All 'bout this shit, son

"Monotheism and tonality, all tones relating and resolving to a tonic, are often associated, and the textures of European homophony, equated with monotheism, may be contrasted with Asian heterophony, equated with poly or pantheism. Navajo music's cyclic song and song-group forms mirrors the cyclic nature of their deities such as Changing Woman." -From the Wikipedia article on Religious Music

This is the type of thing I aimlessly mill on Wikipedia for. Goddamn. Another perfect example of the direct consequences of our philosophies and how they permeate everything we do.

One other thought I got from this: The use of the word "texture" in describing European homophony. I think anyone could recognize this as a necessary metaphor, not a literal description of the sound having a tangible texture.

In the relation of music to religion and to God this made me think of the hypocrisy of our culture, to be so often taken aback by all the metaphors involved in religion. When a part of the Bible says God is angry, or someone describes the atonement as the settling of a debt of sin its amazing how confused and morally indignant people can get. Yet of course no one would balk at European homophony being said to have a texture.

Music and Religion are clearly similar and intimately connected (and no one wants to believe it, but if you're reading this odds are you've substituted the one for the other) but because of a relatively common bias it almost seems we would prefer to pretend ignorance about metaphors when God comes into the equation. We'd much rather get huffy and believe that religion must necessarily entail whatever crude, childish impressions we had of it back when we were first taught them.

C.S. Lewis once wrote a poem glorifying all religion and, if I recall, probably all reality as one long metaphor.