Heathen Dawn

Mozart was a Freemason. Tchaikovski was a homosexual.

Apparently this lauding of classical music is not a lone pastime. Here is a sample from Diakrisis Ministries.

sakrilege

This thread in Media & Popular Culture has some classical music information.

HTH

Lolabrigida

I was aware that "Tschuck" was a homosexual. I forgot to mention it. Darn. (Didn't the 'girlfriend' die shortly after she found out that Peter had passed on??)
(The piano teacher's father got to see Rachmoninov in concert....I AM SO JEALOUS!!)

Deacon Doubtmonger

For those unfamiliar: it's 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence. I once saw it "performed" on a Sunday-morning cultural-affairs show. A guy sat at a piano and periodically opened and closed the keyboard lid quietly, while the network thoughtfully provided a few captions such as, "THIS IS BOREDOM. ENJOY IT."

Now why aren't there any hymns, prayers or chants like that???

Doctor X

I remember some fool trying to justify a the John Cage piece. What foolishness people will create.

Nevertheless, you cannot go wrong with some true classics such as the live Carnegie Concert with Krupa introducing the drum solo in Sing! Sing! Sing!--yes, that is triplet rimshots. . . .

Peasants! Try playing an instrument where you have to use all of your limbs, fingers and toes!

Bah! Violinists! Someone has to figure out the bowings for them or they may run out of bow during a piece!

Anyways, remind him that the first instrument was a drum . . . Abel's head had such a delicious ring to it. . . . .

--J.D.

Deacon Doubtmonger

I've never had training in formal debate, but for what it's worth: Maybe you could illustrate the absurdity of your opponent's position by pointing out that he's a dirty filthy godless heathen sinner destined to burn forever for allowing any use of "mechanical instruments" in worship. Check out these links from two Church of Christ (probably the "cultlike" one) branches:

http://home.att.net/~jackthompson/page50.htm

http://home.att.net/~jackthompson/page51.htm

http://home.hiwaay.net/~billc2/whylesson26.htm

And here's an article with some quotes from other [OXYMORON ALERT] religious thinkers who condemned the use of instruments:

http://www.truthmagazine.com/archive...4/TM024136.htm

Finally, perhaps you could bolster your points with Thomas Paine's words on "religious privacy"; I assume his argument could be extended to music, and thus show how the declaration of certain music to be "holy" and the relegation of all other forms to the status of "sinful" is absurd:

The modes of worship are as various as the sects are numerous; and amidst all this variety and multiplicity there is but one article of belief in which every religion in the world agrees. That article has universal sanction. It is the belief of a God ... Upon this one article have been erected all the different superstruc- tures of creeds and ceremonies continually warring with each other that now exist or ever existed. But the men most and best informed upon the subject of theology rest themselves upon this universal article, and hold all the various superstructures erected thereon to be at least doubtful, if not altogether artificial.

The intellectual part of religion is a private affair between every man and his Maker, and in which no third party has any right to interfere. The practical part consists in our doing good to each other. But since religion has been made into a trade, the practical part has been made to consist of ceremonies performed by men called priests; and the people have been amused with ceremonial shows, processions, and bells....

Religion is not an act that can be performed by proxy. One person cannot act religion for another. Every person must perform it for himself ...

Full text of Paine article here:

http://www.infidels.org/library/hist...nd_church.html

Deacon Doubtmonger


religion

User

Those anti-musical instruments passages are (fool's) gold. Thanks!

Keep it comin'

xorbie

Well, you might want to ask him precisely what the hell his argument is. There is no need to counter an argument that is nonexistent. I have yet to see a shred of actual evidence support, even using the broadest defintion of evidence possible (i.e. quoting the bible).

Arken

Prokofiev wrote film music for The Battleship Potemkin, Lietuenant Kije and other famous pieces of Soviet propaganda which would make me think that he was probably an atheist if he was such a patriotic member of the communist party.

User

Quite true