Domino Effect not just in the Power Grid

I'm talking about the old kind of classic striptease music(you know,the traditional style )...you know what I mean,surely....I have never seen or heard the music played,but I know what it is...probably not at all what they use today...but,it is that classic style that makes you think...striptease. Enough of that!


Or,since this is causing nightmares for Pete(sorry) ...How about the same words to the yankee doodle dandy tune...it just would not be right...so the style,tune,and lyrics matter.

I agree with Aaron that some music is designed to carry you away and get emotionally wound up,so that the mind is not involved so much anymore. Instead of singing about the Lord with a committed and praise tribute from us to God,it becomes a beat that sounds good to man and draws us into an emotional built up frenzy type atmosphere that lacks all intellectual logic and reasoning. This may not always happen,but some music is designed to do this...do we agree? And...it does happen...right? So,Aaron is right about this particular point....yes? Let's admit together...Aaron is right,Aaron is right,one more time Aaron is right....if you repeat it enough,you will be caught up in the emotional feelings you have about Aaron and you will agree....

Molly

 

I'm afraid I still am clueless.

Nope. On what basis do you think it's designed to do that? Do you have a quote from Matt Redman or Christ Tomlinson? I think the beat is designed to sound good, to produce excellent music. And it does!

I guess maybe you're talking about personally the music gets you emotional and you thought the atomsphere lacked intellect, but my experience is totally different. Emotional? Sure, but so is Amazing Grace, When I Survey, ect. The Psalms are incredibly emotional, they capture David's fears, laughter, tears. Emotion isn't wrong, and you'd have an incredibly hard time trying to prove it is Scripturally.
Lack of intellectual atmosphere? Not in my experience. Just because something has emotion doesn't mean it shuts off the brain. I'm not saying that the atmosphere is charged with brain power, but what I AM saying is that the mind is required to praise God with everything we are. My mind never shuts off(though it would be nice to have an off button for when I want to get to sleep), least of all for P&W music.

Vain repetition doesn't provide emotion. Meaningful repepition might add to the emotional impact, after all, it's used in the Bible. Hebrew poetry repeats itself on important ideas, it was their way of emphasizing something. Wouldn't it be interesting to see an anti-P&W advocate go up to the four creatures in heaven and tell them to be quite because their repetition was simply mindless, emotionally chaged fluff?

 

I think a style(if not reverent and such) can bring down good lyrics. That is what I am trying to say. Jonathna,I'm glad you don't know what that kind of music sounds like...

I am not saying any emotional response is not good. God made us with emotions and we feel a lot...that is not the point. I think our responses should be based on truth and not emotions,though.

Off Topic...Jonathan,how long were you homeschooled? Did you like it? can you tell me a little about your curriculum choices and such. Pm me if you want....Thanks!

Molly

 

And do you have any proof that praise and worship responses to God are not based on Truth? What is the difference in the response between praise and worship and hymns as far as emotionalism and Truth? Is this an objective thing or a subjective thing?

 

I think what she is referring to is a slower club style blues or jazz with deep bass and cymbal (maybe also a piano, and little else. Usually no drums), and a woman would sing it with a deep sultry voice. I'm trying to think of examples that would be well known to everyone. If I recall, Jessica Rabbit sung like that to that kind of music, and it was very sexy. Another decent example is "Cause I'm a woman" ("...bring home the bacon; fry it up in a pan, and nevernevernneverlet you forget you're a mann..."), though this is usually sung at a higher pitch and is a bit faster.
I myself do not advocate total neutrality of music, so I would admit this was a sensual style, especially when used in that context (sometimes It can be used in different contexts, and not come off as so sultry, at least to me). But I have never heard this in churches, not charismatic or new-evangelical, so it should be a moot point, and I have never heard it called "razzmatazz" either.

 

Whoa..I would hope to not hear this style in church!!!

I think the point is,though,that a style of music can evoke feelings or moods and drag down the content of a song. Don't you think this does happen with some songs? I'm not just picking on CCM...could be a hymn,also...

Molly

 

OK, it took some doing, but managed to dig it up. For those who have not heard it there is midi version of "The Stripper" by David Rose HERE.

Molly, thanks for that, I am sure the "yankee doodle dandy" will drive the nightmares away...If I can stop laughing and get to sleep

Pete

 

This is your error. Your judgement is based on what you've seen on TV.

