but the YMCA Jesus pic still makes me laugh:

http://friendlyatheist.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/YMCA.JPG

Like your word 'nebulous' - I think that's quite an accurate description of my religious feelings too. I've been a 'card-carrying' Christian (teenage years: regular prayer, church etc) but lapsed.

I think getting older does have something to do with it - not many people admit it but once you do wake up to your own mortality, the 'is or isn't there something afterwards?' question must occur to all but the diehard atheists (and presumably they have asked similar questions of themselves at some point in order to become atheists).

I think I'm genuinely agnostic (I remember David Attenborough once saying in an interview - and sorry if I misquote through shaky memory - 'The scientifically sound position is: I don't know'), with an inclination to believe in 'something'. I have my own personal Big Questions and neither organised religion nor atheism answers them.

In the face of such uncertainty, I do think art can help. I have appreciated religious art since becoming interested in any art, and in the absence of a concrete faith or design for life, art is a way of being able to respond to such powerful 'myths'/'histories' as the story of Christ, which can be emotionally overwhelming.

a while ago i was actually drawn to the image, and significance, of Angels!! It was a bleak time in my life when i was surrounded by family yet felt completely alone. It,s hard to explain but i think i needed to know that there was something "out there" watching my back, in case it all got too much---it probably sounds a load of bollocks but i drew a hell of a lot of comfort from it. I think it is an age thing-i,m 50 now and feel needed less and less by family/friends --maybe this is the next stage, gaining friendships through religious circles and Oh God..confessing sins!!

has her faith and we have several images of Christ around the house. Despite my atheist tendencies I find them strangely comforting. During a difficult period a couple of years ago I found myself drawn towards Buddhism, not as faith and like you I'm not about to go down the shaved head and sandals route but the basic Buddhist message helped me view life a slightly different way. The four noble truths, the gift shop Buddha image and general peace and calm encouraged helped me at a particular time. Defintely as I get older I'm sure the idea of an afterlife will become more appealing.

did it's best to wring that out of me. But I saw this interview with Marcus Brigstocke in the Evening Standard last week http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/comedy/article-23799556-marcus-brigstocke-... and I was a bit surprised by his position on god:

“I have a God-shaped hole but none of the existing deities seems to fit,” he says. “I find myself by default an atheist but fairly unhappily so. It would be bloody marvellous if there was a god.”
Brigstocke has little time for Richard Dawkins and his devotees. “Atheism is an absence of a deity. I don't like fennel but I don't hang out with other anti-fennelists. I don't want to be defined by an absence of something, I want to be defined by what I do believe in, so I'm stuck.”

That pretty much articulated what I had not been able to. Agnosticism leaves me a bit cold, I just feel you should plant your flag in one camp of the other.

But religious art? Best reason to go to church(es).

Colours to the mast,life long Atheist that I am, I too enjoy religious Art,but then I would being an artist.Do you take any enjoyment in the visual arts? Maybe you're developing an eye for Art not God.If so,welcome,you're going to find your life enriched.

so taken with religious art, but I do like some choral music and enjoy the architecture of many churches. A basic problem with the are is that, allowing for there actually being a Jesus, he probably din't look anything like that.
But I have come to realise in the last 5/6 years that my so-called belief was just based on indoctrination at a young age - not a strict "you must believe this"-type, just a result of it being everywhere when you're young. And for me not questioning it.
The indoctrination of children into religion at an age when their minds are so mouldable is an evil worth fighting against - let them wait and make up their own minds, and the promotion of the idea that this may be all there is so enjoy your life instead of constantly looking forward to the next one seems a sound proposition to me.
But some of the aforementioned by-products of religion I like, and I really love Christmas.

you are becoming a more compassionate person?

I'll only go to church when Richard Dawkins drags me there, but I find this extremely powerful. It's called "Patripassian" by Current 93, with narration by Nick Cave:

art that has been inspired by faith and religion or by tension with it. I love Rachmaninov's Vespers and Handel's Messiah for example.

The Brigstocke comments are interesting. I read Dawkin's God Delusion and related works and came away feeling very deflated by it all. I felt it was an intellectual argument that in the final estimation wasn't worth winning. Faith and belief in the absence of scientific proof is, I believe, one of our core instincts. We mock and declaim such instincts through logic and fact-based knowledge at the expense of our own humanity and ultimately at our peril. Maybe faith is as important a sense as sight and hearing. It's not what you have faith in but the fact that you have it that is the key.

and much religious art of whichever denomination are wonderful things. But there is no god!

and that´s a fact ! Im 42 and I´ve always had respect for religion. I was born and raised a Catholic but it turns out I am crap at it and have decided not to practice any religion. I admire Christian art, especially of the Catholic variety, the churches, cathedrals, paintings but God, I'm afraid not. And If he does exist, he's an ornery son of a bitch who does not care one whit for humanity and when my time comes I plan to say it to his/ her / it's face.

