Bandcamp News (Free Music)

Bandcamp News – New EP Release – Sideways Steps

BANDCAMP NEWS

01/02/2024 - New EP: Sideway Steps

I decided to give away some music and started off with one track but decided I should find another three tracks to make a EP out of and I thought while I thought I was cooking with gas so to speak I should make some more. Sideways Steps is a four track EP I made last night and is now on my free alternative page on Bandcamp and also on Soundcloud where it will be and only be as I don’t own rights to any of the vocals or lyrics so I can’t sale them. The four tracks are from famous songs which I found the acapellas to online and made new songs but they are Megan’s Thee Stallion – Hiss more on that in a mo. Aaliyah’s – Miss You, Rihanna’s – Skin and Guy’s – I Like. I chose my favourite songs from that artists or the last one group and each one I hope is different to each other. I will be adding it altogether in my Remix This series where all the songs I did in the most recent time get’s put on a album and also a free download on my free Bandcamp page. I called it Sideways Stepping as I feel it’s something to dance to and I would call the tracks club/rave music but you can just have it on in the background. I made a visual for the EP as I liked it so much but that can be found at the bottom of this page underneath the Bandcamp audio version or on my YouTube channel Gas No Light. About that thanks to the people who has subscribe to me on there I have twenty one subscribers now and I’m not sure if it’s that one video the one I did for Halloween and was part of my Halloween project which can be found on my other website randomgas.com but I know a couple like music making and music in general.  Okay the first song is from Megan Thee Stallion’s Hiss and for those who don’t know it’s a whole over four minutes of venting by clearing the smoke and dissing a lot of people including the famous rapper Niki Minaj. Okay first thing first I don’t like to see people fight or when it gets out of line but damn I found it funny when I saw Niki Minaj go off for 64 hours including in the end of that space a whole diss track called Big Foot which was all over a mention with one line that left Niki looking like she’s a Storytime of Lil’ Kim’s book  in my opinion but ONE LINE. The remix to Hiss is a G House mix and has a upbeat beat and bass with bossy lyrics which is why I like Megan Thee Stallion a lot she’s bossy, my two favorite rappers at this time is Erica Banks and Megan Thee Stallion for their style and lyrics alone. The next track is from Aaliyah’s I Miss You and like the first is another favorite on the EP as I like the bass and the vocals which I pitched down and up for a mix mash of range.  I delicate to this one to Aaliyah of course and anyone you may of lost in your life no matter how close or distant you were from them. She was a big impact to not only in the music industry but was a inspiration to anyone she was in front of including myself and she really was angel disguise she was, and on that note shout out to Brandy also. The next track the remix to Rihanna’s Skin is a Funky House track with once again pitched up and down vocals with loud basses and catchy melodies. To have a deep conversation about skin and what it means to be certain shades and the power words like light skin is a whole new topic but I’m just getting the whole take on that and am relearning stuff like Tribalism and also the one drop rule stuff I used to be quite familiar. I’m British or English mixed with mostly African but I’m Scottish and Welsh as well as Germanic Europe  and places like Nigeran, Togo and Benin, and have tribal links to Bantu People so I class myself as and identify of being white and black which makes brown. The last track from Guy’s I Like It is a special one and I found some decent 80s Acid House drum pattern which I filled with the acid bassline and the vocals plus other stuff. It reminds me of when I went to Sunrise Back To The Future in 1989 which was a rave that played House and New Groove and Disco and Soulful tracks throughout the night to the next day usually in a field or abandoned place. But it reminds me of that and by the way I was four and it was a different time. I tried to make it like the DJs were spinning tracks with scratching and shouts over the acid house beat I like it and no pun intended. If you would like to hear the tracks I sampled please go to randomgas.com and under the main menu is Hub is Inspirations please click on that to hear the original track and the remix I made.

