Diana Krall's Christmas Songs

[Brwn_eyes0511]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

Well, that is all good and well, but the minute you start your I think everyone should have a free choice about Faith crap - expect people to call you on it because that is not your position in application or in the real world.

Because you know exactly what my "real world" is all about...

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by Brwn_eyes0511

Yes. Because I no longer want this pathetic bickering known as politics to be a part of my life . . . .

I think you do not like arguing it here as opposed to elsewhere, which I suspect you still do, because here people actually disagree with you and support those disagreements with logic and fact and you have no coherent response grounded in logic and fact.

But, if you are actually aguing it nowhere anymore, I stand corrected.

[Brwn_eyes0511]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

I think you do not like arguing it here as opposed to elsewhere, which I suspect you still do, because here people actually disagree with you and support those disagreements with logic and fact and you have no coherent response grounded in logic and fact.

But, if you are actually aguing it nowhere anymore, I stand corrected.

I am not talking politics with ANYONE anymore. Of course you can choose to believe otherwise...

I don't even have any idea where I stand politically anymore, so I have no basis to argue from. Have you ever thought about the fact that I might not CARE anymore?!?!

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by Brwn_eyes0511

Because you know exactly what my "real world" is all about...

Once again with the ethnocentric it is all about me me me Brandon

I am talking about the real world we all live in on a daily basis and that was clear from my post. As for your real world - I do not care about that nor will I or have I ever commented on that without making it very apparent I was doing so.

[Brwn_eyes0511]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

Once again with the ethnocentric it is all about me me me Brandon

I am talking about the real world we all live in on a daily basis and that was clear from my post. As for your real world - I do not care about that nor will I or have I ever commented on that without making it very apparent I was doing so.

Sorry if I misunderstood you.

[Jyqm]

Originally Posted by Brwn_eyes0511

How so? It was just simply my observation...How I look at it...not how I think anyone else should.

You don't see the deep cynicism in saying that you believe in God... just in case? "I believe in God because if he does exist, I want to go to heaven and not hell." You don't see how such an argument reveals a relationship to God based on fear rather than the love you were talking about a few posts ago?

You're basically turning your believe in God into game theory, justifying your potential payoffs with potential losses. "Let's see, if I believe in God, and he exists, I get a big reward. Score. If I believe in God and he doesn't exist, I get nothing. Eh. Now if I don't believe in God, and he doesn't exist, I still get nothing. Eh, at least I'm not losing anything. But if I don't believe in God and he does exist, oh ****, I'm gonna get screwed! Better believe in him just to be safe!" That's a deeply cynical way to think about it, and I think any priest or Christian theologian would tell you that's wrong and un-Christian.

Now I'm not saying you shouldn't believe in God. I'm just saying that if you're claiming to be a Christian, you better drop that logic.

[Brwn_eyes0511]

Originally Posted by Jyqm

You don't see the deep cynicism in saying that you believe in God... just in case? "I believe in God because if he does exist, I want to go to heaven and not hell." You don't see how such an argument reveals a relationship to God based on fear rather than the love you were talking about a few posts ago?

You're basically turning your believe in God into game theory, justifying your potential payoffs with potential losses. "Let's see, if I believe in God, and he exists, I get a big reward. Score. If I believe in God and he doesn't exist, I get nothing. Eh. Now if I don't believe in God, and he doesn't exist, I still get nothing. Eh, at least I'm not losing anything. But if I don't believe in God and he does exist, oh ****, I'm gonna get screwed! Better believe in him just to be safe!" That's a deeply cynical way to think about it, and I think any priest or Christian theologian would tell you that's wrong and un-Christian.

Now I'm not saying you shouldn't believe in God. I'm just saying that if you're claiming to be a Christian, you better drop that logic.

Oh I see what your saying now...you misunderstood me. I don't believe in God just because "What if...?" I just think it is one way of looking at it.

[Jyqm]

Originally Posted by Brwn_eyes0511

Oh I see what your saying now...you misunderstood me. I don't believe in God just because "What if...?" I just think it is one way of looking at it.

No I get that. But if you're claiming to be Christian that is a wrong way of looking at it.

It's an evil and cynical (per?)version of Christian philosophy that has been used by missionaries to proselytize the hell out of unsuspecting people for centuries now.

[JazmenFlowers]

Originally Posted by Brwn_eyes0511

I am not talking politics with ANYONE anymore. Of course you can choose to believe otherwise...

I don't even have any idea where I stand politically anymore, so I have no basis to argue from. Have you ever thought about the fact that I might not CARE anymore?!?!

Dude - you are fraying at the edges...

why all of a sudden would you not know where you stand or not care? I don't get it

[Brwn_eyes0511]

Originally Posted by JazmenFlowers

Dude - you are fraying at the edges...

why all of a sudden would you not know where you stand or not care? I don't get it

I still have my opinions on specific issues like abortion...

But I’m done with POLITICS...why am I "fraying at the edges" because I have made a personal decision?

[JazmenFlowers]

Originally Posted by Brwn_eyes0511

I still have my opinions on specific issues like abortion...

But I’m done with POLITICS...why am I "fraying at the edges" because I have made a personal decision?

aha...ok
_______________
just a phrase I was using, no need to read too much into it.

[The Tower]

Originally Posted by JazmenFlowers

see, this is another thing I take issue with. God wants us to be willing to let him into our hearts, blah blah blah...what are we? some damn lab experiment...he plops us down here and can't control Adam and Eve and things go to ****, there's lust and hate and violence, but at the end of the day he just wants to be in our hearts and for us to love him our entire life and serve him so we can make it to heaven...wtf?

oh yeah, and if you happen to love someone of the same sex or don't exactly believe some things in the Bible, you'll burn for eternity in hell...

