Don't Support Devilish Music(Rock Music)!!!

[Shin]

Anyone who tries to take away my Clash, Meat Loaf, Michael Jackson, or Beatles records in the name of God has another thing coming! [BIBLEDRB][/BIBLEDRB]

Orders I am pondering
Trinitarians
Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter
Canons Regular of the New Jerusalem

You may run into some surprises during your formation.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

You know, the beat of classical music has always made me feel a little funny… edgy, annoyed, ticked off… never felt that (or the other over the top emotions you conveyed) over rock music…

Ditto. I’ve found very little old classics capable of putting an image in my head that ain’t goofy or nonsensical.

For instance, you know what Hungarian Dance No. 5 makes me think of? This movie.

 

[LilyM]

Ditto. I’ve found very little old classics capable of putting an image in my head that ain’t goofy or nonsensical.

For instance, you know what Hungarian Dance No. 5 makes me think of? This movie.

Wouldn’t go that far, but point well made. People build up their own associations in regards certain types/pieces of music, some of them totally not what you’d expect if the music itself had any inherent qualities or connotations.

I, for one, hear Mozart’s piece ‘Elvira Madigan’ and think of a cheesy old perfume commercial from back in the '80s that my sisters and I used to make fun of whenever it was on TV. At least, if memory serves, that was the music used in the ad.

And I’d imagine someone living in the '60s and hearing The Who’s music in its original context would have totally different associations to a youngster of today who knows nothing of them beyond the bits that are used in the credits of the CSI TV shows.

 

[AdvanceAlways]

You may run into some surprises during your formation.

Way to lol at my spiritual journey… and I’ve yet to run into a Fraternity priest who has outright condemned rock music. Am I willing to give up frequent access to such music in seminary or in formation? Absolutely. Am I willing to be told that because of the beat of rock music I’m supporting the devil? No.

 

[Shin]

There can be bad reasons for bad associations with classical and sacred music. There can be bad spiritual reasons and sources for these bad associations.

 

[AdvanceAlways]

There can be bad reasons for bad associations with classical and sacred music. There can be bad spiritual reasons and sources for these bad associations.

So you’re implying that because I don’t like classical there is something spiritually wrong with me? Or that because I like rock, I’m spiritually inclined to rebel? Wow.

 

[LilyM]

There can be bad reasons for bad associations with classical and sacred music. There can be bad spiritual reasons and sources for these bad associations.

Which would be IMpossible if the music were inherently good, don’t you see? No-one has bad associations with the Eucharist, for example (at least not that I know of) - because it IS inherently good.

 

[Shin]

I rather think it amazing that people think there is nothing or no possibility of the spiritual involved in their choices and preferences, especially as to entertainment.

You should investigate every possibility seriously.

One of the best methods of investigation is to do without something, and see how easy or hard it is on you. If it is hard, that shows a problem, because it shows an attachment.

The devils make people miserable doing good things, and tempt them to prefer things that are not good for them. It is as simple as that. A long term habit and it seems natural.

They make what should be disgusting and bitter to us sweet, and vice versa. They make the base seem sublime and the sublime seem base.

The devils also give people an adversion for what is good for them. For example, they can make people miserable in church, distracted in studies, etc. All these techniques are basic parts of the spiritual warfare.

They influence and impart emotions and work on the imagination, and suggest thoughts.

For seminarians one of the things the devils do is excite them to “fall in love” and so lose the vocation. There are many huge pits as well as shallow ones.

For me an aversion to classical music definitely has spiritual source possibilities. It can also show some natural malformation from childhood to need immediate gratification rather than the ability for a more delayed appreciation. I don’t think I need to talk about the two paths – suffer then gratification – gratification then suffer to show that this is a problem.

I’m not reducing this to slogans here… or saying it’s definite, or speaking to specific individuals – or what someone too involved in this emotionally picking sides will try to twist what I have said into…

But a serious and objective person investigates all possibilities. Especially the ones he doesn’t like, because otherwise he will never find many of the key answers needed for his life – since everyone is malformed, and has twisted preferences in one way or another.

‘Deny your desires and you will find what your heart longs for. For how do you know if any desire of yours is according to God?’

St. John of the Cross

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Wouldn’t go that far, but point well made. People build up their own associations in regards certain types/pieces of music, some of them totally not what you’d expect if the music itself had any inherent qualities or connotations.

