Did Pope Benedict XVI condemn "rock music" as satanic?

[joshrp]

Yes, rock on, indeed. \m/

I’d just like to add that I have serious doubts that Cardinal Ratzinger ever mentioned AC/DC by name or singled them out as “satanic.”

One of the reasons I have such trouble taking such “rock-music-is-satanic” criticisms seriously is because they tend to come from people who have no familiarity with the music. They are usually just making assertions based on conjecture and hearsay. In certain Christian circles, it’s just “obvious” that rock music is evil. No evidence is needed.

I guess it makes sense, considering America’s puritanical roots. Some people approach song lyrics the same way they approach Scripture: with no awareness whatsoever of literary devices. Song lyrics are like poetry (at least, they should be if they are done well ). This means that the lyricists will utilize devices such as metaphors and hyperbole. We can’t just rip quotes out of context and assume that the artist meant the line literalistically. There are plenty of Christian metal bands whose song titles would make most people uncomfortable (“Fill This Place With Blood” [the Blood of Christ, of course ], “Rock the Hell Out of You” [quite literally!], etc.). Again, it’s just the use of literary device.

Do bands sometimes use such devices crudely and/or tactlessly? Absolutely. But that doesn’t make them satanic. IMHO, it does a disservice to the Church when we toss out the term “satanic” with such abandon. It lowers our credibility. Not that we shouldn’t call a spade a spade. We should. But we need to be very sure that what we are calling a spade actually is a spade.

The philosophy of music that the rock and roll movement embodies was Satanic in intent by the people who created it. Certain people like Theodor Adorno wanted a kind of music that would cause schizophrenia in the general population. Read Adorno himself, he says these things. The intention was to destroy people’s creative abilities to generate new and truthful ideas. So what did they do? Well, let’s get rid of polyphony and counterpoint and just play chords. What is a chord? Well, you hold some frets down, and you stroke the strings, stroke the strings, stroke the strings. Hold some different frets, and repeat over and over again. It doesn’t really require any creative thinking. And then dumb down the words, and make it all about feelings and nothing about the God given cognitive powers of mankind, and voila, a crippled, manipulable, highly suggestible population whom you can convince to do whatever you want it to do, because they can’t reason for themselves.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Well, you hold some frets down, and you stroke the strings, stroke the strings, stroke the strings. Hold some different frets, and repeat over and over again. It doesn’t really require any creative thinking.

As a guy who could barely play any instrument he plays to follow a sheet, I would consider any person capable of putting together notes to a nice pleasing tune as creative. Then again, like all art, what defines ‘creative’ is nothing more than a matter of opinionated perspective.

For instance, you might think classical music gives you glorious, soothing ecstasy and is the highest form of human intellect.

I think it’s boring, lifeless, excessively drawn out, and provokes neither color or imagery. Wake me when it’s over. Better yet, tell me when they use it in a comedic commercial so I can at least find something to laugh at.

Now, who’s right here? Me or you. Here’s a surprise answer: Neither. Everything I’ve said up there is purely a product of my personal preferences. You like the sound of Beethoven but I don’t. It’s that simple. There is no morality governing such preferences. You wanna get on a soap box? Find another subject matter because there is no ultimate absolute in art.

 

[joshrp]

As a guy who could barely play any instrument he plays to follow a sheet, I would consider any person capable of putting together notes to a nice pleasing tune as creative. Then again, like all art, what defines ‘creative’ is nothing more than a matter of opinionated perspective.

For instance, you might think classical music gives you glorious, soothing ecstasy and is the highest form of human intellect.

I think it’s boring, lifeless, excessively drawn out, and provokes neither color or imagery. Wake me when it’s over. Better yet, tell me when they use it in a comedic commercial so I can at least find something to laugh at.

Now, who’s right here? Me or you. Here’s a surprise answer: Neither. Everything I’ve said up there is purely a product of my personal preferences. You like the sound of Beethoven but I don’t. It’s that simple. There is no morality governing such preferences. You wanna get on a soap box? Find another subject matter because there is no ultimate absolute in art.

Well, if you like masturbating, then I guess you could say that pornography is art too, now couldn’t you?

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Well, if you like masturbating, then I guess you could say that pornography is art too, now couldn’t you?

A false comparison. As expected.

 

[joshrp]

A false comparison. As expected.

If you play music that basically promotes the view that man is merely a beast, then your idea of what art is is wrong. There is truth in art. If the person who composes a piece of music is not a truthful person, what he produces will be deceitful. A bad tree cannot produce good fruit.

 

[joshrp]

What is Satanic about Rock and roll is the view of man’s nature embedded in its compositional method. It turns men into monkeys, essentially.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

If you play music that basically promotes the view that man is merely a beast, then your idea of what art is is wrong. There is truth in art. If the person who composes a piece of music is not a truthful person, what he produces will be deceitful. A bad tree cannot produce good fruit.

There’s a reason why people go to school to learn facts and not to an orchestra.
There’s a reason why museums separate art from science and paleontology.

There is no truth in art other than what you make of it. On the other hand, when you actually go to people who concern themselves with facts (e.g. scientists, mathematicians, theologians), they’ll give you something consistent and does not require the obscure interpretation every person makes when it comes to art (you included).

What is Satanic about Rock and roll is the view of man’s nature embedded in its compositional method. It turns men into monkeys, essentially.

Really? I listen to Redemption by Gackt and I see a powerful wizard decimating an incoming vampire horde with fiery dragon magic all the while having flashbacks of a saintly girl he has secretly fallen for and lives in the very village he’s protecting.