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Bandcamp News – New Mixtape Release; Ghosting Radio Mixtapes Radiology – Halloween 2023

BANDCAMP NEWS

29/10/2023 - New Mixtape; Ghosting Radio Mixtapes Radiology - Halloween 2023

This year’s Halloween mixtape is from my radio Ghosting Radio which is hosted on my website and through a private browser. The Halloween Playlist is played every day from the 25th of September till the 1st of November from 8.00 PM  to 12.00 AM Monday to Friday and 6.00 PM to 12.00 AM Saturday and Sunday Greenwich time.  The playlist played on the station is mostly synthy stuff but there are some House tracks I made ages ago and thought I should put them on there. On this mixtape, it’s all synthy stuff apart from one track which is a House track and it plays randomly so every day it’s a new playlist. I like to make stuff for Halloween and give it away and this is this year’s offering and some of my older tracks I made and released then unreleased due to losing my account to my music provider.  I don’t know what I’m doing this Halloween I always like to go out and do something when I had my dog we went for late-night walks on Halloween night you never know what you might see and pray you don’t get egged by a lil shit. I’ve been to a few haunted places so it’s getting harder to find new places to investigate not that I actually believe in ghosts but it’s always fun to hang around somewhere old and rural. There’s an old railway path that is now a cycle path and I swear I saw a ghost in the camera. I already talked about it on another website which got deleted so I doubt I’d retype it up but briefly, we me and my mate were on the cycle track and we were taking pictures I was doing Flickr at the time which is a place to display and show off your photo work. I had a crap camera but I know how to hold it anyway, we were taking pictures when this shot of a misty face came up and spooked my mate out but I thought it was interesting, to say the least. It could have been my face morphed with the mist we were blowing out as it was a cold night. I have no idea why we were out anything for an adventure I guess lol. It looked like an alien and it had a hole in its head let me pull up the photo for reference. A bit of history on the place it was taken on the old railway it was once a Dramway that was pushed the coal out of the mines by horse and cart before being converted into a railway line before being closed down and converted into a cycle track and dates back to the 19th Century so after 1801 looking it up. I should send it off to Fourteen Times or something to see what people think of it as I think it looks pretty spooky though I am still sceptical of what it is which is fog and flash, but what do you think please let me know it be interesting to know your views and no it’s not photoshopped but it would make a good project. 

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Bandcamp News – New Mixtape Release; Seven Deadly Syns – Pride

BANDCAMP NEWS

19/09/2023 - New Mixtape; Seven Deadly Syns Mixtape - Pride

The last one of this seven-part series Seven Deadly Syns and this one is pride so expect self-worth and vain songs, stuff to listen to whilst you look in the mirror all day. Another hard one to complete as what is vain in music when it hasn’t got any lyrics and again it’s a hard one to explain lucky this isn’t an exam as I would have failed. I must admit I’ve had a bit of training on putting music to feelings and got up early three or four times the course wasn’t that long but I remember it being in the morning. That was about music and feelings which had to do with the psychology course I only did that and several lessons about psychology and computers so hopefully I got the right feelings for the mixtapes, they were fun making as always and I hope you enjoy them.

Allegory of Pride, from c. 1590–1630, engraving, 22.3 cm x 16.6 cm, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)
Pride is defined by Merriam-Webster as “reasonable self-esteem” or “confidence and satisfaction in oneself”. Oxford defines it as “the quality of having an excessively high opinion of oneself or one|s own importance.” This may be related to one|s own abilities or achievements, positive characteristics of friends or family, or one|s country. Richard Taylor defined pride as “the justified love of oneself”, as opposed to false pride or narcissism. Similarly, St. Augustine defined it as “the love of one|s own excellence”, and Meher Baba called it “the specific feeling through which egoism manifests.”

Philosophers and social psychologists have noted that pride is a complex secondary emotion which requires the development of a sense of self and the mastery of relevant conceptual distinctions (e.g. that pride is distinct from happiness and joy) through language-based interaction with others. Some social psychologists identify the nonverbal expression of pride as a means of sending a functional, automatically perceived signal of high social status.