Actually you wouldn’t find bigger proof of that than in my sub-culture whose library of music mostly consists of J-songs used in anime intros and endings and the soundtracks of said anime along with those of video games.

There can be bad reasons for bad associations with classical and sacred music. There can be bad spiritual reasons and sources for these bad associations.

Funny, lemme turn this around.

There can be good reasons for good associations with rock and secular music. There can be good spiritual reasons and sources for these good associations.

Again, your argument?

 

[Shin]

See if you were just willing to give up your TV and music for a month and replace it with sacred music, silence, and spiritual reading – how different your life would be!

Then you would understand.

 

[Miserys_Fence]

Wait, I’m confused. Do you have a problem with women staying at home as they are supposed to?

I’m supposed to stay home?

Sure, just as soon as YOU start paying my bills…

Miz

 

[LilyM]

I rather think it amazing that people think there is nothing or no possibility of the spiritual involved in their choices and preferences, especially as to entertainment.

Of course there’s ‘possibility of the spiritual involved’, no question. I don’t think anyone’s denying that the music you choose affects you spiritually. What is disputed is that certain kinds of music of necessity have a bad influence on people, regardless of content or INtent.

To dogmatically assert, as so many on this thread have done, that all rock music has inherently evil connotations that no amount of good lyrics or good intent on the part of the songwriters or performers can overcome - THAT is what is really amazing.

Is God so impotent that He literally cannot, as you would suggest, use any and every part of His creation, including all types of music, to His greater glory? Not even if the person writing and making it - as well as the person listening to it - desires it to be so, and finds that it lifts his or her mind and heart to God?

 

[LilyM]

See if you were just willing to give up your TV and music for a month and replace it with sacred music, silence, and spiritual reading – how different your life would be!

Then you would understand.

Your point being? “Sacred” music includes contemporary sacred music as well - including music on sacred themes in styles such as rock or rap.

And I know for a fact that listening to it as opposed to secular rock or rap has, as you say, made an incalculable difference in my life. Don’t doubt that for a second.

I listen to enough Gregorian Chant and sacred classical music, though, to know that cutting out the sacred rock or rap in favour of it WOULDN’T make a difference.

 

[AdvanceAlways]

Shin, by writing off pop and rock music you are taking away from some people’s spirituality. Michael Jackson’s song “You Are Not Alone” makes me feel far more in tune with God than any Mozart composition ever has. I’m willing and looking forward to giving up my life to Christ to serve him as a priest, is that diminished because I find comfort in my music?

 

[HauntedJame]

Well…

I love rock music. And musicals. And some pop. And metal (well…goth metal I suppose) and even eurodance. I don’t think they are devil worshippers…the metal bands that claim to be I avoid because their music is too screamy and heavy for me.

Everyone needs some Within Temptation now and then…and Sondheim…and…well…Gaga…and Queen!

 

[AdvanceAlways]

The anti-rock people also seem to forget how some rock is derived from classical. The one composer that I LOVE, Wagner, ended up inspiring Jim Steinman, arguably one of the greatest rocknroll composers ever.

 

[Shin]

Is God so impotent that He literally cannot, as you would suggest, use any and every part of His creation, including all types of music, to His greater glory? Not even if the person writing and making it - as well as the person listening to it - desires it to be so, and finds that it lifts his or her mind and heart to God?

Well if you’re going to argue in principles like that: Let me put it this way, let’s take some rap song that encourages people towards impure acts, and contains blasphemies against God.

To God’s greater glory?

Just like the devil himself, ‘God can use it to His greater glory’ in a sense. But dancing with the devil isn’t likely to get you to that greater glory.

I don’t know where the boundary between good and evil lies precisely with such music. We can talk about tendencies… predispositions… associations… the fundamentals… other people know far more than I… .

But I submit to you this… We don’t get to Heaven by keeping the world and God at once, we get to Heaven by giving it all up for His sake.

In other words, someone who isn’t greatly interiorly reformed isn’t going to do well with these iffy issues and borderline stuff. He’s going to need to stand well clear of it to make progress.

Someone whose lived in it, -needs- to get out of it to get a clearer perspective, and do things differently.