Congratulations, you just proved my point about perspective.

 

[joshrp]

There’s a reason why people go to school to learn facts and not to an orchestra.
There’s a reason why museums separate art from science and paleontology.

There is no truth in art other than what you make of it. On the other hand, when you actually go to people who concern themselves with facts (e.g. scientists, mathematicians, theologians), they’ll give you something consistent and does not require the obscure interpretation every person makes when it comes to art (you included).

Really? I listen to Redemption by Gackt and I see a powerful wizard decimating an incoming vampire horde with fiery dragon magic all the while having flashbacks of a saintly girl he has secretly fallen for and lives in the very village he’s protecting.

Congratulations, you just proved my point about perspective.

If there is no truth in art, then why even bother with it?

The best scientists like Einstein and Max Planck were also Classical musicians. Einstein played the violin, Planck played the piano. The universe is constructed like a Classical musical composition. True music is composed according to the same principles by which God constructs the physical universe. We are made in God’s image, and our music and artwork should express that same image of truthful creativity.

 

[Catholic90]

If there is no truth in art, then why even bother with it?

The best scientists like Einstein and Max Planck were also Classical musicians. Einstein played the violin, Planck played the piano. The universe is constructed like a Classical musical composition. True music is composed according to the same principles by which God constructs the physical universe. We are made in God’s image, and our music and artwork should express that same image of truthful creativity.

Why is YOUR definition of art the only one everyone else should accept?

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

If there is no truth in art, then why even bother with it?

It’s the same reason why people bother to read stories that aren’t true (a.k.a. fiction). It’s simply for the sake of pleasure and leisure.

You see the biggest mistake in our generation is that we look for things in the wrong places. You know who else looks for truth in art? The pop culture generation. The dolts who hang on to every word from Lady Gaga.

That is what happens when people subscribe to your world view. You uphold a world that was never meant to be the moral guide. It’s job is to simply appease the weary human spirit.

True music is composed according to the same principles by which God constructs the physical universe.

Says you. I just like what I hear and leave it at that.

We are made in God’s image, and our music and artwork should express that same image of truthful creativity.

You use so many arbitrary terms and you don’t even realize it. Please, cease with the emotional argumentation. You’ll only prove my point. Again.

 

[joshrp]

It’s the same reason why people bother to read stories that aren’t true (a.k.a. fiction). It’s simply for the sake of pleasure and leisure.

You see the biggest mistake in our generation is that we look for things in the wrong places. You know who else looks for truth in art? The pop culture generation. The dolts who hang on to every word from Lady Gaga.

That is what happens when people subscribe to your world view. You uphold a world that was never meant to be the moral guide. It’s job is to simply appease the weary human spirit.

Says you. I just like what I hear and leave it at that.

You use so many arbitrary terms and you don’t even realize it. Please, cease with the emotional argumentation. You’ll only prove my point. Again.

You ever heard of the Congress for Cultural Freedom. After World War II, a bunch of people wanted to figure out how they could stop someone like Hitler from ever coming around again. Well, they decided that the reason Hitler came into being was what they called the philosophy of the Authoritarian Personality. An authoritarian personality they said was someone who said that truth exists and that you can know it. You know who they said the ultimate authoritarian personality was. Guess? Jesus Christ. So they basically said that Jesus Christ caused Hitler because Jesus said that truth exists and that you can know it.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

You ever heard of the Congress for Cultural Freedom.

No and I don’t care. Your post just completely dodges everything.

Please know that ballet only applies to dance, not debate.

 

[joshrp]

No and I don’t care. Your post just completely dodges everything.

Please know that ballet only applies to dance, not debate.

Do you like being lost?

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Do you like being lost?

Run out of bullets josh?

 

[joshrp]

Yea, pretty much. I don’t need to fight with you honestly. It just happened to be the subject of the thread so I went with it. I think you are wrong, but I can’t really show that to you if you are not interested.

Take what you want from what I’ve said. It’s up to you what you believe in or think. All I can do is say what I think, and if you don’t like it, we can either talk it out, or do whatever, or go somewhere else and do whatever it is that we are each doing.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Yea, pretty much. I don’t need to fight with you honestly. It just happened to be the subject of the thread so I went with it. I think you are wrong, but I can’t really show that to you if you are not interested.

In art there is no wrong or right. There’s only my most favorite color and the sounds I hate the most. You can rationalize it all you want but it will always boil down to that.

There’s a reason why only liberal idiots confuse it with morality.

 

[joshrp]

In art there is no wrong or right. There’s only my most favorite color and the sounds I hate the most. You can rationalize it all you want but it will always boil down to that.

There’s a reason why only liberal idiots confuse it with morality.

Art is about ideas. And there are good ideas and bad ideas. Ideas have consequences.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Art is about ideas. And there are good ideas and bad ideas. Ideas have consequences.

Sorry but the ideas in art don’t follow the good-bad dichotomy. It’s all relative in there. You want absolute ideas, stick to arguing morality. There’s a reason why it’s in a different box.

 

[joshrp]

Sorry but the ideas in art don’t follow the good-bad dichotomy. It’s all relative in there. You want absolute ideas, stick to arguing morality. There’s a reason why it’s in a different box.

Look, ideas are relative, but they are relatively better or worse than each other.

 

[joshrp]

Look, ideas are relative, but they are relatively better or worse than each other.

Say you have an artistic idea. You can improve on it so that it is better than it was before. The truth part of the matter is in how it affects other people, and how they think and act and feel.