This is, again, an erroneous statement. Read any encyclopedia article on rock music and you will find that rock has its roots in voodoo. The connection is there, it's solid and it's real.

(For the newcomer's to this discussion, check out Michael Ventura's Hear That Long Snake Moan. It's in an anthology called Shadow Dancing in the USA. St. Martin's press.)

The rock industry doesn't deny it, and it doesn't behoove Christians to deny it either.

You mean it doesn't look like what you've seen in movies and on TV. There are forms that are very close.

And there you go again with overgeneralizations. I've not heard one person express it as God's only style. The argument has always been that rock music is sensual and antithetical to Christian dogma and discipline, a point very aptly expressed by Ventura (who thinks voodoo is a good thing, BTW).

 

You criticize me for believing what I see on TV, yet you believe what some confused secular rock advocate says as if it were divinely inspired. I don't think any of us ever lived out in the jungle, so most of what we know we have learned from others.
Most of what man does is "connected" (I did not deny any connection, but added "...and some elements were borrowed and refashioned"), so if we must shun a style because of "connection" with paganism, then we can't listen to ANY manmade music. That's why I say that you try to make your traditional God's only style. Based on your argumentation, it must be the only thing completely pure and free of any pagan influence. Of course, when I draw the well known connection to pagan Platonic influence widespread in the Dark Ages Church, you dismiss that as ridiculous. Also, the style of the pre-Christian European pagans (Druids, etc) would have been closer to what was adapted to the Church as well.

 

Yeah, that's the style I was thinking about. Of course, here, it sounds totally sterile. But with a woman singing seductively to it (and with the real instruments restored), it would be very sensuous. This should show that the sensousness of music is a little bit more than just a beat.

 

That's not the whole of the argument, of course. Besides, isn't that what you're doing with the opinions of the Early Church Fathers?

Though the Early Fathers were well versed in Greek and Roman philosophies (What truly educated man isn't?), they did not form their doctrines based on the philosophers' opinions. The bulk of their writings concerning them praised what was worthy in them, and condemned what was erroneous. As Augustine has said:

Paul the Apostle said, the Greeks seek wisdom.

In another place Augustine said:

All you have done is find a similarity between Plato's conclusions, and the conclusions of the Early Fathers which were based on the Scriptures and teachings of the Apostles, and assume a cause and effect relationship where none exists. If you would take some time to read some of the dialogues of Plato, I'm sure you also will find much with which you are in agreement.

In what I have read Plato openly criticizes Homer's histories as lies, and Augustine commends Plato's condemnations of the abominations of the playwrites and actors:

Some confused secular rock advocate? If you do an internet search you will find Ventura's essay quoted as authoritative in many works about ethnic music. With a quick internet search I've found it to be required reading in classes offered by these universities.

University of Maryland
University of Arizona
Boston College
University of Tennessee
University of Florida

This is just an internet search. What would I find if I got on the phone with the colleges of arts in the universities around me?

Ventura's essay is well accepted among university music educators, and is considered authoritative. He is not some confused rock advocate. I don't quote it as divinely inspired, I quote it as factual. Indeed it is. And when lined up with the facts, much of the subterfuge belched by CCM proponents is shown to be nothing more than a cloud of pixilated whims. After all, what else they can reach to for support?

 

No, I'm saying not to interpret scripture by them, because the influence of paganism was starting to show in some of their teachings.

They may have tried to separate between what was false and what was agreeable, but there was still some bad influience there, and they began interpreting the scriptures by it (thus partly blurring their perception of what was "based on the Scriptures and teachings of the Apostles" and what was not). Yes, I know that many of his teachings we would all find agreeable, but I'm sorry, the dualistic tendencies of many of the teachings, including what pertains to music, was not good and not biblical.

Where I consider Ventura and those other rock people confused is that they had this image of Christianity as some rigid uptight system, with a dry style of music, and they rebelled against it, and claimed that the livelier rhythms were "against Christianity", and you and other critics use that as the ultimate proof of your point. But much of that was not pure Christianity at all, but a heavily platonized distortion.

 

Be specific. Which teachings in particular?

