Upon hearing an Eric Clapton guitar solo

[fpb]

At times like this, I really do feel sorry for atheists. One has to be grateful for artistry so miraculous, but they have nobody to be grateful to. (And don't give me any crap about "the human spirit" - that is what we owe the Murdoch press and robotic dance noise to.)

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Do you have the slightest notion of how the music industry works? Or of how many session musicians have spent their lives till they were grey and arhtritic "bent over a six-string" and have nothing to show for it but a small bank account, no job security and (in America) no health plan? Once, just once, one such - Gordon Haskell - managed THE HIT, the one great successful song that changed his life; but for one Haskell, let alone one Clapton, there are ten, fifty, a hundred who never made it. Your assumption that they did not work as hard as Clapton is both false and insulting. To quote the queen, wipe those stars from your eyes, and you'll get quite a surprise.

[cosmolinguist]

Do you have the slightest notion that your endless assumptions of other people's inferiority might quickly turn away anyone who does know anything, as surely they'll know they don't need to be belittled by you as their points are true whether you believe them or not? As a matter of fact I have a pretty good grasp of how the music industry works, and I know that those who "make it" and have the hits aren't always those that anyone would consider most deserving so once again you've failed to answer the questions your commenters are posing to you here.

Again I'd have hoped all your religion might have infused your worldview with a little more kindness, towards me or towards the likes of Eric Clapton. Talk about people with no novel ideas; it seems to me like you've got the notion that all good things are due to your supernatural power of choice, while probably believing that people's bad experiences are all of their own doing. So if you think atheists can't appreciate this, then do tell me why you think God favors Eric Clapton more (especially after all that famous blaspheming Clapton particularly was the subject of in the '60s).

[fpb.livejournal.com]

And all this because, if you please, I objected to your notion that people who do not have the immense success of Eric Clapton obviously had not worked as hard!

[cosmolinguist]

Of course effort is no guarantee of success. I did say, originally, that people and fortuitous circumstances surrounding a person will impact their chances there.

But I never said Clapton had to be successful to be worth feeling grateful to or for; that was your idea. I have listened to lovely music by people you'll never hear of; I feel grateful that I have been able to do that, entirely apart from the fact that they have no more commercial success than session musicians and many have to have day jobs. Still as artists they are as successful in my eyes as Eric Clapton because my response to them is at least (and often far more so) favorable than my reaction to him.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I am now extremely angry. ...Clapton had to be successful to be worth feeling grateful to or for; that was your idea. THAT IS A LIE and the total opposite of everything I said. There is nothing whatsoever in any of my answers to imply that financial success is any measure of artistic value, and in fact I quoted the unacknowledged giant David Olney as a classic case of unrecognized genius. I expect an immediate apology.