A lot of people aren’t even willing to consider this stuff could more tend towards bad than good for them… they aren’t in touch with their interior lives and the difference in the interior life with different ways of living sufficiently to be able to understand this… and they’re not willing to try.

They see ‘rock music is bad’ and think of secular anti-religious stereotypes… which they feel justified in embracing… when the source of these is actually not of God.

LilyM, you know what I mean by ‘sacred’ music, I would think. I would mean what the encyclicals mean. Gregorian chant primarily.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

For me an aversion to classical music definitely has spiritual source possibilities. It can also show some natural malformation from childhood to need immediate gratification rather than the ability for a more delayed appreciation. I don’t think I need to talk about the two paths – suffer then gratification – gratification then suffer to show that this is a problem.

Are you a psychologist? A therapist? Have you at least taken a college class on the subject? If so, substantiate your claim.

But a serious and objective person investigates all possibilities. Especially the ones he doesn’t like, because otherwise he will never find many of the key answers needed for his life – since everyone is malformed, and has twisted preferences in one way or another.

You speak of being serious and objective yet I find the things you’ve said worthy of neither. You’re basically assuming that those who despise your precious classics are influenced by the devil. Sorry but the only way anything is influenced by the devil is when such a thing instantly leads to an explicit moral evil.

“Pumping myself up” via rock music, is hardly an evil much less a moral one. I have yet to find anyone with a decent argument condemning the thrill and excitement of combat and competition that I get from such music.

See if you were just willing to give up your TV and music for a month and replace it with sacred music, silence, and spiritual reading – how different your life would be!

Then you would understand.

You couldn’t be more naive. You actually think every person is capable of being “quiet” all the way down to their very soul?

I’ll have you know that you can silence my music, silence my environment, but you will never silence my mind. You’d have to kill me first.

You can bet its pretty rowdy in here. points at head You don’t wanna know what it degenerates into when you force it to become restless and bored.

 

[LilyM]

Well if you’re going to argue in principles like that: Let me put it this way, let’s take some rap song that encourages people towards impure acts, and contains blasphemies against God.

You’re deliberately being obtuse here. I specifically wrote ONLY of cases where songwriter and musician fully intended their music to be to God’s glory. Clearly, as you well know, a song that contains blasphemies against God doesn’t fit the description, and so I wasn’t discussing it.

I don’t know where the boundary between good and evil lies precisely with such music.

Then stop insisting that the ‘boundary’ excludes any and every piece of rock or rap music by any or every rap or rock artist, even the overtly Catholic Christian ones!

But I submit to you this… We don’t get to Heaven by keeping the world and God at once, we get to Heaven by giving it all up for His sake.

Then give up your sacred music. All of it. All of it is ‘worldly’, being sensually appealing, to some extent, ergo you’d be better off without any of it.

A lot of people aren’t even willing to consider this stuff could more tend towards bad than good for them… they aren’t in touch with their interior lives and the difference in the interior life with different ways of living sufficiently to be able to understand this… and they’re not willing to try.

Yes, but I don’t see anyone on this thread who hasn’t thought quite seriously and deeply about such issues, or who isn’t versed in at least a general way in many different forms of music, in other words who has shown themselves anything other than ‘willing to try’. They HAVE tried, so they know whereof they speak.

They see ‘rock music is bad’ and think of secular anti-religious stereotypes… which they feel justified in embracing… when the source of these is actually not of God.

I haven’t seen anyone on this thread embracing secular anti-religious stereotypes of music - is there another thread in a parallel universe somewhere that I haven’t seen, where people are saying ‘yes, my music is anti-religious and I know it and don’t care!’???

LilyM, you know what I mean by ‘sacred’ music, I would think. I would mean what the encyclicals mean. Gregorian chant primarily.

Why ‘primarily’? Since according to you Gregorian chant is ‘sacred music’ par excellence, then surely you are mightily offending God by listening to anything which you know to be inferior in any fashion - ie anything that ISN’T Gregorian Chant. So why filling your ears with any other form of music at all?

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

A lot of people aren’t even willing to consider this stuff could more tend towards bad than good for them… they aren’t in touch with their interior lives and the difference in the interior life with different ways of living sufficiently to be able to understand this… and they’re not willing to try.

You assume people here do not philosophize and discern the effects of their music? Again, you assume wrongly.

And again, I doubt you have done much philosophizing yourself either.