If what you say is true, we would expect to see a more liberal form of worship endorsed in the earliest writings gradually giving way to the restricted forms. That's not what we see at all.

Evidence? Quotes of the early fathers or authorities on them?

You're right that folks like Ventura found the Protestant Christian morals stifling and distasteful. So did the pagan slaves. Voodoo, indeed almost all pagan forms, offer forms of worship that are repleat with sensual delights. What you attempt to paint as a "pure" Christianity is in actuality paganism dressed in Christian garb.

Christianity has taught from the First Century the ideals of self-denial, the mortification of the flesh and its apetites, and the pursuit of heavenly, spiritual things. It is the spirit that Christianity is concerned with.

St. Paul speaks of the law of sin dwelling in his body, but his mind delighted in the law of God. In Christianity this is the basis of all rational thought. We know what is right, but we cannot do what is right. The discipline for the Christian then, in a nutshell, is to starve the flesh to death and feed the spirit.

Ventura calls this central Christian theme the "mind-body split." To him it is unhealthy. Insane. And the cure? Voodoo, or at least the music that evolved from it:

It appears to me that you are saying the same thing. It seems that you consider true Christianity contaminated, and sensuality as true Christian expression, when in reality it is merely an insidious form of paganism.

So this is the heart of the matter. What was the manner of the worship of the Apostles? How did Timothy conduct worship in Ephesus, and Titus in Crete? Some will be honest enough to say that there is no Scriptural or historical basis for the kind of worship taking hold in the mainstream churches today, and appeal to "liberty" (when they really mean "license") or classify the examples set by Christ and the Apostles as descriptive only (as opposed to prescriptive). But you have take this to a whole new level and assert that Western civilization from the beginning has been built on an adulterated form of Christianity which only recently began to discover the freedom and sensual delights which Christ has always wanted to offer.

Now prove it. How did Timothy and Titus conduct themselves?

 

Take your ban on instruments. The New Testament was silent on this, not mentioning their use, but not banning them either. Since thety were not explicitly banned, it must not have been important enough to the Holy Spirit to keep them out of the Church. Their absense, initially, is easily explained when you realize that the church was not yet a corporate organization, but people met in homes. How many people has instruments or musicians in their home?
These circumstances led to a deprecation of instruments in the church. Yet soon, a teaching develops that tries to ban them as being infantile Israelite worship or "of the flesh", and that true worship should be somber. Once again, this was not taught by the New Testament. So where did it come from? The roots of such teaching could be found in Platonic, Stoic and other Greek philosophy that was prevalent at the time. Just like churches use music and entertainment today to try to appeal to the world, back then, they used philosophy.

Yeah, ALMOST. So this assumption that somber worship must be God's way falls. Worship can be much livelier that your traditional formswithout being "sensual delights", but to some people, anything livelier than what they are used to is "sensual". That is a problem within them, not within everyone else.

I spoke of what was not pure Christianity, not what was, so how can you even comment on what I'm "painting" as pure Christianity? (e.g. I do not see most of the modern Church as pure either)

OK, but we must follow the Bible on this (and it gives plenty examples), not make up new rules that we think will nip the flesh in the bud, based mainly on our own hangups. This is what people are doing, and then get mad that nobody listens to their ideas of "denying the flesh". Paul also shows that denial of the flesh can be taken to an unbiblical extreme in Colossians 2.

The unbiblical extreme is what he and others saw as a mind-body split, and it was a big problem in much of the church in the past. This was the dualism that came from pagan Platonism. The Church thought that the flesh, and it seemed anything physical was evil in itself when it was really fallen souls that were using matter sinfully. This is why people en-masse rebelled against the "mind-body split" of the church, which was both unnatural, and more importantly, unbiblical in the extent to which it was taken.

No one is advocating "sensual delights" here, but once again, anything that is not dry and somber you think is "sensuous", and there's nothing in between those extremes. But the original Church had things in perspective. Then some went to one extreme and made everythign somber. Then others rebelled against this and went to the other extreme and did make things sensual, or placed an emphasis on "delights", "feelings", etc. You must remember that because I do not agree with your extreme does not mean that I justify or advocate the extremes we do often see in the church today,

 

good post....


I would like to mention that the Bible does not specifically mention using toothbrushes either....

 

Excellent post Eric. You rate a 10 on the spankage scale.