Pride is sometimes viewed as corrupt or as a vice, sometimes as proper or as a virtue. With a positive connotation, pride refers to a content sense of attachment toward one|s own or another|s choices and actions, or toward a whole group of people, and is a product of praise, independent self-reflection, and a fulfilled feeling of belonging. With a negative connotation, pride refers to a foolishly[8] and irrationally corrupt sense of one|s personal value, status or accomplishments, used synonymously with hubris. While some philosophers such as Aristotle (and George Bernard Shaw) consider pride (but not hubris) a profound virtue, some world religions consider pride|s fraudulent form a sin, such as is expressed in Proverbs 11:2 of the Hebrew Bible. In Judaism, pride is called the root of all evil. When viewed as a virtue, pride in one|s abilities is known as virtuous pride, the greatness of soul or magnanimity, but when viewed as a vice it is often known to be self-idolatry, sadistic contempt, vanity or vainglory.

Etymology

Proud comes from late Old English prut, probably from Old French prud “brave, valiant” (11th century) (which became a prefix in French), from the Late Latin term prodis “useful”, which is compared with the Latin prodesse “be of use”. The sense of “having a high opinion of oneself”, not in French, may reflect the Anglo-Saxons| opinion of the Norman knights who called themselves “proud”.

Ancient Greek Philosophy

Aristotle identified pride (megalopsuchia, variously translated as proper pride, the greatness of soul and magnanimity) as the crown of the virtues, distinguishing it from vanity, temperance, and humility, thus:

Now the man is thought to be proud who thinks himself worthy of great things, being worthy of them; for he who does so beyond his deserts is a fool, but no virtuous man is foolish or silly. The proud man, then, is the man we have described. For he who is worthy of little and thinks himself worthy of little is temperate, but not proud; for pride implies greatness, as beauty implies a goodsized body and little people may be neat and well-proportioned but cannot be beautiful.

He concludes then that

Pride, then, seems to be a sort of crown of the virtues; for it makes them more powerful, and it is not found without them. Therefore it is hard to be truly proud; for it is impossible without nobility and goodness of character.

By contrast, Aristotle defined the vice of hubris as follows:

To cause shame to the victim, not in order that anything may happen to you, nor because anything has happened to you, but merely for your own gratification. Hubris is not the requital of past injuries; this is revenge. As for the pleasure in hubris, its cause is this: naive men think that by ill-treating others they make their own superiority the greater.

Thus, although pride and hubris are often deemed the same thing, for Aristotle and many philosophers hubris is altogether an entirely different thing from pride.

Emotion

In psychological terms, positive pride is “a pleasant, sometimes exhilarating, emotion that results from a positive self-evaluation”. It was added by Tracy et al. to the University of California, Davis, Set of Emotion Expressions (UCDSEE) in 2009, as one of three “self-conscious” emotions known to have recognizable expressions (along with embarrassment and shame).

Positive outcomes

A common understanding of pride is that it results from self-directed satisfaction with meeting the personal goals; for example, Weiner et al. have posited that positive performance outcomes elicit pride in an individual when the event is appraised as having been caused by him alone. Moreover, Oveis et al. conceptualize pride as a display of the strong self that promotes feelings of similarity to strong others, as well as differentiation from weak others. Seen in this light, pride can be conceptualized as a hierarchy-enhancing emotion, as its experience and display helps rid negotiations of conflict. Pride involves exhilarated pleasure and a feeling of accomplishment. It is related to “more positive behaviours and outcomes in the area where the individual is proud” (Weiner, 1985). Pride is generally associated with positive social behaviours such as helping others and outward promotion. Along with hope, it is also often described as an emotion that facilitates performance attainment, as it can help trigger and sustain the focused and appetitive effort to prepare for upcoming evaluative events. It may also help enhance the quality and flexibility of the effort expended (Fredrickson, 2001). According to Bagozzi et al., pride can have positive benefits of enhancing creativity, productivity, and altruism. For instance, it has been found that in terms of school achievement, pride is associated with a higher GPA in low-neighborhood socioeconomic environments, whereas in more advantaged neighbourhoods, pride is associated with a lower GPA.