Apropos of nothing.... my wife is very religious, Church Of Scotland, and always has been... she certainly has an inner peace (and a "niceness" that I have never had). It gives her great comfort at all times. If you feel the need, go for it...you might also find that zone. Me? Athiest to the core.

Thanks for starting it Patrick!

May as well put my cards on the table here; I'm Jewish but have been an atheist since the age of 7 (and become more fervently so with every passing year).

Having said that, I'm proud of my heritage. I also love the fact that other people treasure their religions and that they get a lot of comfort for it.

With me, it's like eating fish. Personally I believe that fish tastes repellent. But clearly, that's just my opinion, and one that is entirely subjective. Lots of other people get a lot of enjoyment from eating fish, and I genuinely wish that I did too.

OK, having waffled, back to the original subject of religious art... I actually find it rather touching and moving now, whereas when I was younger (but more agnostic) it left me cold. I also really appreciate visiting places of worship now - of all religions - and again, it used to make me feel really uncomfortable.

Make of that what you will, I think dinner's ready.

Everybody's lookin' for something...

be it UFOs, vampires or ghosts, we all want to be both scared and awestruck by something we can't quite explain. Especially when so many have answers for everything, Dawkins and his ilk are just as confused as the rest of us, and just as scared.Why do you think they make so much noise? A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, if you think you know it all, then you're as dangerous as the relgious extremists.

religion they are thinking about all the baggage that comes with it. In the catholic church - which I know best - ridiculous issues like transubstantiation, the position of moral certainty occupied by the pope, why priest have to be men, and the whole strange idea of prayer to a personal god make the whole edifice appear ludicrous. But strip it right down and the question becomes; "is this universe just here or was it created by something?" I actually think the jury IS out on that question. there IS quite a bit of evidence for the latter hypothesis.

As to religious art: maybe it works because it is striving to push all the buttons that matter in our psyche. It works even when one doesn't know the context. For instance when ever I go to the Uffizi in Florence and see an image like this:

I am moved to tears even though I have NO real idea of the beliefs it embodies.

...and it emerges in different ways at different times. It is something that is often shut out of our lives in these rationalistic and materialistic times.

Interest in religion is not necessarily faith itself, so I don't think Patrick needs to worry unduly. Many religious paintings or works of art are intrinsically beautiful whether or not you buy into the religion that underlies them and can be appreciated on their own merits. The faith of the painter or sculptor may have added something to the final result that might not have otherwise been there and that certainly seems to be the case with the image Patrick included with his post. The look in those eyes - weary, sad and haunted - says it all.

the fervour, the ecstasy that drives art, love and spirituality is perhaps what we are responding to.

That sense of being mortal yet connected to an unending and unknowable eternal. The sense that we are manifestly present and simultaneously absent from the arc of our own life.

The calmness and rage that can attend both one's spiritual quest and our animal carnal drive, the sense of something biddable but always out of reach. The striving for the sacred and the surrender to the profane

It is this duality, this conflict, this dynamic that has informed the work of the Italian Renaissance masters, the poetry of John Donne and - of course - the Reverend Al Green's finest moment

I am a near life long atheist. I am also a lifelong history addict.

Any study of European history has to deal with religion. The artwork doesnt do much for me but I am an absolute sucker for churches. Recently in Toulouse for rugby reason I spent a happy morning ambling around the cathedral (built off centre and never finished) and the huge basilica of St Sermin which dates from around 1100. I cant help being moved by the thoughts of the many people who have worshipped in that building over those 900 years.

For 1000 years or more the church paid the wages; painters, composers and architects worked on religious projects because that's what there was. The ability to knock off a quick madonna and child was your calling card, and I'm not sure the artist's faith came into it any more than say, a modern pop star's concern for climate change.

So what I think you see, Patrick, is not divinity but a very skillful depiction of it - the more affecting it was, the big doleful eyes full of suffering and compassion, the more likely you were to get called back for another gig.

By the way, isn't it great that we can discuss religion for two days without descending into abuse? It's hard to think of any other anonymous, free-to-all forum where that could happen.