 

Not a platonic idea at all. Apollo and his instruments were encouraged. Plato thought, contrary to any teaching of the church, that music could make one good or bad. And no one in the anti-CCM camp has made that assertion either.

Neither is it my ban. The only reason I speak of the practice of the early church, and it is fact the early church did not use them, is to argue against the erroneous notion that the Psalms command the use of instruments in worship, a common argument of the CCM-anything-goes crowd.

Here you go again making an assumption and leaping to an unsubstantiated conclusion. What? In three thousand converts there were no musicians? What do you know of the availability of musical instruments? What possible reason could you have to assume they were more scarce in a fully-advanced Greek and Roman civilization than they are today? There were rich people in the Church too. Not every region was experiencing the fierce persecutions those in Jerusalem were facing. Charge them that are rich in this world...; Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon our dearly beloved, and fellowlabourer ... and to the church in thy house.

And why the absence of instruments in the synagogues?

Their absence in the synagogues and in the churches were by choice. It was not a condition forced upon them by circumstances.

This is another conclusion based on the faulty premise you stated previously, again assuming a cause and effect relationship where none exists. But as the premise is fanciful, so is the reasoning from it. I have already dealt with the straightforward teaching of the NT on the nature of the Jewish forms of devotion.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=11;t=000592;p=6#000088

Your characterization of "somber" is also a misrepresentation. Solemn, yes and sober. Not somber. Make no mistake. There is a dramatic contrast in the outward forms of spiritual and sensual worship. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other. Those who are carnally minded will deride spiritual worship because it is opposed to them and contrary to the forms they think to be full of life. It may behoove you to abandon the constant dry-and-somber-vs-lively-and-invigorating appeal as a merit of your case.

And this is simply incredible. The Early Church Fathers, and especially Augustine, were apologists. It is more akin to what Hank Hanegraaff does today. They gave answers and argued against the prevailing philosophies. Where do you get your ideas? They certainly aren't based on any kind of fact. Appeal to the world? Have you read the disciplines espoused by the early fathers? What were the prevalent activities of the pagan world at that time? It wasn't philosophy.

First, you should read Ventura's essay before you comment on it. Dualism is simply the idea that the body and soul are distinct. It is not the idea that the body is evil. This idea is antithetical to Platonism. According to Britannica

I can also add that nothing I have read in Plato comes close to your descriptions of what Plato believed.

Christianity has a dualistic view of soul and body, and I established that (actually St. Paul established it) in a previous post and feel no need to repeat myself. Let me add that labels are not evidence. You again, like so many secularists, assume that similarity in and of itself is conclusive of a cause and effect relationship. If many of Plato's conclusions mirror Christianity, it is not because he influenced Christian thought, it is because God hath shewed it unto him, Romans 1:19-20. Plato was a lover of wisdom. That is what the term philosopher means. It's a term the philosophers gave to themselves as opposed to the title sage, not thinking themselves equal to the sages of old. Plato gave his life to the study of wisdom. He travelled the world seeking, much like The Preacher, to see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life. We should be amazed not that many of his conclusions are similar to Christian thought, but that he did not come to a full knowledge of the truth.

Ventura was commenting on the truly Christian form of dualism. Paganism, far from teaching that the body is evil, assumes a carnal approach to the spirit world. Ventura does not so much believe in spirits as he does in materialism. To him no sensual delight can be wrong. The wrong to him is the Christian view that nothing good dwells in our flesh (Rom. 7:18), and that no carnal form is useful in the approach to God.

So the CCM experience is indeed closer to paganism than Christianity.

But you have not answered my challenge. You have stated false information about Platonism, you falsely assume cause and effect relationships and then build fanciful arguments upon them, you assume to know what Ventura was reacting to when it's obvious you haven't read his essay, and, worse, you state false information about the contents of the NT. This rates a 10 on Travelsong's spanking scale?

It's time for you to start posting evidence, not just trying to come up with stories to explain the evidence away. What was the nature of worship under the Apostles or Timothy or Titus? Let's see some evidence establishing the juicy livliness of their practices gradually evolving into the dry restricted forms of the next two millennia.