Sin and self-acceptance

Pride, from the Seven Deadly Sins by Jacob Matham c. 1592.
Inordinate self-esteem is called “pride”. Classical Christian theology views pride as being the result of high self-esteem, and thus high self-esteem was viewed as the primary human problem, but beginning in the 20th century, “humanistic psychology” diagnosed the primary human problem as low self-esteem stemming from a lack of belief in one|s “true worth”. Carl Rogers observed that most people “regard themselves as worthless and unlovable.” Thus, they lack self-esteem.

In the King James Bible, people exhibiting excess pride are labelled with the term, “Haughty”.

“pride comes before a fall”— 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Book of Proverbs, 16:18

Terry Cooper conceptualized in 2003 excessive pride (along with low self-esteem) as an important paradigm in describing the human condition. He examines and compares the Augustinian-Niebuhrian conviction that pride is primary, the feminist concept of pride as being absent in the experience of women, the humanistic psychology position that pride does not adequately account for anyone|s experience, and the humanistic psychology idea that if pride emerges, it is always a false front designed to protect an undervalued self.

He considers that the work of certain neo-Freudian psychoanalysts, namely Karen Horney, offers promise in dealing with what he calls a “deadlock between the overvalued and undervalued self” (Cooper, 112–3). Cooper refers to their work in describing the connection between religious and psychological pride as well as sin to describe how a neurotic pride system underlies an appearance of self-contempt and low self-esteem:

The “idealized self,” the “tyranny of the should,” the “pride system” and the nature of self-hate all point toward the intertwined relationship between neurotic pride and self-contempt. Understanding how a neurotic pride system underlies an appearance of self-contempt and low self-esteem. (Cooper, 112–3).

Thus, hubris, which is an exaggerated form of self-esteem, is sometimes actually a lie used to cover the lack of self-esteem the committer of pride feels deep down.

Types of Pride across the world seem to have a broad variety. The difference of type may have no greater contrast than that between the US and China. In the US, individual pride tends and seems to be held more often in thought. The people in China seem to hold greater views of the nation as a whole.

The value of Pride in the individual or the society as a whole seems to be a running theme and debate among cultures. This debate shadows the discussion on Pride so much so that perhaps the discussion on Pride shouldn|t be about whether Pride is necessarily good or bad, but about which form of it is the most useful.

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Bandcamp News – New Mixtape Release; Seven Deadly Syns – Envy

BANDCAMP NEWS

19/09/2023 - New Mixtape; Seven Deadly Syns Mixtape - Envy

Continuing the seven-part series with number six  Envy so expect sad and resentful tracks whatever that means to you in music-wise terms but it’s a hard one to describe. This was kind of easy to put the tracks together and these are some of the tracks I made throughout the years since 2017 when I started making music again it was the best decision as I got back to all designing and arts and crafts online. I only have one more to go after this as there are seven deadly sins in total and I must admit I be glad when it’s over as it’s a lot of work and I like stuff I can move on and make something new and different but at the same time I like making series and stuff that is hands-on and all hands on deck it stops me from getting bored and to give away free music and stuff.


Allegory of Pride, from c. 1590–1630, engraving, 22.3 cm x 16.6 cm, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)
Pride is defined by Merriam-Webster as “reasonable self-esteem” or “confidence and satisfaction in oneself”. Oxford defines it as “the quality of having an excessively high opinion of oneself or one’s own importance.” This may be related to one’s own abilities or achievements, positive characteristics of friends or family, or one’s country. Richard Taylor defined pride as “the justified love of oneself”, as opposed to false pride or narcissism. Similarly, St. Augustine defined it as “the love of one’s own excellence”, and Meher Baba called it “the specific feeling through which egoism manifests.”

Philosophers and social psychologists have noted that pride is a complex secondary emotion which requires the development of a sense of self and the mastery of relevant conceptual distinctions (e.g. that pride is distinct from happiness and joy) through language-based interaction with others. Some social psychologists identify the nonverbal expression of pride as a means of sending a functional, automatically perceived signal of high social status.

