I just choose Jesus. I'm a simple man.I should've said Yeshua, too. I think of YHVH as the 3 in 1--Father/Abba, Yeshua HaMoshiach, Ruach HaKodesh. Some shorten God's name to Yah, which kind of reminds me of Andy Sandberg (SNL) doing his "Ras Trent" sketch, so that's a bit weird for me.
Spiritual Formation: A Self-Centered Spiritualism?
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elsbet
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Those things create doors into your Spirit for a host of things that will bring/ cause sin... and misery and difficulties etc. At least imo.
"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service" Romans 12:1.
"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are" 1 Corinthians 3:16-17.
"For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's” 1 Corinthians 6:20.
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's" 1 Corinthians 6:19-20.
I wrote this in my other forum "The original diet of mankind and the Old Testament Dietary Laws, do they still apply?"
"If we are to to be living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, we should present ourselves in as good condition as possible, avoiding habits, physical, mental or spiritual, which damage our minds and bodies."
Dalit
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The dietary laws are much simpler than I ever knew. No pork and no shellfish. Since I'm allergic to shellfish, it was kind of a no brainer.
Todd
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I've eliminated shellfish and most pork, but admit I still have a weak spot for bacon...
Dalit
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This stuff is da bomb.
If you like crispy bacon, this is for you. Although I try not to get it too often because I will eat it all.https://alfrescoallnatural.com/products/fully-cooked-uncured-chicken-bacon
Can You Feel the Music?
Music underlines many forms of communication, including entertainment. A movie, for example, without music to set the atmosphere, would never have the same impact as one with music. The soundtrack sets the tone and suggests the mood of each scene.
Elton John's award winning song "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" helped make Walt Disney's The Lion King the top-selling video of 1995, winning it a Grammy Award for best original song. The music in the film played an instrumental role in the success of the production.
The movie was an international success, being translated into 32 languages worldwide. Note, however, that while the words may have been translated into many languages, the music stayed the same. The music communicated the emotion of the story to people of every language, tradition, belief, and age.
Isn't music a powerful influence?
You will hear music in shops to attract prospective customers, music on the radio to entertain millions of listeners, music in advertising to sell products, and music in private homes to set the mood for relaxation or partying.
What would a romantic evening between two people in love be without the right type of music to set the mood? Would you play a military march during dinner with your loved one? Would you sing a lullaby to mobilize an angry mob?
The Science of Music
Scientific and medical research helps us understand how music can so profoundly affect us physically, mentally, and spiritually.
Music can be used as a treatment for mentally handicapped and schizophrenic patients. Neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks describes one patient of his, whose symptoms of intense excitement and uncontrollable movement were treated by music:
"By far the best treatment of her crisis was music, the effects of which were almost uncanny. One minute would see Miss D compressed, clenched and blocked, or jerking, ticking and jabbering like a sort of human bomb; the next, with the sound of music from awireless or gramophone, the complete disappearance of all these obstructive, explosive phenomena and their replacement by a blissful ease and flow of movement as Miss D suddenly freed of her automatisms, smilingly "conducted" the music, orrose and danced to it." Oliver Sacks, Awakenings (London Pan, 1981).
Music can also have powerful negative effects, as Dr. Neil Nedley tells us:
"A study of 121 Midwestern high school students’ music preference indicated that 75 percent of the girls who preferred heavy metal music had considered suicide compared with 35 percent of the girls who preferred other types of music. Nearly 50 percent of the boys who preferred heavy metal had considered suicide compared to with 15 percent of the boys who listened to “non-metal” music." Neil Nedley, Depression: The Way Out (Review & Herald Publishing Association, 2001): 27.
Music affects emotions. It can move us to be more happy, content, peaceful, joyful, and gentle or it can move us to be more irate, angry, or sad.
With music having such a profound effect on our day to day lives, would it not be wise to understand this communication tool more fully, so we can make good decisions in choosing music that will help us get to where we want to go?
Music underlines many forms of communication, including entertainment. A movie, for example, without music to set the atmosphere, would never have the same impact as one with music. The soundtrack sets the tone and suggests the mood of each scene.
Elton John's award winning song "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" helped make Walt Disney's The Lion King the top-selling video of 1995, winning it a Grammy Award for best original song. The music in the film played an instrumental role in the success of the production.
