Can Religion Move An Atheist?

[Duncer]

I would have thought not, but I watched this woman sing live many times. It didn't make me religious, but the sheer quality and beauty of her voice made me well up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6vR-TQ7n68

[jomifl]

No words or deities needed..apart from Jaqueline du Pré

[vetuste_ennemi]

Mon Coeur s’ouvre à ta Voix moves me. So does Das Liebestod. Do they count? Or am I getting confused with Khandro's "They don't know what they're missing" thread?

[jomifl]

Like this V_E?

[vetuste_ennemi]

Very nice indeed, Jom. I first heard this (sung by Giulietta Simionato who died only recently) when I was eighteen. (Yes, there was a woman involved). Later my first wife and I had the recording by Marion Anderson as "Softly awakes my heart". A favourite more recent version since I discovered Youtube is the one by the divine Shirley Verrett.

[jomifl]

I'll look that one up V_E, Ta.

[naomi24]

VE, I love that …… always have - but Puccini’s my guy. Buckets have been wept – frequently.

[wildwood]

I like many religious Hymns too and the bass pipes of a church organ tickles my toes. It has never moved me to return to/become religious though. If that is hypocritical... though tltties.

[plautus]

"...and the bass pipes of a church organ tickles my toes." Indeed they do; when I use to play one many years ago I used to take my shoes off just to feel the deep throb.

[birdie1971]

Duncer - “... Birdie, my thoughts were more, would those of an atheistic bent disallow/disavow a beautiful song like this purely because the connotations were religious?...”

Absolutely not as far as I'm concerned.

[naomi24]

Argorstan, //I've read many answers and seen very good points made by atheist contributors , but I can't see how life occurred randomly or created itself . //

Fair enough - but why attribute it to the God of Abraham, for whose existence there is no evidence whatsoever? Why not just say 'I don't know how it happened'? – because that’s the truth. You don’t know how it happened and neither does anyone else. I simply don't understand this irrational attribution.

[beso]

It is the sound that moves the emotions. The actual words are irrelevant.

A foreign friend of mine was horrified on becoming fluent in English when he discovered the actual meaning of the English songs he loved as an adolescent.

[beso]

Personally I fiind Amazing Grace rather trite. There have been some hideous versions.