What Research Has Been Done On The Effects Of Certain Types Of Music?
How can we know anything about anything
To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald
Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?
NO!
That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.
Take science as an example.
How can we know anything about the created material world around us?
How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?
We all see the same things in the material world,
but we don't come to the same answers.
Why is that?
How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches?
Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.
Why is that?
Same scientific facts. Different answers.
Same Bible. Different answers.
Why is that?
The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get
from what we can see through science
or what we can read in the Bible?
How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?
How do we analyze what we have seen and read?
How do we interpret what we have seen and read?
We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock.
That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation.
There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.
An example might help.
Question: Why do you believe in evolution?
Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.
Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?
Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.
Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.
If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.
When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered.
So where to the foundations come from?
There are three possibilities.
- things that we make up, pulled from the air
- demonic lies
- divine revelation
Question: Why do you believe in creation?
Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith
so that I could believe Him.
See how quickly we got to the foundation.
This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.
In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air,
are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan.
So these are one and the same.
Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ.
So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices?
Because God has revealed this truth to us.
The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God
and the lies of Satan?
The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.
Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"
The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem.
It is a moral problem.
Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you:
For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened."
*
Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?
Matthew 7:7-11 *
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe
those things that they don't want to submit to.
They have to want to obey God.
How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver
Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)
"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"
Lies appear to have no price upon them.
They seem cheap and they abound everywhere.
But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.
"[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness.
And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him.
God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).
"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words;
that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)
That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus.
When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject.
Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.
"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)
Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university.
On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before
who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them,
but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.
In another case of just listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning,
the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.
They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air.
When asked why he believed his basic assumption,
the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out,
"I guess I'm making the whole thing up."
It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions.
However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn't want God to rule over him.
Recently, I found out that a considerable amount of scientific research that has been done on music and its effects. This research has confirmed what I already knew about music by the Spirit of Christ. The following are somewhat condensed (and no findings of science are ever 100% conclusive, nor do they claim to be) but we can still see a lot in this research:
Classical music causes significant improvement of physiological parameters. It causes behavioral improvement and coordination improvement. It increases the ability to complete tasks neatly and quietly, and increases concentration span. Attention-seeking activities are decreased.
Exposing babies to music, early in pregnancy, seems to have an effect on them.
Music Alters Children's Brain-waves. Children exposed to classical music have an increase in a part of the alpha rhythm frequency band and, greater similarities ("coherence") between different regions of the cerebral cortex, most pronounced in the frontal lobes. Greater coherence is thought by some workers to indicate better "cooperation" among brain regions but others view it as typical of increased relaxation.
Listening to Mozart (compared to relaxation instructions or silence) produced a brief but significant increase in performance of a spatial IQ task in college students.
Certain types of music have been shown to have the ability to increase memory and recall.
Special pieces of music (including The Blue Danube) aid hens in laying more eggs and can help cows to yield more milk.
Wheat will grow faster when exposed to special sounds.
Putting rats into two connected boxes and piping rock into one box and Bach into the other, the rats choose Bach music over rock. They move to the Bach box. When the type of music was switched from one box to the other, the rats will move again from the rock to the Bach box.
When different groups of mice are subjected to the sound of traditional voodoo drumming (the same as contemporary rock drumming), to Strauss waltzes, and to silence, the groups that were subjected to either silence or Strauss waltzes have no problem learning a maze, with the Strauss waltz group having a slight edge in performance. However, the voodoo group performs progressively worse over the period of time they are exposed to the syncopated rhythms and eventually becomes so disoriented that they are unable to complete the maze at all. They become hyperactive, aggressive, and often cannibalistic.
The brains of the voodoo mice have highly abnormal neuronal growth patterns and chemical imbalances in the parts of the brain that are important to learning and memory formation.
All of the muscles in the entire human body go weak when subjected to the "beat, BEAT, beat, BEAT" rhythm, which is found in ancient voodoo music and is also found in many modern forms of contemporary music.
All of the muscles in the entire human body go weak when subjected to the "stopped anapestic beat" of music (beat, beat, BEAT, silence) in 4/4 time, which is very prevalent in popular music. This is like: "We will, we will, rock you."
Anapestic beat causes switching, the actual symmetry between both of the cerebral hemispheres is destroyed causing alarm in the body
These particular beats (that we know is rock) cause or contribute to the following:
Drug-like stimulation
Addictive behavior to a certain type of sound
Inability of the body to discern between what is harmful and healthy
The body seems to prefer that which is destroying it
Brain washing
Sensual excitement or lust
Aggressive behavior
Recklessness
Increased pride
In Children
Lessened work performance
Learning and behavior problems
Decreased performance in school
Hyperactivity
Restlessness
Improvement when they stop listening to these beats
In Adults
Decreased work output
Increased errors
General inefficiency
Reduced decision-making capacity
A vague feeling that something is wrong
General malaise
unexplained loss of energy
Shrill frequencies prove to be harmful to the body.
Ostinato: repetitive sound patterns, often mindless, induce a hypnotic state.
Loudness of certain types of music creates an actual physical addiction because of the chemicals that are released into the blood stream. The victim becomes dependent on hearing loud music with specific types of sound patterns, and has a form of withdrawal if unable to have a sustained period of listening at a loud volume. This is true of Heavy Metal, as an example.
Lyrical ambiguity is used in many songs, just as it is used to promote evil in new age neurolinguistic hypnosis techniques. Lyrical ambiguity is found in cross-over music, which purposely attempts to use words and phrases that have more than one meaning.
Some music is created to replicate the use of certain drugs or alcohol.
Here is an interesting fact: Even at low levels, the music is still has these destructive effects. Music even has an effect even with the ears completely blocked.
Since Music Has Transforming Power For Good Or Evil, What Do Christians Need To Do? (Go)
How Can Christians Discern Between Good And Evil In Music? (Go)
What Are The Characteristics Of Spiritual Music? (Go)
What Are The Elements Of Worldly Music? (Go)
What Has NPR Said About Demonic Music? (Go)
How Was The Music For FreeGospelMusic.Net Created? (Go)
What Research Has Been Done On The Effects Of Certain Types Of Music? (Go)
Worship is not an outward show (Go)
Spiritual Music Examples (Go)
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Last updated: Dec, 2011
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