Not a platonic idea at all. Apollo and his instruments were encouraged. Plato thought, contrary to any teaching of the church, that music could make one good or bad. And no one in the anti-CCM camp has made that assertion either.
Uh, that is kind of the gist of what you and others are insinuating: that because the world uses beats sinfully, it must be something in the beats that causes the sin, so we shouldn't use them
Neither is it my ban. The only reason I speak of the practice of the early church, and it
is fact the early church did not use them, is to argue against the erroneous notion that the Psalms command the use of instruments in worship, a common argument of the CCM-anything-goes crowd.
Well, I wouldn't say "command", but they were there, and what you're trying to do is make the NT supersede this with a restriction in principle, but there is none. Yet, you say it is I who:
Here you go again making an assumption and leaping to an unsubstantiated conclusion. What? In three thousand converts there were no musicians? What do you know of the availability of musical instruments? What possible reason could you have to assume they were more scarce in a fully-advanced Greek and Roman civilization than they are today? There were rich people in the Church too. Not every region was experiencing the fierce persecutions those in Jerusalem were facing. Charge them that are rich in this world...; Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon our dearly beloved, and fellow labourer ... and to the church in thy house.
So there were some rich, and some musicians. Probably a relative few out of the thousands. You cannot pruduce the testimony of every single congregation that instruments were not used, let alone either banned or shunned/avoided, so all of this has no bearing on the debate.
And why the absence of instruments in the synagogues?
Their absence in the synagogues and in the churches were by choice. It was not a condition forced upon them by circumstances.
I have already dealt with the straightforward teaching of the NT on the nature of the Jewish forms of devotion:
And what say ye of 2 Chronicles 29:25-26? Here you see Hezekiah restoring a Levitical orchestra to the Temple. This orchestra was founded by David, being a prophet Acts 2:30, Nathan and Gad. And shall I remind you that Solomon's Temple was never seen in the pattern shown to Moses in the Mount? The development of the temple cultus in later stages of Israel's history is no less a part of the work of the Law than those things explicitly commanded in the Pentateuch.
These later additions were also done away with the dissolution of the temple cultus. In fact, when the Temple was destroyed in 586 B.C. the Synagogue form of worship was developed in its stead. The rites of the Temple were symbolized in vicarious rites, and the music was plainsong—no instruments. How could they worship according to the Law outside the Temple? Only by faith.
This was the basic form of worship emulated by the Early Christians, not the outward forms used in the Temple.
You have not given enough evidence that it was
initially a "choice", and then when it was, it was not a scriptural directive. The synagogue as well, was something the Jews developed on their own after the Dispersion. They too added unbiblical rules and customs, figuring that if they be extra good, maybe then God would bless them and send His Messiah to do what they want. So Jesus speaks of people looking somber when they fast and pray. This was seen as "sobriety" or "reverence", and Jesus shows that it is not necessarily so. So of course, they would carry this over to worship as well. The Church has followed right in their lead, contrary to what Paul labored so hard to teach.
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Yet soon, a teaching develops that tries to ban them as being infantile Israelite worship or "of the flesh", and that true worship should be somber. Once again, this was not taught by the New Testament.
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This is another conclusion based on the faulty premise you stated previously, again assuming a cause and effect relationship where none exists. But as the premise is fanciful, so is the reasoning from it. I have already dealt with the straightforward teaching of the NT on the nature of the Jewish forms of devotion.
This was based on your own words, with the exception of "somber". You are the one who assumes the "cause effect relation" that 1)"there are no instruments mentioned in the NT or early writings"
2), so they were banned, and you are the one who used that reasoning as to why they were banned, quoting from Masters and Calvin.
Your characterization of "somber" is also a misrepresentation. Solemn, yes and sober. Not somber. Make no mistake. There is a dramatic contrast in the outward forms of spiritual and sensual worship. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other. Those who are carnally minded will deride spiritual worship because it is opposed to them and contrary to the forms they think to be full of life. It may behoove you to abandon the constant dry-and-somber-vs-lively-and-invigorating appeal as a merit of your case.
The logic you are using, with any amount of pleasurability in music being total "sensuality" or "fleshy" would lead one to think that something totally unpleasing and somber was what God really wants. Let's face it, in practice, much of the chants in the medieval Church, (which people assume is from the NT), along with the hymns the way they are often played in traditional-only churches, is somber, or else some robotic marching style. Any attempt to liven them up is seen as some sort of "compromise". Remember, many of you criticize a piece just for leading one to tap their hands, (and there are many classical/traditional pieces that can do this, and they are then often deliberately played in a more somber fashion), so once again, how do you figure it is I making things up?