Pride is sometimes viewed as corrupt or as a vice, sometimes as proper or as a virtue. With a positive connotation, pride refers to a content sense of attachment toward one’s own or another’s choices and actions, or toward a whole group of people, and is a product of praise, independent self-reflection, and a fulfilled feeling of belonging. With a negative connotation, pride refers to a foolishly[8] and irrationally corrupt sense of one’s personal value, status or accomplishments, used synonymously with hubris. While some philosophers such as Aristotle (and George Bernard Shaw) consider pride (but not hubris) a profound virtue, some world religions consider pride’s fraudulent form a sin, such as is expressed in Proverbs 11:2 of the Hebrew Bible. In Judaism, pride is called the root of all evil. When viewed as a virtue, pride in one’s abilities is known as virtuous pride, the greatness of soul or magnanimity, but when viewed as a vice it is often known to be self-idolatry, sadistic contempt, vanity or vainglory.

Etymology

Proud comes from late Old English prut, probably from Old French prud “brave, valiant” (11th century) (which became a prefix in French), from the Late Latin term prodis “useful”, which is compared with the Latin prodesse “be of use”. The sense of “having a high opinion of oneself”, not in French, may reflect the Anglo-Saxons’ opinion of the Norman knights who called themselves “proud”.

Ancient Greek Philosophy

Aristotle identified pride (megalopsuchia, variously translated as proper pride, the greatness of soul and magnanimity) as the crown of the virtues, distinguishing it from vanity, temperance, and humility, thus:

Now the man is thought to be proud who thinks himself worthy of great things, being worthy of them; for he who does so beyond his deserts is a fool, but no virtuous man is foolish or silly. The proud man, then, is the man we have described. For he who is worthy of little and thinks himself worthy of little is temperate, but not proud; for pride implies greatness, as beauty implies a goodsized body and little people may be neat and well-proportioned but cannot be beautiful.

He concludes then that

Pride, then, seems to be a sort of crown of the virtues; for it makes them more powerful, and it is not found without them. Therefore it is hard to be truly proud; for it is impossible without nobility and goodness of character.

By contrast, Aristotle defined the vice of hubris as follows:

To cause shame to the victim, not in order that anything may happen to you, nor because anything has happened to you, but merely for your own gratification. Hubris is not the requital of past injuries; this is revenge. As for the pleasure in hubris, its cause is this: naive men think that by ill-treating others they make their own superiority the greater.

Thus, although pride and hubris are often deemed the same thing, for Aristotle and many philosophers hubris is altogether an entirely different thing from pride.

Emotion

In psychological terms, positive pride is “a pleasant, sometimes exhilarating, emotion that results from a positive self-evaluation”. It was added by Tracy et al. to the University of California, Davis, Set of Emotion Expressions (UCDSEE) in 2009, as one of three “self-conscious” emotions known to have recognizable expressions (along with embarrassment and shame).


Positive outcomes

A common understanding of pride is that it results from self-directed satisfaction with meeting the personal goals; for example, Weiner et al. have posited that positive performance outcomes elicit pride in an individual when the event is appraised as having been caused by him alone. Moreover, Oveis et al. conceptualize pride as a display of the strong self that promotes feelings of similarity to strong others, as well as differentiation from weak others. Seen in this light, pride can be conceptualized as a hierarchy-enhancing emotion, as its experience and display helps rid negotiations of conflict. Pride involves exhilarated pleasure and a feeling of accomplishment. It is related to “more positive behaviours and outcomes in the area where the individual is proud” (Weiner, 1985). Pride is generally associated with positive social behaviours such as helping others and outward promotion. Along with hope, it is also often described as an emotion that facilitates performance attainment, as it can help trigger and sustain the focused and appetitive effort to prepare for upcoming evaluative events. It may also help enhance the quality and flexibility of the effort expended (Fredrickson, 2001). According to Bagozzi et al., pride can have positive benefits of enhancing creativity, productivity, and altruism. For instance, it has been found that in terms of school achievement, pride is associated with a higher GPA in low-neighborhood socioeconomic environments, whereas in more advantaged neighbourhoods, pride is associated with a lower GPA.

