent artistic drives of SOME of the believers and not because of the religion directly.
Religion preceded the arts and NOT vice versa.

Note the control point:
There is not only art in religion but in every field of human activities and knowledge since the artistic drive in human emerged tens of thousands years ago.

The oldest known cave paintings are more than 44,000 years old (art of the Upper Paleolithic), found in both the Franco-Cantabrian region in western Europe, and in the caves in the district of Maros (Sulawesi, Indonesia).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_painting

You can see the error in your thinking by just acknowledging that you don‘t have to be an artist to appreciate art. Then you say that religion precedes art, whilst giving me an example where art has been found preceding [by far] the axial age.

What I believe is that art and religion went hand in hand throughout the development of mankind and became equally sophisticated as time went on.
In fact, religion without art seems to be dead religion, and the beginning of religious ideology.
Living faith (in whatever) has found expression in various forms of art, and this has been the subjects of devotion of millions. Note: art is not just painting. So all I am doing is saying that I believe that religion is a form of expression that goes hand in hand with artistry using various methods of expression.

Nope!
What is an ‘alive’ religion is grounded on its founder and holy texts under the direction of God or otherwise.
Art is secondary to the above.

Note that art discovered to be 40,000 years old is not attributed to religion.
The axial age range from 10000, 5000 or 3000 years ago.
Therefore arts preceded religions which arose during the “axial” age.

The point was Abraham was willing to kill and sacrifice his son to God.
This is the principle re the test of faith of a believer in God.

Armstrong::

Most significantly, it is the time when all the great world religions came into being. And in every single case, the spiritualities that emerged during the Axial Age—Taoism and Confucianism in China, monotheism in Israel, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism in India, and Greek rationalism in Europe—began with a recoil from violence, with looking into the heart to find the sources of violence in the human psyche. The conviction that the world was awry was fundamental to these spiritualities. One of the things that is very striking is that all the great sages were living in a time like our own—a time full of fear, violence, and horror. Their experience of utter impotence in a cruel world impelled them to seek the highest goals and an absolute reality in the depths of their beings.

For example, the China of Confucius and Lao-tzu was engaged for centuries in one war after another. The whole of the very ancient civilization of China was becoming more aggressive. And you have that understanding very strongly in Confucius as he looks out on the world and laments loudly while, at the same time, he tries to rebuild it by recrafting the old rituals in a way that brings forward their compassionate and altruistic potential. That essential dynamic of compassion is summed up in the Golden Rule, which was first enunciated by Confucius around 500 BCE: "Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you.”

On the Indian subcontinent at this time, there was a major economic and political turnaround. Suddenly powerful kingdoms and empires were being created, and they relied on force. People all over India were equating horror with the new violence in their society and in the marketplace, where merchants were preying aggressively upon one another. Many of their philosophies developed a doctrine of nonviolence as a way to counter violence by refusing any form of it whatsoever.

The fifth century was terrifying in Greece as well. While it was a time of great artistic creativity, it was also a time of huge violence. The Greeks were, in many respects, a terrible people, and yet every year in Athens they would stage the political events of that year in their great tragedies. These were written as ways of looking at the tragic implications of what was going on in their midst, of calling everything into question and really plumbing the human experience of suffering. So violence and suffering seem to be a sine qua nonof a spiritual quantum leap forward.

I don’t have much respect for Armstrong’s intellectual credibility which is full of confirmation bias.
Armstrong was merely an ex-nun [sister] in a monastery who happened to read selectively and write a lot without much substance and groundings.

Bob · October 21, 2021, 6:40am

Despite what the conversation with Prismatic brought forth, I am experiencing the connection of religion/spirituality with art in many ways. I intend to bring more contributions, because I see the problem of religion in the devaluation of the broad spectrum of art.

If anyone has contributions, please feel welcome …