The movie was an international success, being translated into 32 languages worldwide. Note, however, that while the words may have been translated into many languages, the music stayed the same. The music communicated the emotion of the story to people of every language, tradition, belief, and age.
Isn't music a powerful influence?
You will hear music in shops to attract prospective customers, music on the radio to entertain millions of listeners, music in advertising to sell products, and music in private homes to set the mood for relaxation or partying.
What would a romantic evening between two people in love be without the right type of music to set the mood? Would you play a military march during dinner with your loved one? Would you sing a lullaby to mobilize an angry mob?
The Science of Music
Scientific and medical research helps us understand how music can so profoundly affect us physically, mentally, and spiritually.
Music can be used as a treatment for mentally handicapped and schizophrenic patients. Neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks describes one patient of his, whose symptoms of intense excitement and uncontrollable movement were treated by music:
"By far the best treatment of her crisis was music, the effects of which were almost uncanny. One minute would see Miss D compressed, clenched and blocked, or jerking, ticking and jabbering like a sort of human bomb; the next, with the sound of music from awireless or gramophone, the complete disappearance of all these obstructive, explosive phenomena and their replacement by a blissful ease and flow of movement as Miss D suddenly freed of her automatisms, smilingly "conducted" the music, orrose and danced to it." Oliver Sacks, Awakenings (London Pan, 1981).
Music can also have powerful negative effects, as Dr. Neil Nedley tells us:
"A study of 121 Midwestern high school students’ music preference indicated that 75 percent of the girls who preferred heavy metal music had considered suicide compared with 35 percent of the girls who preferred other types of music. Nearly 50 percent of the boys who preferred heavy metal had considered suicide compared to with 15 percent of the boys who listened to “non-metal” music." Neil Nedley, Depression: The Way Out (Review & Herald Publishing Association, 2001): 27.
Music affects emotions. It can move us to be more happy, content, peaceful, joyful, and gentle or it can move us to be more irate, angry, or sad.
With music having such a profound effect on our day to day lives, would it not be wise to understand this communication tool more fully, so we can make good decisions in choosing music that will help us get to where we want to go?
The Dangers of Television
There may be an object in your home that you unwittingly allow to lead you into a type of hypnotic trance. If you are the like the average American, several rooms in your house are equipped with an object that you focus your eyes on. It flickers every few seconds, and can produce a hypnotic-like trance. It is one of the most popular devices of our time—the television set.
More than 96 percent of American homes have at least one set. Jerry Mander found that although there are many ways to be hypnotized, a number of experts defined hypnotism in such a way that television aptly fits the description. The classic setting for TV watching is similar to a typical environment for hypnotism induction—a darkened room, a flickering light (the TV set) as a single-minded focus, and freedom from outside diversions.
People watch programs provided by TV stations, cable companies, satellite networks, videos, and DVDs. The range of programming is diverse—movies, documentaries, sitcoms, sports, music, education, nature, news, ad infinitum. Does what you watch have any effect on your mind and character? It clearly does. From the standpoint of both depression and the frontal lobe, the most disturbing aspects of television relate to the veritable explosion of both sexual content and violence.
Dangers Television Poses to the Brain
Although the content you view exerts powerful effects on your mind, the medium of television itself also appears to have profound mental effects. Independent of content, evidence suggests that merely watching most television programs is detrimental to the frontal lobe. This deleterious effect appears to be the result of the scene-switching work in most programming.
The technical problem with the filming technique is referred to as a “rapidly changing scene of reference.” The average television program (or video or DVD) changes its reference every three to five seconds. The perspective from which you are viewing the event suddenly changes from camera to camera many times each minute, whether you want it to or not. The frequent camera switching and scene changes that viewer passively experiences is thought to be the critical factor that brings about the frontal lobe suppression during the viewing process. This is in sharp contrast to how we normally view the world around us. We see real life scenes from one perspective (where we are located at the time of the event). We can change our perspective only by voluntarily moving, and then we are limited by means of transportation.
