[extropy-chat] Atheist Songs (was: Atheist Hymn Book)

[Eliezer S. Yudkowsky]

Damien Broderick wrote:
> 
> O my There-Is-No-God!
> 
> "From one cell to a primate, to our present bipedal forms"
> 
> Must these attempts be so doGgone *awful* and gruesomely comical?

Yes.  Laziness is a human universal; by default, would-be authors use 
their imaginations as little as possible.  If they feel a vague twinge 
of envy for religious hymns, they'll write atheistic hymns in religious 
style.  Line-by-line imitation is optional but preferred.

One suspects that those who have the wonderful idea of writing atheistic 
versions of religious hymns, are too much in awe of their own audacity 
to concentrate on craftsmanship in prosody.  Political diatribes are 
generally so loved, by their adherents, for being on Their Side, that 
they rarely rise to the level of art.  The work is held only to the 
standard of being on Their Side.  Who would dare call it doggerel? 
Wouldn't that insult the Cause?

The thought that you might need to reach deep down and find something 
sincere and emotional and powerful, that would exist in its own right 
even if humanity had walked its path without ever blundering into 
religion - to create a work of art that would be art in its own right, 
even if no such thing as religion had ever existed - to let that art 
take the form it must take in its own right, by its own demands - most 
people, including atheists, don't make such routine use of their 
imaginations.

Should atheists have songs too?  Of course.  Song is as old as the human 
species.  When someone who happens to be an atheist sets words to music 
to celebrate something worthwhile, a celebration that would have been 
invented in its own right even if humanity had never stumbled into the 
trap of religion, then I will sing along.

A rocket rising into the sky has the power to bring tears to my eyes. 
In its own way it is a very real atheist hymn; it is a glory that has no 
supernaturalism in it.

> Damien
> [I know, should try my own hand at it. But I suspect the enterprise 
> is basically misguided. Although "Imagine" seems to have been worth a 
> try, even if it has turned into "Kumbayah".]  

What do you feel deeply enough to write about?

A space shuttle rising into the sky...  The deaths of the many mortal 
generations, the ones forever lost to us...  The inconceivable immensity 
of the unfolding story of humankind, and its hoped-for triumph, 
flowering across galaxies...  The stern will of science, to find the 
truth whether or not it hurts...  Isaac Newton who taught us so much, 
who knew full well that he was a child upon the seashore; and he died, 
and the worms ate his soul, and he never knew the answer to any of his 
questions...

They would make fine subjects for songs, provided that you crafted the 
songs without ever once thinking about religion, without noticing that 
humanity had ever taken that wrong turn in its history.

Just put some effort into craftsmanship.  I would sing a song in our 
lost Darwin's memory and not be ashamed - if it were a good enough song 
to not shame Darwin, rather than nitwit doggerel.

I don't pretend that I can write songs.  I have not the prosodic talent 
to produce more than doggerel, whatever my will.  But sometimes I write.

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence