Has all decency left the entire planet?

**.Has all decency left the entire planet? **

Of course not! There are many examples of great decency around us. Now, as concerns this specific deranged act that is probably nothing more than the result of ignorance, why should this be the least bit surprising? The reason for the feelings of horror are ours; we who appreciate the importance of Bach.

If I had to guess, anyone who would muster up the will to do something like that, appreciation of Bach or not, is probably not operating with a full deck. Mentally or ideologically unstable individuals have always existed. Culturally and spiritually important sites and symbols have been targeted by ideologues and the unstable throughout history.

Having said all that, why is it surprising that in an age when there has been a concerted effort to remove God and spirituality from education, that appreciation and respect for a church that is an expression of the actual reason and purpose of Bach’s music should be disrespected like this?

Frogman, your last paragraph has certain ambiguous meaning, at least to me.
Would you be so kind to explain it better?
If I may add something and hoping that it has some relation to the original subject, I would say that by all means any religion has no place in any 'official' education in any secular state.
 

Sorry it seems ambiguous to you, alex. I think the meaning is actually quite clear. Debating here the specific issue that you raise would probably be pointless, but I will point out a couple of things that may help make the meaning of what I wrote less ambiguous for you.

Please note that nowhere did I use the word “religion”. I also think that your use of the word “official” is interesting. Bach was not a secularist. He was an orthodox Lutheran and much of his music was an expression of his spiritual beliefs and conservatism. That aspect of the total significance and importance of that church cannot be simply taken out of the equation. 

I don’t know exactly what caused the perpetrator to do such a thing. However, what I think I do know is that it is unlikely that what leads to respect for and appreciation of the complete history of that church is being taught in “official” education. We can’t have it both ways.

Frogman, please stop me (or op. for that matter) if you think that this conversation has no place in this thread.

However, in meantime, this is the sentence from your previous post that I find controversial...
 'why is it surprising that in an age when there has been a concerted effort to remove God and spirituality from education... Bach’s music should be disrespected like this ...

Imho, any disrespect or barbarisam toward any civil or cultural heritage, may come from any number of reasons and none of them should be justified, no matter what 'explanation' may be in someones head.

But, on the other hand, I am quite sure that teachings about any God should be kept inside the religious institutions and not the part of any public ('official' ) education or constitution, except other than learning about history of it.

In this particular case, I believe that nobody single picked Bach to make some kind of statement and I dont think that Bach's relationship with church should be problem or significance (other than scholars) to anybody today.

Putting these things in some kind of correlation I find to be very ambiguous

Alex, I’m short on time at this moment.  There was nothing in what I wrote that suggested that the behavior should or could be “excused”.  

**** I dont think that Bach's relationship with church should be problem or significance (other than scholars) to anybody today. ****

Problem?  No.  But, significance?  I couldn’t disagree more.  In no way suggesting that the two could be compared on artistic grounds, but would you deny the composer of, for example, an honest protest song from the civil rights era the message or intended meaning of the song, the very reason for the composition and relegate the significance to scholars’ journals only?    Why should the average music lover care about those things?  Right?  Pretty melody and nothing else?