Is Billy Joel song offensive?

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jeffreedy789:
i heartily disagree with the mentality of ‘if you don’t like it, turn it off’.

while it works to a limited extent with your own life or family, it is essentially a ‘burying of our heads in the sand’.

you can’t live life like that. if you just avoid the things that you find offensive, and ‘live and let live’, you’re doing two very dangerous things.

one - you’re allowing your culture to destroy itself. you’re relegating people to hell. you’re abandoning your responsibility to be ‘salt and light’ in the world, and allow the redemption that God has begun in your soul to affect the world around you.

two - you’re assuming that you can live in an isolated, ‘island’ existence. that those who are doing these things that you’re ‘turning off’ are just going to stay away from you and yours, and not affect your lives.

cs lewis talks about this in ‘mere christianity’. he says that we MUST look after one another, esp in the area of morality. the reason is likened unto a fleet of ships. if each captain only pays attention to his own ship, and ‘minds his own business’ in regards to what goes on with the engines and steering aparati on the other ships, then eventually there are going to be problems as the engines and guidance systems of the other ships cause them to lose control and sink the other ships, too.

thoughts?
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They don’t make an:amen: sign big enough for this!
 
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jeffreedy789:
i heartily disagree with the mentality of ‘if you don’t like it, turn it off’.

while it works to a limited extent with your own life or family, it is essentially a ‘burying of our heads in the sand’.

you can’t live life like that. if you just avoid the things that you find offensive, and ‘live and let live’, you’re doing two very dangerous things.

one - you’re allowing your culture to destroy itself. you’re relegating people to hell. you’re abandoning your responsibility to be ‘salt and light’ in the world, and allow the redemption that God has begun in your soul to affect the world around you.

two - you’re assuming that you can live in an isolated, ‘island’ existence. that those who are doing these things that you’re ‘turning off’ are just going to stay away from you and yours, and not affect your lives.

cs lewis talks about this in ‘mere christianity’. he says that we MUST look after one another, esp in the area of morality. the reason is likened unto a fleet of ships. if each captain only pays attention to his own ship, and ‘minds his own business’ in regards to what goes on with the engines and steering aparati on the other ships, then eventually there are going to be problems as the engines and guidance systems of the other ships cause them to lose control and sink the other ships, too.

thoughts?
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Again, pick and choose your battles.
 
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wabrams:
Again, pick and choose your battles.
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What exactly do you mean by that, wabrams? Are you saying you’re picking and choosing your own battles and you’d like out of this one? Or are you saying you’d like someone else to leave the battle? Or perhaps that CS Lewis should have chosen his battles differently?

This happens to be a rather important battle to me. It’s the one in which people of faith must determine how we will, or IF we will, deal with an evil society. Nothing to be taken lightly.
 
If my name was Virginia and graduating in the class of 79’ ( which is about when the song was release), I wouldn’t let the lyrics bother me:getholy:. In fact, I would pray the rosary more often:gopray2:, wear white a little more often, pray to the saints more often :gopray: and be obedient to God even more. :angel1:
 
yes, i agree that choosing our battles is important.

i’m talking about the big picture here, not just this song, not just my radio.

we as representatives of Christ in this world have an obligation (or a privelege, depending on how you take it on) to spread his light throughout our world - especially in the arts.

should we argue with people on the street and beat them over the head when they listen to billy joel?

no - that would be an unwise battle.

should we speak out in a public setting (like this forum) against songs or books or pictures which are contrary to our faith?

i think so.
 
I hope to become Catholic in the next year.
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by the way - i hope you become catholic in the next year, too. that’s exciting. i hope you don’t take personally some of the remarks made by hotheads (including myself) on this forum.

you have my prayers - welcome to the family.
 
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jeffreedy789:
by the way - i hope you become catholic in the next year, too. that’s exciting. i hope you don’t take personally some of the remarks made by hotheads (including myself) on this forum.

you have my prayers - welcome to the family.
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I second that. 🙂
 
surf(name removed by moderator)ure:
What exactly do you mean by that, wabrams? Are you saying you’re picking and choosing your own battles and you’d like out of this one? Or are you saying you’d like someone else to leave the battle? Or perhaps that CS Lewis should have chosen his battles differently?

This happens to be a rather important battle to me. It’s the one in which people of faith must determine how we will, or IF we will, deal with an evil society. Nothing to be taken lightly.
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I’m saying you can’t fight every battle. Pick the big ones, but don’t go after EVERY song that you find offensive or even mildly offensive. If you fight everything, people begin to ignore you. Wanna tackle rap? I’m with you. Pop music? I’ll go after a good chunk of it with you. An artist who has one or two questionable songs? Leave it alone.
 
