Religion & Music

Does the fact that Christian rock is invariably the greatest pile of crap ever written count for anything in this discussion? :innocent:

CRAP?!! CRAP!!?

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undoubtibly

lol.

i dunno... i find it to the best place for a good laugh.

Good God I'm Roman Catholic and I believe that (quote below) wholeheartidly! (and I spelled "wholeheartidly" wrong, probably)

Originally Posted by Mark

Does the fact that Christian rock is invariably the greatest pile of crap ever written count for anything in this discussion?

All seriousness aside, to me, music is my one proof of God that no one can ever take away from me... there's just something about the fact that only small vibrations in the air can cause such infinite beauty that says, to me, that there's no way that it can be random chance...

Ok, my beliefs aside, you can tell a lot about a culture by the music it writes for its deity/supreme being/god/whatever. Such as Christian Rock... where did all the culture go? Obviously, if an individual has some belief system and they are writing music in praise of that belief system, they would want it to be the highest quality they could make it.

In the end, I say thank god for religion, 'cause if all else, Bach's Cantatas, Handel's Oratorios, and Mozart's and Haydn's Masses would not have been written now, would they?

I think Christian rock is a very interesting mark of the culture of the Christian America. Ever since the Second Protestant Reformation in the 1800s, music has been a huge part of the church in the Americas especially Choral music. This passion exploded in the 1920s and 30s after WWI in part due to a new urgency to recomit the youth of America to the faith. Pioneers like A.B. Simpson brought the piano into the church to complement (not replace) the organ. New churches sprung up all over the country. This happend mostly after WWII was over in the early 1950s with the evangelist movement brining the youth of America into the faith. It was a daily routiene in the average American household to go to church every Sunday, be in sunday school, sing in the Choir, and recite your daily scripture. So what changed all this?

Answer.... the Daily Double! lol jk :toothygrin:

The 1960s took hold of the youth detering them from the faith with the music called "evil" and "a message from the devil himself," rock-and-roll! It totally revolutionized the youth culture of America and kids were no longer going to church, but to rock concerts. Meanwhile, the baby boomers are getting older and still in church trying to deal with their children being "rebels to the way things ought to be." It's a social phenomonon where an entire generation had a lasting impact on the previous and future ones.

Now, jump ahead to today and you have Chirstian rock. Why was it invented? Simple, to beat the kids at their own game: have God-oriented music in a form that they "understand". And it worked! ... kind of. It has worked a little bit, but with the advent of the Internet, it gets very hard for Christian media to influence kids in a generation saturated with Holywood tabloid stories and liberal bias accross the board in all media. (Yes, Fox News does not have an influence over kids.) And since a lot of these Christian rock guys miss the mark on the basic fundamentals of Rock music, it tends to be bland an uninteresting. At least the Beatles were fun to listen to.

All seriousness aside, to me, music is my one proof of God that no one can ever take away from me...

I think we have a winner.

I heard:

In Muslim religion, Music is said to be a distraction from god,

This is partially true. Mostly true, but there are a lot of little details that always serve to cloud what this actually means. For example, one of the most important parts of Islam is recitation of the holy book. This is traditionally done: a) in accordance with strict rules; b) with an accompanying tonal pattern. Though this is not considered music, but prayer. Similarly, music of people like Bach or Beethoven is also considered prayer by many Muslims. When they use the word "music", what they mean is something that takes you away from the very sacred (to them) notion of thought. So things like drone music, beats, etc.. is more what they mean when they say music. Also, technically music is never forbidden in the Qur'an, which merely says that musicians are as unpious as wearers of silk :rolleyes:

Yeah, I know it doesn't really make any sense. What the hell do you expect?

Now everyone watch THIS. I'll know that you didn't watch it all the way through if you aren't amazed.

...now watch this...

All seriousness aside, to me, music is my one proof of God that no one can ever take away from me... there's just something about the fact that only small vibrations in the air can cause such infinite beauty that says, to me, that there's no way that it can be random chance...

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In the end, I say thank god for religion, 'cause if all else, Bach's Cantatas, Handel's Oratorios, and Mozart's and Haydn's Masses would not have been written now, would they?

I thank our current understanding of physics and the world in a scientific way, otherwise we wouldn't have any idea that sound are vibrations in the air in the first place. Nevermind all the instruments, etc etc, function on very palpable scientifically explainable phenomenons such as timbre and acoustics.

I don't know why people have the tendency to throw in "random chance" as the contrast to their beliefs, because quite literally there's something known as probability and statistics. And even what is right now seen as "random" is only because the actual deterministic cause has not been found yet. For example: People thought weather was random before we found out about weather systems and the whole field of meteorology was founded! Now we have forecasts and the like.

As for the composers, I'd say without religion maybe they would've probably written other things which would be just as impressive. After all, it's the composer that counts as composer, not the subject they're writing about. With Bach, the most interesting part of his work is the pieces for organ and things like the art of the fugue which are not really religious in theme. Beethoven's string quartets, sonatas and symphonies are also the main interest point of his work, all non-religious pieces. Mozart likewise.

But even if religion was a factor in the creation of these works and other such positive musical things, I still can't justify all the incredible damage religion has done to humanity by and large just because of Bach's B-minor mass. That's my opinion, of course.

As for christian rock, I really can't stand it because while a lot of the music is about praising X or Y, it always seems to me that it's made with the intention of trying to convert people to the faith. As such, I tend to see it on the same level as propaganda music which isn't something I like listening to or appreciate.

Someone already said it that it's designed at least on some level to appeal to "kids these days" or something, which to me is also something that is damaging musically since it generally shows pretty badly what the intention is.

Just to name an example; I used to like Sixpence None the Richer a bunch, since the songs were pretty OK and I liked the girl's voice fine. But then I found out what most of the song lyrics were really about and it caused a conflict of "scraggy, I hate this type of crap" vs "The SOUND isn't bad", but unfortunately it's impossible to listen to the damn thing without listening to the lyrics and I just can't listen to it anymore as a result.

This doesn't happen with Beethoven or Bach or whatever because, well, it's a lot more abstract in how it's presented though things like requiems can be direct too. I think also a factor is how I also generally don't understand the lyrics since they're in Latin and they repeat a lot. It's a weird bias to have, I guess.