Dr. Morris cites television’s rapid change of reference as contributing to a hypnotic-type effect. Dr. Thomas Mulholland looked at children’s EEGs (brain waves) as they watch their favourite television programs. The researchers assumed that since these programs were their favourite shows, the kids would be mentally involved with what they were viewing and would experience a continual shift between alpha brain wave activity and beta. Instead, after just two or three minutes of the show, they sat back and stayed almost entirely in an alpha pattern. This meant that while they were watching they were “not reacting, not orienting, not focusing, just spaced-out.”
Very few television programs (less than one percent) are truly educational. Within a minute of watching any television program you can determine if the program will detract or enhance frontal lobe activity. True education will not only convey information but will also enhance particularly the front-middle and left prefrontal cortex of the frontal lobe. If the scene of reference stays the same for thirty seconds or a minute, you can be sure that the program is educational.
Most C-Spam programs, some Discovery Channel programs, and some Christian programs (specializing in spiritual and health programming) are examples of informational programs conveyed via a slow or perhaps no scene of reference change. This allows full analytical abilities of the viewer to be operative while receiving the information. One additional benefit of such programming is that prolonged “eye focus” associated with hypnosis tends not to occur while receiving this information. Since there is no rapid scene of reference change, the eyes do not have to unnaturally stare at the television, but will often leave the set, and look around the room while still receiving and analyzing the information.
Dr. Herbert Krugman, a brain wave researcher, has gone on record saying, “Television is a communication medium that effortlessly transmits huge quantities of information [to the viewers] not thought about at the time of exposure.” Dr. Erik Peper, another influential brain wave researcher and writer, once said, “The horror of television is that the information goes in, but we do not react to it. It goes right into our memory pool and perhaps we react to it later, but we do not know what we are reacting to. When you watch television you are training yourself not to react and so later on, you’re doing things without knowing why you’re doing them or where they came from.”
Under the influence of television, the frontal lobe cannot function at its full capacity. The brain does record information: sight, memory, and emotions are all functioning well. Nevertheless, the brain no longer critically analyzes the information. Terrible scenes can be depicted, but the viewer tends only to laugh or shrug them off. Normally, if those kinds of events happened in real life the individual would be appalled. Even this is changing as people become more desensitized through exposure.
Despite how you respond—whether by laughing, apathetically staring, averting the eyes in disgust, or a hundred other ways—scenes are indelibly imprinted upon the mind. When you see a rerun once it begins you know you have seen it before. The memory is there, although the last time you saw it your frontal lobe was not any more active than it is this time.
Video Games are No Different
The same hypnotizing brain activity that occurs while watching television also occurs while playing video games.
Consider this excerpt from an article on a popular gaming website:
"Prolonged time playing video games could cause people to lose concentration, get angry easily and have trouble associating with others, a Japanese professor's research has suggested."
"In a survey conducted by Akio Mori, a professor in Nihon University’s College of Humanities and Sciences, it was found that the longer people spent playing video games, the less activity they showed in the prefrontal region of their brains, which governs emotion and creativity."
"What is even more worrying is that according to the study, brain activity in the people who continually played games did not recover in the periods when they weren’t playing games" (emphasis added).
Games on video consoles or the computer not only damage our minds, but simply waste our lives away. Time is our most precious asset, and we are to use it for the glory of God:
"For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and world lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in the present age" (Titus 2:11-12).
Well over a decade ago there were more than 3000 scientific studies published on the effects of television on the mind Research continues on the interrelationship. More than 500 books have been written on the subject. It is one of the most well researched subjects in our culture, yet most people have little awareness of TV viewing’s solemn consequences.
Television news programs often publicize lifestyle-related scientific studies, but little is said about the studies done on the effects of television on the mind. We cannot expect the television industry to reveal the truth about itself, but we do not have to remain uninformed.
Six decades after David Sarnoff, President of RCA, unveiled the first television at the 1939 World’s Fair, it is time to ask, what is television doing to our country? More specifically, what is television doing to me?
"All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any" (1 Corinthians 6:12).
The apostle Paul tells us that we need to be watchful to not be brought under the power of anything other than God. Although television might not be bad in itself, its use is rarely beneficial to us and we need to be careful about falling into its power.
https://amazingdiscoveries.org/S-deception_media_television_brain_violence
There may be an object in your home that you unwittingly allow to lead you into a type of hypnotic trance. If you are the like the average American, several rooms in your house are equipped with an object that you focus your eyes on. It flickers every few seconds, and can produce a hypnotic-like trance. It is one of the most popular devices of our time—the television set.
