“The Unity of Science and Art”, Lecture 1
In Music, 1872 the birth of tragedy from ancient Greece influenced the spirit of XIX century music. We can see that ancient Greeks created incredibly strong influences that have had an impact on many spheres of life of numerous cultures.
Dionysus, god of music was a Homophrodite God of intoxication and ecstasy. The Dionysian Religion that consisted of festivals would very often end up with mass suicide.
Music was significant; it was explicable, purely subjective and highly numeral.
Pythagoras of Samos, an Ionian Greek philosopher was a founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism.(2) “Pythagoreanism is a term used for the esoteric and metaphysical beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans, who were considerably influenced by mathematics. Pythagoreanism greatly influenced Platonism.” (1) They had a theory that the music of the Spheres was reflecting mathematical harmony (metaphysics of music).“Pythagoras made influential contributions to philosophy and religious teaching in the late 6th century BC. He is often revered as a great mathematician, mystic and scientist, and he is best known for the Pythagorean theory which bears his name. However, because legend and obfuscation cloud his work even more than with the other pre-Socratic philosophers, (...)
We do know that his disciples believed that everything was related to mathematics and that numbers were the ultimate reality. It was said that he was the first man to call himself a philosopher, or lover of wisdom, and Pythagorean ideas exercised a marked influence on Plato, and through him, all of western philosophy.”(2)
Schopenhauer, one of the most fascinating musicians of the centuries showed the same we harmony of spheres, formless music, life force. The force is bad though, it symbolizes evil as it causes existence, struggle against force.
Western European Art comes together in Wagner’s Opera. In Tristan and Iseult, sexual experiences are strongly expressed, sexual euphoria is so powerful that it killsApollonian religion is a philosophy of logic, light and knowing.
Apollo and Dionysus represent opposite ideas (Greek Tragedy), we could even say that Apollonian belief suppresses Dionysian, the same action can be observed in Christianity.
The best proof for Christianity to be anthropological, it takes a lots of influences from other beliefs and philosophies, it is build on other ones and uses other theories to explain its own theories. Puzzled picture built from many separate pieces that it inhabited from the past.
Setting Nietzsche with Christianity is a significant philosophical clash, it is easy to imagine that Christians do not approve of Nietzsche as he undermines their hierarchy and shows it in light of meaningless set of values and points out on how church became an insignificant and hypocrite institution demanding power and wealth instead of staying in spiritual spheres of humans life.
The University of Winchester Journalism Course
History and Context of Journalism, Part IV, Lecture1
1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoreanism
2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras
3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysus
4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_and_Isolde