Sin and self-acceptance

Pride, from the Seven Deadly Sins by Jacob Matham c. 1592.
Inordinate self-esteem is called “pride”. Classical Christian theology views pride as being the result of high self-esteem, and thus high self-esteem was viewed as the primary human problem, but beginning in the 20th century, “humanistic psychology” diagnosed the primary human problem as low self-esteem stemming from a lack of belief in one’s “true worth”. Carl Rogers observed that most people “regard themselves as worthless and unlovable.” Thus, they lack self-esteem.

In the King James Bible, people exhibiting excess pride are labelled with the term, “Haughty”.

“pride comes before a fall”— 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Book of Proverbs, 16:18

Terry Cooper conceptualized in 2003 excessive pride (along with low self-esteem) as an important paradigm in describing the human condition. He examines and compares the Augustinian-Niebuhrian conviction that pride is primary, the feminist concept of pride as being absent in the experience of women, the humanistic psychology position that pride does not adequately account for anyone’s experience, and the humanistic psychology idea that if pride emerges, it is always a false front designed to protect an undervalued self.

He considers that the work of certain neo-Freudian psychoanalysts, namely Karen Horney, offers promise in dealing with what he calls a “deadlock between the overvalued and undervalued self” (Cooper, 112–3). Cooper refers to their work in describing the connection between religious and psychological pride as well as sin to describe how a neurotic pride system underlies an appearance of self-contempt and low self-esteem:

The “idealized self,” the “tyranny of the should,” the “pride system” and the nature of self-hate all point toward the intertwined relationship between neurotic pride and self-contempt. Understanding how a neurotic pride system underlies an appearance of self-contempt and low self-esteem. (Cooper, 112–3).

Thus, hubris, which is an exaggerated form of self-esteem, is sometimes actually a lie used to cover the lack of self-esteem the committer of pride feels deep down.


Types of Pride across the world seem to have a broad variety. The difference of type may have no greater contrast than that between the US and China. In the US, individual pride tends and seems to be held more often in thought. The people in China seem to hold greater views of the nation as a whole.

The value of Pride in the individual or the society as a whole seems to be a running theme and debate among cultures. This debate shadows the discussion on Pride so much so that perhaps the discussion on Pride shouldn’t be about whether Pride is necessarily good or bad, but about which form of it is the most useful.

 

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Bandcamp News – New Mixtape Release; Seven Deadly Syns – Wrath

BANDCAMP NEWS

17/09/2023 - New Mixtape; Seven Deadly Syns Mixtape - Wrath

This is five of seven of my mixtape series Seven Deadly Syns pronounced the normal way as in sin and is all synthy instrumentals related to the sin and there are seven in total. I enjoy putting the mixtape and the visual together and I made all the beats as well and are just some of my now unreleased tracks that were on Spotify etc. but I swapped artist names so they are now all unreleased dating back to around 2018 when I started remaking music and playing the keyboard. This one is Wrath so it’s angry, moody, violent and dark probably the darkest of the seven mixtapes and my favourite as I like my music dark and moody with thick basses and synths and I hope you do too.

Wrath or rage, is an intense emotional state involving a strong uncomfortable and non-cooperative response to a perceived provocation, hurt or threat. A person experiencing anger will often experience physical effects, such as increased heart rate, elevated blood pressure, and increased levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline. Some view anger as an emotion which triggers part of the fight or flight response. Anger becomes the predominant feeling behaviorally, cognitively, and physiologically when a person makes the conscious choice to take action to immediately stop the threatening behaviour of another outside force.

Anger can have many physical and mental consequences. The external expression of anger can be found in facial expressions, body language, physiological responses, and at times public acts of aggression. Facial expressions can range from inward angling of the eyebrows to a full frown. While most of those who experience anger explain its arousal as a result of “what has happened to them”, psychologists point out that an angry person can very well be mistaken because anger causes a loss in self-monitoring capacity and objective observability.

