Music, its effect on the person,

[Melchisedec]

I think if you are going to go the route of the PMRC and 80s conservatives on rock. You need to lump in all secular music, especially rap! Lets not forget country music, which is mostly about fornicating , drinking beer, and causing trouble.

[Semperviva]

[quote name='Carrie' date='Jul 18 2005, 02:34 PM']Same here.  If people judged me by my music, well, let's just say it wouldn't be pretty.
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i don't mean we can judge you per se, but know alot about you and what kindof person you are what you enjoy etc......i DO listen to rock btw i am not rtrying to say we shoulden't--- but i dunno...just music is very powerful is the point...any music

whats PMRC

Edited July 18, 2005 by Semperviva

[curtins]

I listen to punk rock-

this is interesting to bring up I was gonna make a thread and still might- I asked a priest if its a sin to listen to music with curse words he said its not a sin but its not good to listen to music with the f word in it

now I listen to punk rock and yes there are swaears and some songs are pretty bad- I dont listen to those songs which I know to be really bad either sexually explicit (although there arnt many of those) or a ton of swears etc etc

So I pretty much screan my own music- and yes I still do listen to some songs with swears but should I stop listening to a great song that I enjoy because it says 1 or 2 or 3 swears? again I tend to make my own determination as to what I think is apporpriate for me

[Semperviva]

[quote name='Melchisedec' date='Jul 18 2005, 03:52 PM']I think if you are going to go the route of the PMRC and 80s conservatives on rock. You need to lump in all secular music, especially rap! Lets not forget country music, which is mostly about fornicating , drinking beer, and causing trouble.
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i agree about rap
but rap is more blantantly disordered ...
like its almost no discussion on that, u know the person in the song isin't really interested in anything except herself/himself and their own gratification.......
don't think i want to do away with rock...
i'm just bringing it up to discuss its weight and bearing on the spiritual life

and [i]any [/i]music for that matter....
ALL music is powerful in forming a person's thoughts and puts forth not just lyrics, melody and rhthym,

but an attitude and lifestyle within those three elements which we can start absorb without realizing it......

[avemaria40]

Semperviva, u make an excellent point. Ur absolutely right in saying that music is powerful, in fact, many early Church fathers banned instruments from liturgy and some even wanted to ban singing completely b/c at the time a lot of songs ended up causing orgies and stuff. but i don't think all rock is the vehicle of antireligion b/c of the bands i just pointed out. but of course, u wouldn't play it at Mass b/c Mass is supposed to be really reverent. Of course, many ppl aren't attracted to music just by lyrics alone but by the sound, beat and rhythm. so rock can be a good thing if ur trying to spread the faith

[Semperviva]

[quote name='avemaria40' date='Jul 18 2005, 06:17 PM']but i don't think all rock  is the vehicle of antireligion b/c of the bands i just pointed out. [right][snapback]648634[/snapback][/right]
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i am basically struggling alot with this right now--
its so powerful we[i] should[/i] use it for the truth,
but its so powerful that its also so easy to let it consume you...
the pope even says rock music reduces you to an almost animal level by reducing your free will and
placing you
in the moment
so as to take away your conception of consequences of your actions...
just bothers me
if this is true how can it ever be good at all?

i wonder if he means it is anti-religion in that rock music has an unsettled ness and disquiet or perhaps an inherent rebellion to it which hinders us from fostering the internal silence, to establish continual communion with God or something? and this rebellion being the dictim of satan....[i]non serviam...[/i] am i just going psycho here? ave do u know what works the fathers discuss music in? i have read Plato and Benedict XVI on music but it would be interesting to read the fathers too...

[avemaria40]

I read in the book "Why Do Catholics Do That?" that St. jerome was against singing in Christian liturgy b/c he was afraid it went against sobriety and asceticism, while St. Augustine was a little wishy washy b/c he didn't know if it was appropriate but he believed that singing could have good use and that all of them agreed on banning instrumental music from liturgy b/c the instruments were what u played at orgies and alot of pagan cults that endorsed orgies had depicted their gods playing music. But other fathers, like St. Basil and Cassiodorus believed that music is beautiful and although u had to be careful with it b/c it was powerful, u can put it to good use in liturgy, and also, as for rebellion in rock music, aren't Christians supposed to rebel from the worlds dogmas and follow those of Christ?

[philothea]

[quote name='Carrie' date='Jul 18 2005, 02:34 PM'][quote name='Kilroy the Ninja' date='Jul 17 2005, 11:51 AM']
I wonder what my collection would "say" about me.....

I have just about everything out there... hmmmm
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Same here. If people judged me by my music, well, let's just say it wouldn't be pretty.
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Hrmn, yeah, me too. Like a proper Chicagoan, I have "everything but country" ... but all the rock/alternative stuff I buy seems to have parental warnings all over it.