More than 96 percent of American homes have at least one set. Jerry Mander found that although there are many ways to be hypnotized, a number of experts defined hypnotism in such a way that television aptly fits the description. The classic setting for TV watching is similar to a typical environment for hypnotism induction—a darkened room, a flickering light (the TV set) as a single-minded focus, and freedom from outside diversions.
People watch programs provided by TV stations, cable companies, satellite networks, videos, and DVDs. The range of programming is diverse—movies, documentaries, sitcoms, sports, music, education, nature, news, ad infinitum. Does what you watch have any effect on your mind and character? It clearly does. From the standpoint of both depression and the frontal lobe, the most disturbing aspects of television relate to the veritable explosion of both sexual content and violence.
Dangers Television Poses to the Brain
Although the content you view exerts powerful effects on your mind, the medium of television itself also appears to have profound mental effects. Independent of content, evidence suggests that merely watching most television programs is detrimental to the frontal lobe. This deleterious effect appears to be the result of the scene-switching work in most programming.
The technical problem with the filming technique is referred to as a “rapidly changing scene of reference.” The average television program (or video or DVD) changes its reference every three to five seconds. The perspective from which you are viewing the event suddenly changes from camera to camera many times each minute, whether you want it to or not. The frequent camera switching and scene changes that viewer passively experiences is thought to be the critical factor that brings about the frontal lobe suppression during the viewing process. This is in sharp contrast to how we normally view the world around us. We see real life scenes from one perspective (where we are located at the time of the event). We can change our perspective only by voluntarily moving, and then we are limited by means of transportation.
Dr. Morris cites television’s rapid change of reference as contributing to a hypnotic-type effect. Dr. Thomas Mulholland looked at children’s EEGs (brain waves) as they watch their favourite television programs. The researchers assumed that since these programs were their favourite shows, the kids would be mentally involved with what they were viewing and would experience a continual shift between alpha brain wave activity and beta. Instead, after just two or three minutes of the show, they sat back and stayed almost entirely in an alpha pattern. This meant that while they were watching they were “not reacting, not orienting, not focusing, just spaced-out.”
Very few television programs (less than one percent) are truly educational. Within a minute of watching any television program you can determine if the program will detract or enhance frontal lobe activity. True education will not only convey information but will also enhance particularly the front-middle and left prefrontal cortex of the frontal lobe. If the scene of reference stays the same for thirty seconds or a minute, you can be sure that the program is educational.
Most C-Spam programs, some Discovery Channel programs, and some Christian programs (specializing in spiritual and health programming) are examples of informational programs conveyed via a slow or perhaps no scene of reference change. This allows full analytical abilities of the viewer to be operative while receiving the information. One additional benefit of such programming is that prolonged “eye focus” associated with hypnosis tends not to occur while receiving this information. Since there is no rapid scene of reference change, the eyes do not have to unnaturally stare at the television, but will often leave the set, and look around the room while still receiving and analyzing the information.
Dr. Herbert Krugman, a brain wave researcher, has gone on record saying, “Television is a communication medium that effortlessly transmits huge quantities of information [to the viewers] not thought about at the time of exposure.” Dr. Erik Peper, another influential brain wave researcher and writer, once said, “The horror of television is that the information goes in, but we do not react to it. It goes right into our memory pool and perhaps we react to it later, but we do not know what we are reacting to. When you watch television you are training yourself not to react and so later on, you’re doing things without knowing why you’re doing them or where they came from.”
Under the influence of television, the frontal lobe cannot function at its full capacity. The brain does record information: sight, memory, and emotions are all functioning well. Nevertheless, the brain no longer critically analyzes the information. Terrible scenes can be depicted, but the viewer tends only to laugh or shrug them off. Normally, if those kinds of events happened in real life the individual would be appalled. Even this is changing as people become more desensitized through exposure.
Despite how you respond—whether by laughing, apathetically staring, averting the eyes in disgust, or a hundred other ways—scenes are indelibly imprinted upon the mind. When you see a rerun once it begins you know you have seen it before. The memory is there, although the last time you saw it your frontal lobe was not any more active than it is this time.
