Beethoven was ahead of the times, Bach behind them.
To the unmusical hearer a note on the gong means dinner, this perhaps often is menacing enough.
There is no reason why an atheist could not write a good Mass.
The duty of the words is to say just as much as the music has left unsaid and no more.
A supreme composer can only come out of a musical nation.
I suppose it never occurs to these people that a man might just want to write a piece of music.