Hymns are shite.

Cwm Rhondda

I don’t speak a word of Welsh, but Calon Lan always moves me. Especially sung by a Welsh rugby crowd.

There’s a lovely YouTube clip of Half Man Half Biscuit singing it too.

Don’t know if it constitutes a Hymn(but it gets played in churches)

But I do like ‘Ava Maria’

Especially the Aaron Neville version which was used on the film Alive, which is quite apt as I normally hear it at funerals.

Just wondering if this is turning out how loddrik expected…

I’m as atheist as they come, and still think hymns are quality. Jerusalem, I Vow to Thee, My Country, Tell Out my Soul, How Great Thou Art, be Thou My Vision, Onward Christian Soldiers.

Me too. Though we were made to sit around a piano most mornings at school and sing them, which probably has something to do with it. I find them quite heart warming.

“Those in peril on the sea”

Have listen to that sung by those that have been there or have a loved one out there. One of the great Hymns in my view. Heard someone say it last night “there are no atheists in a storm at sea”. Not making a religious comment but I really do understand the sentiment.

Considering that most of them are supposed to be uplifting songs about praising and rejoicing and hallelujahing, it never ceases to amaze me how, well, joyless a lot of them are. Or maybe that’s just how we sing them.

Compare to the gospel singers in the US. When they hallelujah you know about it, that right there is one bloody well praised god. Meanwhile we’re here giving it “glory to god and his love, how happy he makes us, I think I’ve got cat AIDS, did I leave the gas on?”

there are no atheists in a storm at sea

There are no atheists in foxholes

Heard someone say it last night “there are no atheists in a storm at sea

Any evidence for this? 🙄

Not a hymn but I stumbled across this magnificant piece of classic Russian choral music recently, guaranteed to give you goose-bumps.

Listen to the final chorus, from 54:55:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBVSfPw6tQM

yes it was on channel 4 last night. It was a former trawler-man who was being interviewed on that there “Restoration Man” programme. I believe it’s repeated tonight on one of channels if you want to check. He certainly said it though, as to the truth of the comment only someone who had been on a boat that felt like it my about to be overcome by a storm would be would really know the truth.

edit, woppit is your other name Dawkins

I dislike most aspects of organised religion except hymns and carols.
Nothing like a good sing-song

edit, woppit is your other name Dawkins

No, but I do admire the great man.

that is what he says about you as well 😉

woppit, Ah so your are a fundamentalist also.

these days I put Dawkins in there with all the other fundamentalist nutters.

He who would valiant be
Who built the Ark? (Noah! Noah!)
Jerusalem
plenty more that have already been said.

There are plenty of turd ones though, and i should know, having beeen taken then dragged to church for the first 18 years of my life, week in, week out.

neither he nor dawkins are fundamentalists as they have no religious beliefs. Both could be swayed with evidence for a diety and you dont have it hence the weak ad hom

I prefer the baptists take on things 😉

Dawkins might not be a fundentalist, but he is a racist (or at least publicly applauds the views of racists like Pat Condell).

BAPTAZIA! 😆 bleedin ell, i’d forgot about that, there are some quality mixes out there, the one posted above is definitely one of the better ones!

My neighbours 2 doors up are from Zimbabwe, and the guy is a church minister of some kind. Every so often they have a get together at their house and the singing is absolutely brilliant. Makes me embrassed to hear the tuneless mumbling whenever I end up in a church.

just mime then Molly 😉

“neither he nor dawkins are fundamentalists as they have no religious beliefs. Both could be swayed with evidence for a diety and you dont have it hence the weak ad hom” I no not if there is a god(s) but my comments still stand the quality of the hymn mentioned and the reasons why it may be sung with a little gusto. I had mentioned in my original post that I was not making a religious comment. Why let reading what I said get in the way of a making sure woppit can get his Dawkinesque comment out there.

I see your point about Dawkins not being a fundamentalist (did not realise that you had to be religious to be a fundamentalist), I’ll put him in there with all the other “I’m right everyone else is wrong” bigots then.

I have not read the full thread so sorry if I was out of context

He is passionate about it just like the believers the difference being he is correct, has a logical argument and he bases it on the evidence and not a faith he cannot prove.

I am not sure why folk mock him when you could just convince him with evidence and a good enough argument …oh yes it is because they have neither

Junky I think you’ll find it’s all in the delivery of the message. Suspect Dawkins would do well working at SafeStyle windows.

Anyway I still think “Those in peril on the sea” is flippin good!

Troll

Mr Woppit – Member
Heard someone say it last night “there are no atheists in a storm at sea
Any evidence for this?

Probably only apocryphal, but there’s more evidence to suggest that any thread that has even the slightest religious content will have a Woppit comment followed by 🙄

Calon Lân.
Sung at my wedding, our daughter’s christening and almost certainly at my funeral.
Worth listening to Cerys Matthews singing it…
http://youtu.be/TKX4m_l1_Qk

Heard someone say it last night “there are no atheists in a storm at sea

Any evidence for this?

Well if I’d been on the Titanic I’d of stood on deck to hear the band play Nearer My God to Thee rather than go below to hear Dawkins finish his lecture on the Selfish Gene as the icy water lapped around his ankles* and I’m an atheist. I really don’t think he’d draw much of a crowd.

* I know this is unlikely as he’d of punched a woman, stolen her clothes and got himself in a lifeboat pronto.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/godlessness/2013/08/06/31/

if I’d been on the Titanic I’d of stood on deck to hear the band play Nearer My God to Thee rather than go below to hear Dawkins finish his lecture on the Selfish Gene

I think I’d be trying to find something large and floatable, myself.

I enjoy many of the modern hymns – for example those by Keith and Kristyn Getty. Prefer playing hymns on keyboard with a reasonable size band – bass, drums, etc. rather than some of the dreary ones we used to have to sing at school…

I think I’d be trying to find something large and floatable, myself.

You are both an atheist and a cad sir and I wouldn’t want to share any deck with you. I will smoke my pipe alone, begone you bounder.

Those in peril on the sea”

Curious, but is that hymn the “official” hymn of the Royal Navy? It is for the US Navy.
I always liked it, especially so during the time I was in the Navy.

glad I’m not the only one sniggering at the onanistic double entendre of ‘Plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land’ 😀

atheist myself too and I think Holst’s In the Bleak Midwinter is a stunning bit of writing, very subtle

You are both an atheist and a cad sir and I wouldn’t want to share any deck with you. I will smoke my pipe alone, begone you bounder.

Are you buoyant?

Athiest through and through but :-

Jeruselem especially Billy Braggs version
For Those in Peril on The Sea
Abide with me
amazing grace
and for my old school, Onward Christian Soldiers originally written for kids to sing while marching up the steep hill my school was on.

Are you buoyant?

Sadly with a BMI of 20.5 unlike the average STWer I’ll not make a good liferaft.

Good to see some appreciation of church music, I am a big fan but I am fortunate to go to a church with excellent music. Even Dawkins is big enough to recognise the role the Church of England has played in our cultural history and likes it. Fortunately it continues to play a role as new, normally uncommercial, music is continues to be commissioned.