Video Games are No Different
The same hypnotizing brain activity that occurs while watching television also occurs while playing video games.
Consider this excerpt from an article on a popular gaming website:
"Prolonged time playing video games could cause people to lose concentration, get angry easily and have trouble associating with others, a Japanese professor's research has suggested."
"In a survey conducted by Akio Mori, a professor in Nihon University’s College of Humanities and Sciences, it was found that the longer people spent playing video games, the less activity they showed in the prefrontal region of their brains, which governs emotion and creativity."
"What is even more worrying is that according to the study, brain activity in the people who continually played games did not recover in the periods when they weren’t playing games" (emphasis added).
Games on video consoles or the computer not only damage our minds, but simply waste our lives away. Time is our most precious asset, and we are to use it for the glory of God:
"For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and world lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in the present age" (Titus 2:11-12).
Well over a decade ago there were more than 3000 scientific studies published on the effects of television on the mind Research continues on the interrelationship. More than 500 books have been written on the subject. It is one of the most well researched subjects in our culture, yet most people have little awareness of TV viewing’s solemn consequences.
Television news programs often publicize lifestyle-related scientific studies, but little is said about the studies done on the effects of television on the mind. We cannot expect the television industry to reveal the truth about itself, but we do not have to remain uninformed.
Six decades after David Sarnoff, President of RCA, unveiled the first television at the 1939 World’s Fair, it is time to ask, what is television doing to our country? More specifically, what is television doing to me?
"All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any" (1 Corinthians 6:12).
The apostle Paul tells us that we need to be watchful to not be brought under the power of anything other than God. Although television might not be bad in itself, its use is rarely beneficial to us and we need to be careful about falling into its power.
https://amazingdiscoveries.org/S-deception_media_television_brain_violence
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ToxicFemininitySucks
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- Jun 26, 2022
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- 2,264
I wonder if this is causation or correlation. As in, did heavy metal make the teenagers depressed, or did depressed teenagers seek out music which "mirrored" their mood?
In all honesty, i lean towards the second option. After a rough childhood, i found myself seeking out the heaviest metal i could find as i entered my teen years. And yeah, i was depressed, but if i hadn't been depressed i wouldn't have sought it out. I can not even imagine listening to that kind of stuff now.
There's so many subliminals in music these days that i mostly stick to hymns and classical (and then i wonder about the composer's intentions). In my opinion, only criticizing heavy metal while most recorded music is so awful is just going after low hanging fruit.
ToxicFemininitySucks
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I feel guilty, because i used the Jesus prayer to get me through two childbirth labors (i wasn't a Christian yet when my first was born, and the difference was night and day). All the childbirth books talk about using "mantras" and "meditations" and "affirmations" and i absolutely refuse to do any of that pagan stuff, so i was really hoping that using the Jesus prayer instead would be fine.
The Bible says not to pray in vain repetitions like the heathen, so i do feel bad, like i disobeyed God. It's just hard to think about what i was supposed to do in this situation. It's hard to not come to the conclusion that God wants childbirth to be truly unbearably painful. If that was the case, i would have to accept it as God's will, but the pain can actually cause the woman to tense up even more, possibly endangering the child's life.
Hmmm good point. I've never really thought about what causes people to listen to certain kinds of music. I always thought we all have different tastes in music and we listen to what makes us feel good or matches our moods.
I used to listen to different kinds of music depending on my mood, although I never liked hip hop or heavy metal.
That piece I posted was about heavy metal music but many Christians including myself are aware that all secular music has so many subliminals and is not of God. Unfortunately some Christian music out there is really secular and not of God either. Hymns are the best thing to stick to.
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Don't feel bad about something you did in ignorance. Now you know better. One of the signs of repentance is when we stop doing the things we used to do before we came to God, that hurt Him.
I can't begin to imagine the pain of childbirth, but I've been told its unbearable. I can imagine being in that pain and wondering why God punished women to suffer such intense pain in childbirth. I know I've gone through certain things spiritually, mentally and emotionally in my life and questioned God, asked where He was and why He couldn't stop my suffering.
I know you know God never wanted any of His children to suffer at all. All this suffering is a result of sin sadly. God Himself suffered here on earth to save us. I don't think we will ever know for all eternity the pain Jesus went through to save us.