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"And not all music affects ALL PEOPLE in the same way. This is the point"

People have preferences. People also have enough fundamental similarities that music which inspires lust in one person is *not* going to inspire reverence in another.

Some music facilitates constructive intellectual activity. Other music prevents it entirely. Some music inspires reverence, other music makes you want to dance.

People are similar enough that *nobody* is going to react to rock in the same way that someone like me reacts to a beautiful Mass written by one of the greats. Even if--EVEN IF--they are associating their reaction with religion, the rock music is not inspiring the same spiritual response as beautiful music.

Could Satan use classical music to ruin souls? Well, as he can quote scripture to his own purposes, almost certainly. He's that intelligent. But how much easier and more efficient to ruin souls through music that speaks directly to the lowest in us, instead of music that appeals to the highest in us!

"A clear statement of personal preference, just don't require God to always agree with your reaction."

I don't require anything of God; I try to remain in agreement with Him, as best I can.

Maybe I shouldn't write about this yet, as I haven't discussed it very much, but I am coming to think that, just as there are absolute standards of morality that derive from God, so are there absolute standards of beauty that derive from God.

Calm down, now, I'm not proposing such narrow standards as, say, skinny women are beautiful and plump women ugly, or red roses are beautiful and yellow roses ugly. Nothing like that. Clearly, if such standards exist, the "beautiful" side would extend infinitely, but still be demarcated from the ugly side.

I do not think that the principle, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," is infinitely applicable. Very widely, yes; infinitely, no. I think that corrupt spirituality can lead one to prefer the ugly to the beautiful, but the fact of one's preference does not alter the status of the things preferred or deplored. Beauty is still beauty, and ugliness still ugliness, regardless of their respective popularity.

With regard to music, that might be related to the effect on the human consciousness independent of cultural conditioning.

I think part of the problem with thinking about this issue is our tendency to assume that what we *like* is "good" and "beautiful" and has "value." But a person of corrupt spirituality--which is to say, everyone--is certainly at risk of liking that which is bad and ugly and destructive.

Many Christians like rock music, and hold that this form of music can be as spiritually uplifting as any. I hold that they are mistaken. Rock music with Christian lyrics may be a step up from rock music with depraved lyrics, but it is still bad and ugly and destructive, and many levels below beautiful music.