Yeah, it's all a subjective crock o' **** made up by some dudes 2000 to 3000 years ago that has a much validity as Greco-Roman mythology or the Heliopolians or any other "explanation for the unknown". In the end, organized religion is all about power and control anyways.

Oddly enough, all my favorite Christmas music is the religious stuff. I've been singing in choirs for sooooo long that you can't avoid it. Luckily, the music is gorgeous- I just ignore the "welcome baby jeebus" routine.

My favorites:

"Lo, How a Rose E're Blooming"
"O Come, O Come Emmanuel"
"We Three Kings of Orient Are"
"I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" (John Marks version)
"Snow" (Lorena McKennitt)
"Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring"
"The Wexford Carol"

So many great winter solstice songs...

[Brwn_eyes0511]

Originally Posted by The Tower

Yeah, it's all a subjective crock o' **** made up by some dudes 2000 to 3000 years ago that has a much validity as Greco-Roman mythology or the Heliopolians or any other "explanation for the unknown". In the end, organized religion is all about power and control anyways.

Oddly enough, all my favorite Christmas music is the religious stuff. I've been singing in choirs for sooooo long that you can't avoid it. Luckily, the music is gorgeous- I just ignore the "welcome baby jeebus" routine.

My favorites:

"Lo, How a Rose E're Blooming"
"O Come, O Come Emmanuel"
"We Three Kings of Orient Are"
"I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" (John Marks version)
"Snow" (Lorena McKennitt)
"Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring"
"The Wexford Carol"

So many great winter solstice songs...

I sort of see that as hypocritical. You call it a crock of ****...yet you will sing the songs which celebrate it. It would be different if it were "Jingle Bells" or "Walking in a Winter Wonderland"...but you are singing "O COME, O COME EMMANUEL"!!!

[amber]

Originally Posted by Jyqm

Oh boy. Now this thread is interesting. Unfortunately, I need to go and actually get some work done. You've got a couple of factors here:

First, before the term "science" actually meant anything, people often invented god/gods to explain how the world worked. Just basic physical phenomena. But going along with that, you also had people inventing gods to explain how the world worked on a more physical level. As Brandon mentioned, most people like to have a sense of purpose and a sense of meaning, an idea that life has a point and a goal to reach toward, and gods often provide that. Now, why many people can't seem to find that sense of meaning and purpose solely within themselves and instead must project it out to a "higher power"... well, I think that's a very long and complicated psychological study of culture over the past few thousand years.

But I think this "purpose" thing also ties into something else. As paradoxical as it may seem given the religion v. science dialectic that often exists, I think belief in god also satisies the human desire for logic and order in the world. Our brains like logic and order, and on some level, the idea that the universe simply exists doesn't satisfy that. The idea of god provides a mental order to the world for many people.

Now, if you ask me, those are two huge paradoxes:

1) You've got the egotistical idea that "I as a human being must have some kind of purpose beyond simply living and dying" coupled with the self-negating idea that "This purpose cannot exist within myself but rather must exist in some high power."

2) You've got the human tendency toward logic and order juxtaposed against science which somehow fails to provide that logic and order in a completely satisfying way (probably largely due to that desire for purpose expressed in #1).

All right, I really have other things I need to be doing. Everybody else, discuss!

This was a good post. That is an interesting dichotomy of the human psyche. While reading it, I also thought of something else. Does science really fail to provide logic and order that religion does provide? I would say no.

Although science cannot explain everything, IMO religion explains things in a much more non logical way. I think that is one draw of religion, and why it's easily clung to by many people. Because it doesn't require you to grasp abstract yet formulaic scientific concepts, or learn about complex physical and biological factors that are constantly operating in the universe.

Religion doesn't require you to learn about the extremely complex historical and sociological and environmental factors that brought us to where we are today.
Religion doesn't ask that you examine these complex factors in the present, either - without prejudice or bias - in order that we may be able to figure out all the actual factors that contribute to the nature of this situation we are all in called "Life" and "The World".

Religion mainly requires that you have faith in something you never see, and this thing, not you and everything else, are responsible for what happens in the world. And it requires only that you learn a set of rules which ARE based on judgement rather than unbiased openness to all knowledge, and the freedom to explore such knowlege.

I think most humans are nearly incapable at this time of accepting that kind of responsibility, and incapable of accepting their own true nature, and that they may actually be the ones controlling their lives, to a large degree responsible for their own destinies. It's hard to think that. It may be painful. Some people are also simply incapable of understanding things beyond a certain scope, a certain tangible scope, so all they really have is faith to explain things to themselves.

Religion really is the opiate of the masses Sadly, the bulk of "masses" have little capacity to function without an opiate, without that sense of importance and meaning, and many even lack the skill to conceptualize anything at all besides dogma that they have been raised with.
Anyway, great post, very thought provoking.

[The Tower]

Originally Posted by Brwn_eyes0511

I sort of see that as hypocritical. You call it a crock of ****...yet you will sing the songs which celebrate it. It would be different if it were "Jingle Bells" or "Walking in a Winter Wonderland"...but you are singing "O COME, O COME EMMANUEL"!!!

Not really. It's just singing songs for Christmas concerts and performances. When I was a member of high school and college vocal groups, we really didn't have the ability to say- "I'm not going to sing this song".

The religious songs that were commissioned by the church are now part of the choral songbook. You can't really avoid them if you want to get a degree in vocal music. For me, singing about three kings and jeebus is as grounded in reality as Puff the Magic Dragon. The immaculate conception/son of god routine is just as much fiction/mythology as Aphrodite spawning from the head of Zeus or Circe encountering Odysseus and turning his men into pigs.