 

Uh, that is kind of the gist of what you and others are insinuating: that because the world uses beats sinfully, it must be something in the beats that causes the sin, so we shouldn't use them

Well, I wouldn't say "command", but they were there, and what you're trying to do is make the NT supersede this with a restriction in principle, but there is none. Yet, you say it is I who:

So there were some rich, and some musicians. Probably a relative few out of the thousands. You cannot pruduce the testimony of every single congregation that instruments were not used, let alone either banned or shunned/avoided, so all of this has no bearing on the debate.

You have not given enough evidence that it was initially a "choice", and then when it was, it was not a scriptural directive. The synagogue as well, was something the Jews developed on their own after the Dispersion. They too added unbiblical rules and customs, figuring that if they be extra good, maybe then God would bless them and send His Messiah to do what they want. So Jesus speaks of people looking somber when they fast and pray. This was seen as "sobriety" or "reverence", and Jesus shows that it is not necessarily so. So of course, they would carry this over to worship as well. The Church has followed right in their lead, contrary to what Paul labored so hard to teach.

This was based on your own words, with the exception of "somber". You are the one who assumes the "cause effect relation" that 1)"there are no instruments mentioned in the NT or early writings"
2), so they were banned, and you are the one who used that reasoning as to why they were banned, quoting from Masters and Calvin.

The logic you are using, with any amount of pleasurability in music being total "sensuality" or "fleshy" would lead one to think that something totally unpleasing and somber was what God really wants. Let's face it, in practice, much of the chants in the medieval Church, (which people assume is from the NT), along with the hymns the way they are often played in traditional-only churches, is somber, or else some robotic marching style. Any attempt to liven them up is seen as some sort of "compromise". Remember, many of you criticize a piece just for leading one to tap their hands, (and there are many classical/traditional pieces that can do this, and they are then often deliberately played in a more somber fashion), so once again, how do you figure it is I making things up?

Apologists can be wrong, too. (Do you even think everything Hanegraaf says is always right?) So now, philosophy wasn't a prevalent activity of pagans? Now I've heard everything! Gee, what did Paul and the others spend so much time warning their readers of (besides just "sensuality")? No, philosophy was coming in, as the NT warned, and by the time of Augustine, it was rampant. How can you be a fundamental Baptist and accept the Catholic Church of his time? It already had most of the corruptions that we reject today! But I made all of this philosophy and corruption stuff up, right?
So a person rejects philosophies that he has not accepted, but that does not mean he is free of any himself. Just think of a CCM star speaking out against an indecent secular video. He may be speaking out against something in the world, but you would still reject him as already poisoned by the world.
Augustine was the biggest influence regarding the pagan dualism I mentioned. He influenced the celibate priesthood, and "sex as only for childbirth, and even then it is still suspicious" doctrines. This based on his own guilt from his vices before his conversion. Yet I make up or misrepresent this dualistic influence as well.

That's one definition of "dualism". I have another in the realm of eschatology: preteristic typical fulfillments of Revelation that occurred in biblical times, PLUS futuristic antetypical fulfillments, many of which are yet future. One has nothing to do with the other. Yet I was once a non-Christian like Ventura, and I know what they mean when they criticize Christianity. Many branches of Christianity (both Catholic and anabaptist/protestant) did largely tend to view only "spirit" as good and "flesh" as evil, and that is now the non-Christian world still views the Church. I just today got rid of a self help book my mother gave me years ago by Nathaniel Branden in which he said "the Church has doctrines that damn sex". This is what people think, as the Church did come across this way in the past. So they lumped the "truly Christian form of dualism" you describe with the false ones I describe, and the logic of TCM only critics confuses the two further complicating everything. And I have read Ventura's essay. You have posted it here many times.

It was more Neo-platonism, which I am referring to as influencing the Church. Still, they are closely related, and stem from Plato. On one hand you criticize me for a "cause and effect" of linking teachings in the post-apostolic Church to him based on similarity, but now you admit "well, they were parts of God's truth that He had showed to him, or he had discovered seeking wisdom". All of this is partly truthful, but we must separate which teaching he shares in common with the Church are from God, or which are corruptions in the Church. The Bible is the only criterion for this (1 John 4:1-2, Isaiah 8:20), not our ideas of how to be spiritually mature or crucify the flesh. Much of your arguments against all contemporary styles are not based on the Bible, but on generalization and indirect association, or suppositions argued from silence or made up principles. This is why:

Once again, you assume we're arguing some "juicy" or "sensuous worship, and I'm supposed to "prove" this when I never argued it? It's only one extreme or the other with you.

