Christmas music

OK, I'll challenge you: You'd be hard pressed to produce examples of very good music, let alone even ONE truly sublime piece of music, something comparable to Bach, in praise of God in any other religion.Handel has been oversentimentalized and overpopularized, but I simply avoid all the sentimentalizations. The music itself is not sentimental in the least, and the lyrics being nothing but scripture add to the goose bumps for a believer.This message has been edited by Faith, 12-25-2005 10:11 PM

It's a nice one, Moose, I listened to a few of the samples. You SHOULD listen to it finally.

Chicken Bells was worth passing on in exchange for some other Christmas silliness I've been getting over the net.

I believe it is simple fact, not bigotry at all. Christ has been the inspiration of the greatest music ever produced on earth. I firmly believe this and my challenge stands. "Religion" as such has produced nothing in particular musically otherwise. There is a lot of inspiring folk music from around the world, religious and not, but only Christ has inspired the sublime.This message has been edited by Faith, 12-25-2005 10:49 PM

Certainly many of the Eastern religions have given us beautiful, inspiring music. Like you, Faith, my preference would probably run to Western - and thus Christian - music, but I'd be hard-pressed to say that it was somehow better than the religious music of other cultures. It's better to my ear, perhaps, but I am a product of my own culture.Music is so bound to the culture that produced it that I don't think it's fair to try making these sorts of judgements.

Can you give examples of this supposedly equally inspiring music of the Eastern religions?I don't think so. I think there is an objective standard involved here. I'm not just talking about "good" and "better," or even "beautiful" and "inspiring." I love all kinds of music from almost everywhere.But only in a culture that has sublime ideas will you find sublime art of any kind and I really do believe that objectively speaking the idea of Christ is the most sublime of them all. This idea happened to come to fruition in the West (although Christ is universal), but theoretically Christ could have inspired any other culture to such artistic heights were they to embrace Him as the West did.No other culture has ever reached for musical expression of something as sublime as the idea of God becoming a man and coming to earth to dwell among His fallen creation in order to save us from our own violations of His law. There are mere hints of the outrageous glory of it all in the Bible itself, a verse or two that fly by if you don't stop and ponder them -- an angel announcing Him, a whole army of angels singing praises to God (and scaring the wits out of a few mangy shepherds in the process -- and only so all the rest of us could hear about it when it was written about. My pastor preached on this tonight and made the scene real for me). Something about the story, something about cadres of angels singing, something about the character of Christ Himself, something about His being as well as His preaching -- this is stuff beyond the ordinary, that inspires art beyond the ordinary, art that tries to express angels and reaches for heaven.This message has been edited by Faith, 12-25-2005 11:27 PM

Here is one such example, one that I have always loved. It is a classic Morning Prayer. Bhagavn Sr Sathya Sai SuprabhatamThis message has been edited by jar, 12-25-2005 10:30 PM

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

So this song is better than all secular and non-Christian music, simply because of the ideas expressed in its lyrics?

Well, that's just silly: I'd be hard pressed to "produce examples of very good music" from other religious cultures? How arrogant you are in your Western cloister.I'm tempted to tell you that the simple flutes of native peoples are every bit as sublime as Bach (which they are), but I'm sure you'd wave that away, since that is not enough musical structure to embody elaborated doctrine, something Bach does so well.I will point you instead to an entire musical culture, the Hindustani classical music of northern India and its southern counterpart, the carnatic. They use a 12-tone, untempered scale; the northern form (my favorite) is typically performed as a raga: the intervals can shift to accommodate the devices of the composer. The music is invariably sublime, and the shifting intervals and complex harmonies rival the best of the Western tradition, all in praise of Krishna and Rama.I adore much of Bach, but I am also aware that he believed passionately in divinely ordained monarchs, and his music often longs for death. He offers as much to beware of as to admire.Handel is pompous and prosy when he isn't too busy being saccharine and sanctimonious. I'd rather listen to the rain.

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Ibid.

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Incorrect.Ibid.

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Here is another exampleThe basic format is call-response and is lead by a Priest or if chanted solo, by the Priest with and acolyte doing the response.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I take it that you, as a Christian, can't see this "objective standard"?

I find the Hindu religion sublime and awe-inspiring. Their music has had a continuous history going back long, long before Christianity and likely even before Judaism. The great masters are every bit as wonderful as any in the Western World.That does not mean I don't appreciate Christian Music. IMHO the most wonderous piece of Christian music is not one of the Normal Christmas hymns, but Amazing Grace. Sung by shape note singers it is extremely moving and really sublime.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

have you listened to all the different religous musics around the world?
claiming that *only* christian music is sublime, and none of what you said is in anyway objectivei highly doubt mithians would consider the whole god becoming a man a new concept, many angels announced births, so i'm sorry this is not new