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jeffreedy789:
by the way - i hope you become catholic in the next year, too. that’s exciting. i hope you don’t take personally some of the remarks made by hotheads (including myself) on this forum.

you have my prayers - welcome to the family.
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I don’t take it personally at all. I’m a hot head half the time myself. 😃

But about becoming Catholic: a year ago when I met my Catholic fiance, I said there was no way I would convert. A year later, things are a bit different. There’s still a lot about the Church I don’t agree with, but I love the stand on most social issues. And what I don’t agree with, well, I guess I’ll have to trust in God with that one.
 
that’s exactly what happened with me. i’m a convert, too. there were a couple issues that i had with RCC teachings (nothing major - the biggest one, believe it or not, was calling priests ‘father’!!)

but it was SO RIGHT on things i DID know about, i decided to trust it on the things i didn’t.

and i agree that it’s important to pick our battles. that we don’t want to boycott EVERYTHING. i don’t mean this to demean anyone, but i find it hard to take people seriously who boycott all of these businesses because they ‘heard they support gays’ or ‘they contributed to planned parenthood in 1975’.

we DO have to live, as well as ‘make our stand’ right?

i’m just pointing to bigger issues than this one song. it’s a question i’ve been wrestling with for years. where do you draw the line between ‘realism’ and ‘sinfulness’?
 
I pick this battle, if I may, because the lyrics are so specific.

My religion is specifically mentioned by name, and then almost every thought except for “whoaa whoaa” and the “running with a dangerous crowd” part insults or misinterprets its specific beliefs. Could he get away with that, insulting any other religion?

Alright - I won’t quote CS Lewis but that post inspired me to quote Zig Ziglar:😛

“You know that failure to stand for what is morally right is the prelude to being the victim of what is criminally wrong”.

It’s from appleseeds.org/ziglar_the-top.htm which I have had posted at my workplace for quite a few years.

(check out appleseeds.org/)
 
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jeffreedy789:
that’s exactly what happened with me. i’m a convert, too. there were a couple issues that i had with RCC teachings (nothing major - the biggest one, believe it or not, was calling priests ‘father’!!)

but it was SO RIGHT on things i DID know about, i decided to trust it on the things i didn’t.
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Mine’s actually the authority of the Magistereum and early Church history.
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jeffreedy789:
and i agree that it’s important to pick our battles. that we don’t want to boycott EVERYTHING. i don’t mean this to demean anyone, but i find it hard to take people seriously who boycott all of these businesses because they ‘heard they support gays’ or ‘the contributed to planned parenthood in 1975’.
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Yeah, those people really tick me off. I affectionately refer to them as “cause heads;” I have PCU to thank for that one!
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jeffreedy789:
we DO have to live, as well as ‘make our stand’ right?

i’m just pointing to bigger issues than this one song. it’s a question i’ve been wrestling with for years. where do you draw the line between ‘realism’ and ‘sinfulness’?
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The line is drawn after much thought and prayer.
 
The line is drawn after much thought and prayer.
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and since some of us draw it different places than others, we should all be patient with the cause heads and hot heads alike, eh? 😉
 
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jeffreedy789:
and since some of us draw it different places than others, we should all be patient with the cause heads and hot heads alike, eh? 😉
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Like I said earlier, everyone is entitled to their opinions; we’ve all got them. Just don’t shove them down my throat. 😃
 
That’s right, “A spoonfull of sugar makes the medicine go down.” - Mary Poppins
 
Lost&Found:
That’s right, “A spoonfull of sugar makes the medicine go down.” - Mary Poppins
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Completely off topic and weird statement: when I was a kid, I always thought the Imperial March from the Star Wars movies sounded like that song.
 
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wabrams:
Completely off topic and weird statement: when I was a kid, I always thought the Imperial March from the Star Wars movies sounded like that song.
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Yeah well the nice thing about Imperial March and Spoonful of Medicine is that they don’t specifically insult, by name, my religion/creed/race/nationality/[place value here].
 
Well, this thread’s gotten more pleasant. Weirder, but more pleasant! LOL
 
Lost&Found:
Yeah well the nice thing about Imperial March and Spoonful of Medicine is that they don’t specifically insult, by name, my religion/creed/race/nationality/[place value here].
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Is that supposed to be sarcastic?
 
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