 

Actually it's the "spankage" scale, and yes, you're taking a serious paddling.

Your debate style is a one trick pony. What you do is simply construct and stuff a strawman so as to distract attention from the real issue. You present all worship that is contrary to what you find acceptable as being carnal, charismatic, and ultimately a false Christianity. Then you tell us to defend this strawman which is entirely of your fabrication in the first place. It is obvious that Eric is quite gifted at seeing through your smoke machines of obfuscation, and for that I am compelled to give much credit.

The more you try to set yourself up as the moral and intellectual authority, the more silly you end up looking. I urge you to keep going.

 

I will correct your mistakes concerning what it is that I have argued, and dismiss any other reasoning you may use because you do not care to post any evidence whatsoever to support your case.

No, the argument is there are certain rhythms that appeal to the carnal mind, and those that do not. That is the argument. And since sensuality is certainly forbidden to Christians as hostile to the law of God, it is a sin to indulge carnal music. That is the argument.

The NT does supersede the OT. Let's not abandon that principle. But what I have done is show, with evidence, that the Chruch shunned the use of musical instruments. Now what were the reasons? I stated the reasons with supporting documentation. You dreamed up the alternatives out of your own head.

What I can do is present overwhelming testimony of those who were instructed by the Apostles themselves, or by a close associate of the Apostles, that instruments were shunned as a practice. I am not required to present testimony from every singe congregation. That's ridiculous and any debate instructor would dock you for demanding this irrational requirement before you concede a point has been proven. And it does have a bearing on the debate, because you and others procede upon the premise that the church from the beginning helped herself wholesale to any kind of music available at the time.

Your reasoning is that since the first Christians were Jewish, and that musical instruments were an integral part of Jewish culture, the Early Church had to have used instruments. But the evidence shows otherwise.

So the Jews shunned the instruments in worship because they wanted to be extra good? What were they doing in the Temple then? This is too absurd for words.

This was based on your own words, with the exception of "somber". You are the one who assumes the "cause effect relation" that 1)"there are no instruments mentioned in the NT or early writings"
2), so they were banned, and you are the one who used that reasoning as to why they were banned, quoting from Masters and Calvin.</font>[/QUOTE]I'm saying that the disputed teaching did not develop as you asserted, from platonic influence. And, I base it on more than Masters and Calvin. I base it on St. Paul as well. If I quote another authority, it is to lend credence to my view of the Scriptures.

Any amount of pleasurability? This has never been my argument. The difference between a carnal mind and spiritual mind is what things those opposing minds find pleasure in. The carnal mind cannot find pleasure in godly things, and the spiritual mind cannot find pleasure in carnal things. What one finds pleasure in depends upon his state of being, not the nature of the thing itself.

Really? No way! Please say you don't mean that! My point, Eric, was that the early fathers were not, as you asserted, using philosophy like the churches use music and entertainment today. As is your custom, you leapt to the conclusion that I accept wholesale everything the early fathers stated.

No, I said, and have always said, that where Plato agrees with Christianity he is right, and where he disagrees he is wrong. (Plato is at the head of the procession when it comes to thinking like a Christian.) I have never used Plato to establish any Christian idea. If I ever appealed to Plato, it was as evidence that even 400 years B.C. there was a vast array of instrumentation, that music took many different forms from temperate to wild, and the activities associated with them parallel the differences between the activities associated with rock music and traditional music today.

But if Plato's conclusions agree with Christianity, it can only be because God hath shewed him. St. Paul says the EXACT same thing. You are the one who uses those agreements to prove that Plato influenced early Christian thinking. You think that because Plato came first. Your reasoning is Darwinian, and you can present no evidence. My reasoning Theistic and I quoted St. Paul to support mine.

But I have already shown that you don't really understand what the Neo-Platonists thought. My quote from Britannica was about the Neo-Platonists.

Now I end my post for two reasons. One, I see no need to continue until you present some evidence, and Two, my little girl wants to play Magic Artist. So, until you misrepresent me again, or until I can see some real evidence, I'm done with you.

Regards