Modern psychologists view anger as a normal, natural, and mature emotion experienced by virtually all humans at times, and as something that has functional value for survival. Uncontrolled anger can negatively affect personal or social well-being and negatively impact those around them. While many philosophers and writers have warned against the spontaneous and uncontrolled fits of anger, there has been disagreement over the intrinsic value of anger. The issue of dealing with anger has been written about since the times of the earliest philosophers, but modern psychologists, in contrast to earlier writers, have also pointed out the possible harmful effects of suppressing anger. 

Judaism

Main article: Anger in Judaism
In Judaism, anger is a negative trait. In the Book of Genesis, Jacob condemned the anger that had arisen in his sons Simon and Levi: “Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel.”

Restraining oneself from anger is seen as noble and desirable, as Ethics of the Fathers states:

Ben Zoma said:

Who is strong? He who subdues his evil inclination, as it is stated,

“He who is slow to anger is better than a strong man, and he who masters his passions is better than one who conquers a city” (Proverbs 16:32.)

Maimonides rules that one who becomes angry is as though that person had worshipped idols. Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi explains that the parallel between anger and idol worship is that by becoming angry, one shows a disregard for Divine Providence – whatever had caused the anger was ultimately ordained from Above – and that through coming to anger one thereby denies the hand of God in one’s life.

In its section dealing with ethical traits a person should adopt, the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch states: “Anger is also a very evil trait and it should be avoided at all costs. You should train yourself not to become angry even if you have a good reason to be angry.”

In modern writing, Rabbi Harold Kushner finds no grounds for anger toward God because “our misfortunes are none of His doing.” In contrast to Kushner’s reading of the Bible, David Blumenthal finds an “abusing God” whose “sometimes evil” actions evoke vigorous protest, but without severing the protester’s relationship with God.

Christianity

Both Catholic and Protestant writers have addressed anger in different perspectives.

Catholic

The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things, by Hieronymus Bosch (1485). “Wrath” is depicted at the bottom in a series of circular images. Below the image is the Latin inscription Cave Cave Deus Videt (“Beware, Beware, God is Watching”).

Angel with Temperance and Humility virtues versus Devil with Rage and Wrath sins. A fresco from the 1717 Saint Nicholas Orthodox Church in Cukovets, Pernik Province, Bulgaria
Wrath is one of the Seven Deadly Sins in Catholicism; and yet the Catechism of the Catholic Church states (canons 1772 and 1773) that anger is among the passions, and that “in the passions, as movements of the sensitive appetite, there is neither good nor evil”. The neutral act of anger becomes the sin of wrath when it’s directed against an innocent person, when it’s unduly unbending or long-lasting, or when it desires excessive punishment. “If anger reaches the point of a deliberate desire to kill or seriously wound a neighbour, it is gravely against charity; it is a mortal sin” (CCC 2302). Hatred is the sin of desiring that someone else may suffer misfortune or evil and is a mortal sin when one desires grave harm (CCC 2302-03).

Medieval Christianity vigorously denounced wrath as one of the seven cardinal, or deadly sins, but some Christian writers at times regarded the anger caused by injustice as having some value. Saint Basil viewed anger as a “reprehensible temporary madness.” Joseph F. Delany in the Catholic Encyclopedia (1914) defines anger as “the desire of vengeance” and states that a reasonable vengeance and passion are ethical and praiseworthy. Vengeance is sinful when it exceeds its limits in which case it becomes opposed to justice and charity. For example, “vengeance upon one who has not deserved it, or to a greater extent than it has been deserved, or in conflict with the dispositions of law, or from an improper motive” are all sinful. An unduly vehement vengeance is considered a venial sin unless it seriously goes counter to the love of God or of one’s neighbour.

A more positive view of anger is espoused by Roman Catholic pastoral theologian Henri J.M. Nouwen. Father Nouwen points to the spiritual benefits of anger toward God as found in both the Old Testament and New Testament of the Bible. In the Bible, says Father Nouwen, “It is clear that only by expressing our anger and hatred directly to God will we come to know the fullness of both his love and our freedom”.