[philothea]

[quote name='Semperviva' date='Jul 18 2005, 07:04 PM']i am basically struggling alot with this right now--
            its so powerful we[i] should[/i] use it for the truth,
but its so powerful that its also so easy to let it consume you...
the pope even says rock music reduces you to an almost animal level by reducing your free will and
placing you
in the moment
so as to take away your conception of consequences of your actions...
just bothers me
if this is true how can it ever be good at all?
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This sounds like a concert or party setting to me.
[quote name='Semperviva' date='Jul 18 2005, 07:04 PM']i wonder if he means it is anti-religion in that rock music has an unsettled ness and disquiet or perhaps an inherent rebellion to it which hinders us from fostering the internal silence, to establish continual communion with God or something? and this rebellion being the dictim of satan....[i]non serviam...[/i] am i just going psycho here? ave do u know what works the fathers discuss music in? i have read Plato and Benedict XVI on music but it would be interesting to read the fathers too...
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I can get equally obsessed or distracted with any kind of music. I think its the social aspect of rock that is worrisome. Of course, it will depend on a person's age and personality, whether music affects them badly.

[Semperviva]

ok,
this text I found [b]says it was heavy metal[/b] he condemned
nd that it wasen't him specifically but a Vatican spokesman. hhhmmmm...


In November of '96, Cardinal Ratzinger warned that [b]heavy metal [/b]was an "instrument of the Devil" and endangered young people's souls. The future Pope singled out these groups as the worst offenders...

Pink Floyd

The Rolling Stones

Queen

Led Zeppelin

Black Sabbath

The Beatles

Alice Cooper

AC/DC

The Eagles

He called upon members of [b]heavy metal bands[/b] to "purify themselves" and posited that AC/DC "referred not to alternating current or even bisexuality, but to the satanic phrase 'Antichrist, Death to Christ.'"

well the heavy metal thing makes more sense at least...

[avemaria40]

How do the Beatles make that list?

[Carrie]

[quote]Hrmn, yeah, me too.  Like a proper Chicagoan, I have "everything but country" ... but all the rock/alternative stuff I buy seems to have parental warnings all over it. 
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Exactly! I don't do country and I don't do rap.

But I love alot of other kinds of music, especially alternative and rock.

There's nothing like a good mosh pit!

[Semperviva]

Philothea, you're right he does seem to focus more on rock music in a concert setting, but still...
this is a summation of what he says in Spirit of the Liturgy:

Perhaps the most interesting part of this discourse comes with the author's observations on the link between sacred music and the logos - the Word revealed in Christ. He points out that from the beginning the saving actions of God narrated in Scripture formed the main theme of liturgical music - a fact which has given singing clear priority over merely instrumental music in the liturgy. Nevertheless, since music transcends the rational level of mere speech, it also gives an opening to the action of the Spirit who intercedes for us "with sighs too deep for words" (Rom. 8: 26): the Word thus supersedes mere human words, in what Ratzinger calls a "sober inebriation" (p.150). Finally, since it was the Word which created the cosmos, Ratzinger discerns a link between the beauty of music, whose melodies and harmonies are based (as the ancient Pythagoreans realized) on mathematical laws and proportions which are also reflected throughout the universe, and the glory of Creation. If the words of liturgical song proclaim mainly the work of the Logos for our Redemption (salvation history), the music itself proclaims His might, wisdom and power in the entire cosmos. Cardinal Ratzinger excoriates (p. 148), as a symptom of contemporary Western cultural decline, the current popularity of "rock" music among the young, linking it directly to their alienation from true worship:

[b]"Rock" . . . is the expression of elemental passions[/b], and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship. [b]People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the experience of being part of a crowd and by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects. However, in the ecstasy of having all their defenses torn down, the participants sink, as it were, beneath the elemental force of the universe[/b].

Edited July 19, 2005 by Semperviva

[avemaria40]

but if it leads u closer to Christ, would it be a bad thing? I can understand why the stuff about sex, drugs ,swears, antireligion, satanist stuff should be avoided. But ppl don't always come to Christ in a church at first, nor even through another person but from music and stuff. My first real experience that God was calling me was watching a movie. Also, i no music transcends human words and rock can be cultish at times but not all the time, look at seven sorrows.

[Semperviva]

Wow, thats cool Ave about the movie.

At the Eighth International Church Music Congress in Rome in 1986, for example, Ratzinger blasted rock music as a “vehicle of anti-religion”. He said rock and roll is a secular variant of an age-old ecstatic religion, in which man “lowers the barriers of individuality and personality” to “liberate himself from the burden of consciousness”. [b]Rock is thus “the complete antithesis of Christian faith in the redemption”. [/b]