The varied music is the one good thing to have resulted from religious fervor !

I have no inherent malfunction with what inspires music, so long as it's musical. Since a big part of my musical interests are in the classical world, and most of the patrons of that art form from its earliest days through the 19th century were religious and wanted religious themes, only a minority of the genre isn't at least marginally religious in origin. And frankly it's my view that shaking off the religious patronage didn't inherently improve classical music. I find most modern dissonant schools of classical music, e.g., serialism, to be misguided excursions into mental and mathematical masturbation that's not at all musical.

The human yearning for the divine, misguided though it generally is, is still human yearning, and its musical expression is still attractive and inspiring.

I occasionally enjoy listening to sacred music. Some of it is really beautiful or impressive. Ideological or philosophical disagreements or arguments doesn't need to keep us from enjoying any good music. I don't believe in God or Jesus, but I do like "Spirit in the Sky" for its cool guitar and rhythm.

i love jewish music, the music of my people! i also love me some good hildegarde von bingen. music is music.

g

I've said this before, so forvive the redundacy - i am atheist through and through. I look at religion as story and tradition. Songs fall into the category of art. I'm a big lover of art (and music). My opinion is that if i can enjoy the story of a ballad, then why not a religious song (or one referencing heaven or hell....) By the same token, i don't like songs for a myriad of reasons as well. Sometimes its just - nope; don't like it.

If I can't understand the lyrics, it's all good