#organ

The triumph of plainsong, of polyphony, and of truly liturgical organ playing, in the first half century of his life, represented for Duruflé the victory of a transcendent, hieratic worldview over the secular and popular aberrations ushered in by the nineteenth century. Their demise in the 1960s meant more than the loss of a well-regarded musical tradition; it was also an assault on the worldview that gave his life meaning. ↗

— James E. Frazier

#organ-music #organ-repertoire #music

Just as no sane farmer would express disappointment because his cow did not lay eggs or hope that his cow might be induced to lay eggs, an intelligent observer should be expected to refrain from critical or hortatory discussion of the functional capacity of the United Nations that is uninformed by an accurate understanding of the realistic possibilities. We have no warrant for being hopeful, disillusioned, cynical, or fearful of the United Nations, unless the expectations that enter into our judgment bear some sensible relationship to the nature of the organization and the limitations set by the political context within which it operates. ↗

— Inis L. Claude

#political-science #united-nations #intelligence

Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man? ↗

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#organized-religion #paradox #religion #religion

I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. ... These two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death. ↗

— George Carlin

#politics #religion #religion

Religion is still useful among the herd - that it helps their orderly conduct as nothing else could. The crude human animal is in-eradicably superstitious, and there is every biological reason why they should be. Take away his Christian god and saints, and he will worship something else... ↗

— H.P. Lovecraft

#mankind #organized-religion #religion #religion

Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest. ↗

— Émile Zola

#civilization #organized-religion #religion #religion

To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and 'improved' by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries ↗

— Richard Dawkins

#organized-religion #religion #religion

One of the greatest tragedies in mankind's entire history may be that morality was hijacked by religion. ↗

— Arthur C. Clarke

#organized-religion #religion #religion

The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries. ↗

— James Madison

#organized-religion #politics #religion #separation-of-church-and-state #religion

I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#organized-religion #philosophy #politics #religion #religion