Say "I believe in..." without music and now say "I believe in..." with music.

Let us consider beliefs in relation to sentences. We may say in an assertive mode, ‘I believe’ - yet if we say the same sentence accompanied by the music of say Bach or Handel then there is a significant difference.

You cannot simply detach the music of Bach or Handel from the Christian belief system. For when you say ‘I believe’ accompanied by the music of Handel’s Messiah you have blurred the distinction between the religious and the aesthetic.

If one thinks of the consummate beauty of Mozart’s’ the Magic Flute and relate this to Mozart’s freemasonry, we find this is quite an ambiguous relationship.

Equally when we say ‘I believe’ without music and then utter the same sentence accompanied by Handel’s Messiah we find the same ambiguous relationship of music to Christianity. (Source Alisdair MacIntyre After Virtue)

Try it out on Handel’s Messiah  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usfiAsWR4qU&feature=related