So walking through the middle of Edinburgh, facing up to a stressful day at work (some years back) i popped into St Cuthbert's ...

http://img3.photographersdirect.com/img/17863/wm/pd2082713.jpg

and just sat in the peace for a bit; chilled out, as they say ... have done that subsequently with St Giles too (not sure you can actually walk into St Cuth's these days?) ...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/77/St_Giles_Cathed...

last time i did this was driving through southern scotland early in december, and found Durisdeer open

http://scotlandinmay.house-of-lynn.com/images/DurisdeerKirkWebsite.jpg

you don't really have to be a believer to appreciate the tranquility of churches ... i'm not, but i do

I'm enjoying this thread, and the quality comment that it has spawned, because it has finally allowed me to crystallise where I am now on religion. It's all homespun philosophy, and probably been done better by people who really know what they're talking about, but maybe my newly-crystallised view will help someone...

Knowledge that there's a God would be the result of having worked it out logically and reached that conclusion by a process of logical deduction. I don't think many people achieve that, and I certainly haven't. Various representatives of various churches have attempted to prove the existence of their God to me, but my view is that that's missing the point, because...

Surely what a religion wants you to have is faith. That means you don't know, but you have faith. This is clearly a much more spiritual position than being forced to accept the conclusion of a reasoned argument. In my view, true religious belief is having faith, even in the face of much evidence against.

Enjoying the artefacts is the furthest I've got towards religion: Beautiful paintings, awe-inspiring buildings, powerful liturgy, moving music have all arisen around religions, but it would be wrong to confuse loving those things with any kind of religious belief. There's no doubt that imagery about a beautiful presence who provides the ultimate security in the darkest hour etc is an appealing one, and I've often envied people who believe it, but I simply don't.

They work very effectively to encourage and bolster religious belief - hence, for example, various white middle class boys I met as a teenager who claimed to be Rastafarians, or stoned students gazing at eastern art and claiming to be Buddhists.

And I've found it a liberating insight: I can adore those churches, be moved hearing a prayer, get transported by a classical Mass or feel transcendental on viewing a scene from the Bhagavad Ghita, and not feel a pang of guilt or conflict from the fact that I neither know nor believe the religious basis of any of them.

I recognise in myself the feelings you mentioned, Patrick. I have an enduring fondness for religious art, particularly music (both parents sang in a wonderful RC church choir), and I find that many of my agnostic or atheist friends have a high aesthetic appreciation of these artefacts. Whether it's a by-product of just being halfway through my alloted span or a return to values or rituals inculcated in me as a child, I've returned to my faith in the last seven or eight years. Strangely enough, the more of a kicking the Catholic church gets here in Ireland (well deserved in most, if not all, cases) the more I tend to cherish this declining institution...and I make a point of hitting up a Sunday Mass in any city I visit on holiday, even if the liturgy is in the vernacular. The churches are pretty much always spectacular and in France they'll often date back to the Crusades. In Vendome, if I recall correctly, one small church in sandstone was an early staging post for pilgrims to Santiago de Compostella while I'm told by a friend from that town that the other, much grander church (where O.G. means Original Gothic, as opposed to Original Gangsta) a few hundred yards up the road was a convening point for the second Crusade. Rarely do you find in bricks and mortar such tangible examples of the church at its most humble and hubristic.

I'd probably need to research my art history in a bit more detail, but it strikes me that religion provides an outlet for great art or architecture rather than necessarily being the primary source of inspiration. Most great religious art was created at a time when it was only really possible to work as a painter or architect with the sponsorship of the church (in European terms). Is what we are seeing then, the outpouring of a great artist, depicting human suffering, pain, inner strength, beauty, celebration of humanity etc, but presented in religious terms because that was the only outlet available? So, are we increasingly able to see, as we get older, beyond the religious veneer through to the artistry underneath?

the book "On A Friday Noon - Meditations Under The Cross" by Hans-Reudi Weber is a very interesting collection of artistic interpretations of the crucifiction.

I just wrote about this on the Biographical Tourism thread and then thought it might be more at home here...

Me and the FPO were doing a bit of Punk Rock sightseeing in London, we're romantic like that you see, and one of the venues that the Pistols used to play was in the basement of the Notre Dame just off Leicester Square. We thought we'd pop into the church too and discovered some remarkable murals by Jean Cocteau, completely surprised us!

http://www.notredamechurch.co.uk/eng/art2.html

and still have huge fondness for the brilliantly named Society of Friends; indeed I frequently go to Meeting on a Sunday, as much to clear my head out as anything. Quakers as a whole, while the whole "believe what your conscience tells you" vibe might seem a tad woolly, are some of the most rigorous, rational, exacting thinkers I have come across. They don't even demand belief in G-O-D as such, as all scripture, all dictates are open to question. They have no rules, only "advices and queries", which are exactly as they sound: suggestions and questions to ask yourself in order to provoke your conscience into action....