From: harling@pictel.com (Dan Harling)
Subject: Re: Is music amoral??
Organization: PictureTel Corporation
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 17:21:57 GMT

In article <1992Aug24.142828.24944@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> noel@crs.cl.msu.edu.UUCP (Noel Estabrook) writes:
>In article <1992Aug23.205509.13166@csi.uottawa.ca> cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca (Christopher Browne) writes:
>>Have you ever read the SONG of Solomon (a.k.a. Song of Songs)?  It is
>>not DIRECTLY worship of God, but a love song shared between a man and
>>a woman (most probably Soloman, and the Shulamite (?sp?) woman).  Is a
>>love song considered to be a wrong reason to sing?  If love songs
>>between puny human beings are wrong, than I guess that the Song of
>>Solomon doesn't belong in the Bible.
>
>In my original post (of 2 months past) stated that there were indeed 2
>reasons that I could find in Scripture for music - edification of believers
>and worship of God.  I would put Song of Solomon under the former, as it 
>gives believers a healthy, Godly perspective on what romance in the context
>of a marriage should be like.  I have no problems with believers writing
>love songs to each other (I quite often write love poems to my wife) - it
>is an edifying experience, it builds each other up.

Are you to solely determine which non-worship songs are "edifying" and
which ones aren't?  Why not let the listener decide that?  Otherwise,
you've got a lot of work ahead of you classifying and publishing lists
of "approved music".


>>Is the SONG a moral agent, or is the moral agent the SINGER of the
>>music?
>
>Both, I think, seeing as the music is an extension of the musician.  Just as
>Scripture is an extension of it's Creator - God - and a moral agent, so too
>is a song an extension of its cretor, and thus a moral agent.

You're going to have to show me how this analogy fits.  I could just as
easily point out that:

o The stars are overhead
o Stars are massive collections of Hydrogen atoms undergoing nuclear
  fusion
o The roof is overhead
o Therefore, the roof is a massive collection of Hydrogen atoms
  undergoing nuclear fusion

(and no fair using "God's logic", either!)  :-)


>>And when searching for a sorting algorithm next month, I trust you'll
>>check your scriptures.  There's nothing in volume III of The Art of
>>Computer Programming by D. E. Knuth that Scripture can't tell you better.
>
>Ahh, apples and oranges.  A logic textbook does not really deal in 
>specific applications.  Scripture contains all logic that is useful to
>us.  It does not, however, tell me how to fix my Ford.  Logic is a mental
>construct, programming is an application.

Therefore, scripture may illustrate *applications* of logic, but it
doesn't contain definitions of the rules themselves.  That doesn't
change the fact that you must necessarily apply your own logic, for
which there is no explicit precedent in the Bible, to interpret
scripture.  (i.e., Scripture does not, and cannot, include its own
interpretation, because somebody must then interpret the
interpretation!)

The fact that logic is a mental construct doesn't make it a special
case, though.  We can make empirical observations, such as
archaeological digs, that can profoundly influence the way people
understand the Bible.  While the observations are mental constructs,
the objects of those observations are not (unless you are a nihilist).
On many occasions, archaeological discoveries have changed people's
understanding about Old Testament geography.  If we had not made these
discoveries, our understanding of the Bible would be in error.  This is
another case where Scripture *can't* tell you better.
____________________________________________________________________________
Daniel A. Harling                        (harling@pictel.com)
PictureTel Corp.             Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of
Peabody, MA  01960                 PictureTel, but they ought to be!
Newsgroups: rec.music.christian