Is is jut me or does this "Worship music" song sound like a cheap commercial jingle?

[TheMightyFavog]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38V8jnN1Kpw

Maybe it's because I was raised ELCA Lutheran, or maybe it's my cynicism shining through, but to me, musically, this song reminds me of a beer commercial jingle.

[MattBaggins]

1. Why do they always have their hands up in the air with goofy looks on their faces?

[Stevenmarc]

2. Because they are being robbed of their common sense

[JuniperLea]

3. They are "high in the spirit"

Didn't you know that you could get high on God? Fundies are especially good at it. My old Assembly of God church had several God induced "parties" like this a week. People lying on the floor, "speaking in tongues," and general stoner behavior that could get you arrested on the street.

[backscatter712]

26. High on Jesus, and not in a positive way.

The weekly (or daily, or hourly) infusion of the Christian memetic virus does come with the use of hypnotic techniques, use of triggering words and images, and mood-setting music (like the tune above) designed to create feelings of "spritual" euphoria.

Classic psychological manipulation, that's been evolved and perfected by religions over thousands of years.

The music sets up the mood so the audience members are more receptive, the sermon's spoken, with particular rhythms and candences designed to send the audience on an emotional roller coaster and put them in a receptive trance, the members are made to sing, repeat phrases (the Lords Prayer, Hail Mary, etc.), visualize images of Jesus, Mohammed, etc. to set off triggers. The mind is triggered, endorphins are released, synapses start firing, and all around your brain, all your neurons do the wave, and "Whoa, I just felt the Holy Spirit pass through me!" Optionally, add some glossolalia for flavor.

Except it wasn't the Holy Spirit, it was just a psychologically generated endorphin high. It literally was all in your head. Which doesn't make it less powerful for those that experience it - endorphin waves generate powerful emotional experiences. But it was still all in the brain.

And they have you coming back for your fix every Sunday (or whatever day of the week, depending on your religion.) Gotta keep you hooked...

[patrice]

32. All true, but a question remains, no matter how much some have lied about it, why . . .

are these chemical and kinetic responses associated with these particular phenomena? Why not in response to the fabrication of a door, or reading a short story, or a dancing dog, or . . . ?

[backscatter712]

33. Conditioning. Mass hypnosis.

It's sort of Pavlovian. Associate soaring music, pretty stained glass, rousing sermons, several hundred or thousand people in the pews along with you doing the same thing, coupled with an image of Jesus, and before long, you associate Jesus with an endorphin high, that you think is the Holy Spirit passing through you.

Read The God Virus by Darrel Ray - that book has a lot of material on this.

Or here's Darrel Ray on Youtube, talking about crowd psychology - he's got an entire series of videos on Youtube talking about the God Virus and how it spreads.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrM6knrz5Cg

[Fuzz]

31. /waves hi to another reformed A/G'r

Father was an ordained AG preacher.

Nightmare.

[MineralMan]

4. Because their god is an awesome god. It's so simple.

[JuniperLea]

7. My daughter loves the commercials for those albums!

She knows all the little snippets of songs they sing... hilarious!

When I was a teenager, I had my own "music ministry" and traveled around to different churches, orphanages, and even prisons, to sing. I even did some recording, for myself and as background vocalist on albums for many others. I even recorded demos for a Christian recording studio... songs written by people who didn't sing but needed a sample so they could hock their wares with performers. I was on a fast track! Until... one of the elders in my own church said that the rock beat in my music came from the depths of hell.

That was it for me. It flipped a switch in my head. These people were no more about God than my dog was, maybe less. Yes, definitely less.

[MineralMan]

13. I was big into church music when I was in high school.

This was all before "praise teams" and the like. I sang in so many different groups at the time that I never seemed to be at home in the evening. Uff da!

[Arugula Latte]

8. Those commercials for Xtian pop music always freak me out

Those people just so hiiiigh on Jebus ... creepy but kinda funny, too.

[rucky]

16. They're raising the roof.

and at more devotional churches, they'll break into the Cabbage Patch, too.

