I really appreciate your responses – while I basically remain at my POV, unable to really invest in religion in an ontological way, I do feel as part of an aged, Christian-based culture and feel very deeply about some aspects of this heritage, without really being Christian myself.
For me, emotional experience of the world and expanding my mind has certainly led me to see religion differently than as a 15-year old, meaning much more reapectfully.
I still fit into the atheist ane agnostic cohort but I see religion as part of the fabrics of civilization today. And transient, like language.
But I value a lot of Christian culture (e.g. Bachs music and prior art) and some Christian values (e.g. ethics of forgiveness and human rights)
Bach, man, if you look at my HN comments you'll probably see Bach mentioned at least 10% of the time. His music is unlike anything else out there: all individual parts unique and interesting yet everything forming a unified whole, constantly, across every single measure. You can listen to a cello line and be fully entranced and then listen to a violin going at the same time, likewise love it for itself, and then have the ability to then listen to them simultaneously and hear the harmonies. Every other composer I've listened to has a "dominant" section/theme, for example let's say the violins are playing a melody and the cellos are acting as a harmonic filler. It's beautiful, but listening to the cellos by themselves could be pretty boring. But with Bach, every single instrument is doing something enjoyable at the same time.
It sounds pathetic but sometimes I think his music has saved my life at a certain point. The fact that all voices are always "singing" makes it also very enjoyable to practise his music.