And this is simply incredible. The Early Church Fathers, and especially Augustine, were apologists. It is more akin to what Hank Hanegraaff does today. They gave answers and argued against the prevailing philosophies. Where do you get your ideas? They certainly aren't based on any kind of fact. Appeal to the world? Have you read the disciplines espoused by the early fathers? What were the prevalent activities of the pagan world at that time? It wasn't philosophy.
Apologists can be wrong, too. (Do you even think everything Hanegraaf says is always right?) So now,
philosophy wasn't a prevalent activity of pagans? Now I've heard everything! Gee, what did Paul and the others spend so much time warning their readers of (besides just "sensuality")? No, philosophy was coming in, as the NT warned, and by the time of Augustine, it was rampant. How can you be a fundamental Baptist and accept the Catholic Church of his time? It already had most of the corruptions that we reject today! But I made all of this philosophy and corruption stuff up, right?
So a person rejects philosophies that he has not accepted, but that does not mean he is free of any himself. Just think of a CCM star speaking out against an indecent secular video. He may be speaking out against something in the world, but you would still reject him as already poisoned by the world.
Augustine was the biggest influence regarding the pagan dualism I mentioned. He influenced the celibate priesthood, and "sex as only for childbirth, and even then it is still suspicious" doctrines. This based on his own guilt from his vices before his conversion. Yet I make up or misrepresent this dualistic influence as well.
First, you should read Ventura's essay before you comment on it. Dualism is simply the idea that the body and soul are distinct. It is not the idea that the body is evil. This idea is antithetical to Platonism. According to Britannica
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They took a dualistic view of soul and body (though accepting bodily resurrection) and emphasized the primacy of the spiritual, while insisting on the goodness of God's material creation.
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That's one definition of "dualism". I have another in the realm of eschatology: preteristic typical fulfillments of Revelation that occurred in biblical times, PLUS futuristic antetypical fulfillments, many of which are yet future. One has nothing to do with the other. Yet I was once a non-Christian like Ventura, and I know what they mean when they criticize Christianity. Many branches of Christianity (both Catholic and anabaptist/protestant) did largely tend to view only "spirit" as good and "flesh" as evil, and that is now the non-Christian world still views the Church. I just today got rid of a self help book my mother gave me years ago by Nathaniel Branden in which he said "the Church has doctrines that damn sex". This is what people think, as the Church did come across this way in the past. So they lumped the "truly Christian form of dualism" you describe with the false ones I describe, and the logic of TCM only critics
confuses the two further complicating everything. And I have read Ventura's essay. You have posted it here many times.
I can also add that nothing I have read in Plato comes close to your descriptions of what Plato believed.
Christianity has a dualistic view of soul and body, and I established that (actually St. Paul established it) in a previous post and feel no need to repeat myself. Let me add that labels are not evidence. You again, like so many secularists, assume that similarity in and of itself is conclusive of a cause and effect relationship. If many of Plato's conclusions mirror Christianity, it is not because he influenced Christian thought, it is because God hath shewed it unto him, Romans 1:19-20. Plato was a lover of wisdom. That is what the term philosopher means. It's a term the philosophers gave to themselves as opposed to the title sage, not thinking themselves equal to the sages of old. Plato gave his life to the study of wisdom. He travelled the world seeking, much like The Preacher, to see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life. We should be amazed not that many of his conclusions are similar to Christian thought, but that he did not come to a full knowledge of the truth.
It was more Neo-platonism, which I am referring to as influencing the Church. Still, they are closely related, and stem from Plato. On one hand you criticize me for a "cause and effect" of linking teachings in the post-apostolic Church to him based on similarity, but now you admit "well, they were parts of God's truth that He had showed to him, or he had discovered seeking wisdom". All of this is partly truthful, but
we must separate which teaching he shares in common with the Church are from God, or which are corruptions in the Church. The Bible is the only criterion for this (1 John 4:1-2, Isaiah 8:20), not our ideas of how to be spiritually mature or crucify the flesh. Much of your arguments against all contemporary styles are not based on the Bible, but on generalization and indirect association, or suppositions argued from silence or made up principles. This is why:
But you have not answered my challenge. You have stated false information about Platonism, you falsely assume cause and effect relationships and then build fanciful arguments upon them, you assume to know what Ventura was reacting to when it's obvious you haven't read his essay, and, worse, you state false information about the contents of the NT. This rates a 10 on Travelsong's spanking scale?
It's time for you to start posting evidence, not just trying to come up with stories to explain the evidence away. What was the nature of worship under the Apostles or Timothy or Titus? Let's see some evidence establishing the juicy livliness of their practices gradually evolving into the dry restricted forms of the next two millennia.
Once again, you assume we're arguing some "juicy" or "sensuous worship, and I'm supposed to "prove" this when I never argued it? It's only one extreme or the other with you.
)...you know what I mean,surely....I have never seen or heard the music played,but I know what it is...probably not at all what they use today...but,it is that classic style that makes you think...striptease. Enough of that! 