[patrice]

30. For the same reasons that fans of other kinds of music do similar things.

[JuniperLea]

5. Have you ever seen the South Park episode in which...

Cartman takes secular pop tunes and changes a minimal amount of words and creates an entire album?

Hilarious!

[golddigger]

9. LOl...my fav was, "I'm going to get down on my knees

in front of Jesus and feel his salvation all over my face."

[JuniperLea]

12. Mine too!

Oh man... I laughed so hard!

[MineralMan]

15. Here's my fave:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75UeVLbkXeg

Pure blasphemy

[JuniperLea]

24. Oh man...

Love it!

[MineralMan]

35. For some reason, the actual video of that group was pulled from

YouTube. Those guys have country gospel down pat, don't they? I love that piece.

[backscatter712]

28. "Suffer the little children to come unto me"... n/t

[Ezlivin]

6. Many early hymns came from drinking songs

As it does with other secular things, the church repurposed the well-known tunes.

[MineralMan]

10. Hmm...very nice.

to: Tavern in The Town.

chorus:

There's a god-son in the sky.
And you'll meet him when you die, when you die.
He makes his wine by magic, you will see,
And never, never has to pee.

[GoCubsGo]

11. Yep. and it sounds even cheaper when...

...you hear it while you are shopping at Hobby Lobby. They play that kind of stuff over the sound system. Gives me the creeps, which is why I avoid the place like the plague.

[MineralMan]

14. Oh, it's not a new thing. Here's an album from back when I was

a teenager:

[SalmonChantedEvening]

17. Aqua Net for Jeebus!!

"That there's some Grade A nightmare fuel." - Crow T. Robot

[Stevenmarc]

19. ROFL, The higher the hair the closer to God

Well at least they found solace in Jesus because they don't look like that had a very full dance card.

[PeaceNikki]

22. lolz

love it!

[originalpckelly]

23. No shit! "Jesus Use Me"?

That title sounds so wrong!

And that hair? It would have to be inspected by the TSA, just in case they were hiding bombs in it.

[onager]

36. Ahem...

Lots more here...

http://www.funnyalbumcovers.com /

http://www.worstalbumcovers.org/page/Religious+Sinners

[Lydia Leftcoast]

37. That's actually fairly normal teenage hair circa 1962-64

I had classmates with hair like that.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

18. Over 4,000,000 views.

Someone send this to Bill Maher and watch his head explode.

Mass delusion is a sight to behold.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

20. That's the point

The object is to attract those whose entire musical world consists of commercial garbage.

Unfortunately, given the state of music education in our schools, that's a lot of people.

There's some fantastic church music being written today, especially by choral composers, but unfortunately, it requires an attention span longer than three months.

[Madam Mossfern]

21. I see people who are spiritually engaged.

If it helps them throughout their day and their lives, good for them.
But.....if they say that I must worship their awesome God in their way or else, I draw the line.

[spanone]

25. selling jesus is no different than selling beer, except you pay no taxes on profits

[darkstar3]

27. You need a license to sell beer,

but I wish you were right...

[patrice]

29. We can't answer that question without knowing how many of those singing it

give of themselves in self-less service to their awesome God's creation.

[MineralMan]

34. I was involved with an evangelical church as a high schooler,

back in the early 1960s. We did things like this all the time, but on a less high-tech scale. The one thing I can tell you is that all that excitement isn't over after the concert. Nope. Not at all. The ride home was just as exciting. Nothing like a little gospel music to get teenagers all hot and bothered.

Then, I turned 20 and have been an atheist ever since. Things have never been the same again.

[backscatter712]

38. IIRC, that particular song in the Youtube video was played in commercials around Christmas.

I don't know if it's still in commercials for Christmas Christian Rock this year, but on the cable news channels around the silly season, they'd play ads with this song over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over...

As an avid fan of Darrel Ray's The God Virus, I can tell you why that song was used.

Not only is it useful for mass hypnosis in churches to plant virus-promoting post-hypnotic suggestions in potential converts, but it's put into that TV commercial, again, with that soaring melody, the chorus lyrics played over and over and over, to get you to buy more stuff!!!

I've got to play some nice and Satanic heavy metal to get that damned song out of my head now...