Georges Bernanos illustrates Nouwen’s position in his novel The Diary of a Country Priest. The countess gave birth to the son she had long wanted, but the child died. She was fiercely angry. When the priest called, the countess vented her anger toward her daughter and husband, then at the priest who responded gently, “Open your heart to [God]”. The countess rejoined, “I’ve ceased to bother about God. When you’ve forced me to admit that I hate Him, will you be any better off?” The priest continued, “You no longer hate Him. Hate is indifference and contempt. Now, at last, you’re face to face with Him … Shake your fist at Him, spit in His face, scourge Him.” The countess did what the priest counselled. By confessing her hate, she was enabled to say, “All’s well.”

Protestant

Saul attacks David (who had been playing music to help Saul feel better), 1860 woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld, a Lutheran
Everyone experiences anger, Andrew D. Lester observes, and furthermore, anger can serve as “a spiritual friend, a spiritual guide, and a spiritual ally”. Denying and suppressing anger is contrary to St. Paul’s admonition in his Epistle to the Ephesians 4:26. When anger toward God is denied and suppressed, it interferes with an individual’s relationship with God. Expressing one’s anger toward God can deepen the relationship. C. FitzSimons Allison holds that “we worship God by expressing our honest anger at him”.

Biblical scholar Leonard Pine concludes from his studies in the Book of Habakkuk that “far from being a sin, proper remonstration with God is the activity of a healthy faith relationship with Him”.[141] Other biblical examples of anger toward God include the following:

Moses was angry with God for mistreating his people: “Lord, why have you mistreated [lit. done evil to] this people?” (Book of Exodus 5:22).

Naomi was angry with God after the death of her husband and two sons: “The Almighty has dealt bitterly with me. The Almighty has brought calamity upon me” (Book of Ruth 1:20–21 abr).
Elijah was angry with God after the son of the widow died: “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?” (1 Kings 17:20).
Job was angry with God: “You have turned cruel to me; with the might of your hand you persecute me” (Book of Job 30:21).
Jeremiah was angry with God for deceiving his people: “Ah, Lord God, how utterly you have deceived this people and Jerusalem” (Book of Jeremiah 4:10).

Hinduism

In Hinduism, anger is equated with sorrow as a form of unrequited desire. The objects of anger are perceived as a hindrance to the gratification of the desires of the angry person. Alternatively if one thinks one is superior, the result is grief. Anger is considered to be packed with more evil power than desire. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna regards greed, anger, and lust as signs of ignorance that lead to perpetual bondage. As for the agitations of the bickering mind, they are divided into two divisions. The first is called avirodha-prīti, or unrestricted attachment, and the other is called virodha-yukta-krodha, anger arising from frustration. Adherence to the philosophy of the Māyāvādīs, belief in the fruitive results of the karma-vādīs, and belief in plans based on materialistic desires are called avirodha-prīti.

Jñānīs, karmīs and materialistic planmakers generally attract the attention of conditioned souls, but when the materialists cannot fulfil their plans and when their devices are frustrated, they become angry. Frustration of material desires produces anger.

Buddhism
Anger is defined in Buddhism as: “being unable to bear the object, or the intention to cause harm to the object”. Anger is seen as aversion with a stronger exaggeration, and is listed as one of the five hindrances. Buddhist monks, such as Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetans in exile, sometimes get angry. Most often a spiritual person is aware of the emotion and the way it can be handled. Thus, in response to the question: “Is any anger acceptable in Buddhism?’ the Dalai Lama answered.

Buddhism, in general, teaches that anger is a destructive emotion and although anger might have some positive effects in terms of survival or moral outrage, I do not accept that anger of any kind is a virtuous emotion or aggression as constructive behaviour. The Gautama Buddha has taught that there are three basic kleshas at the root of samsara (bondage, illusion) and the vicious cycle of rebirth. These are greed, hatred, and delusion—also translatable as attachment, anger, and ignorance. They bring us confusion and misery rather than peace, happiness, and fulfilment. It is in our own self-interest to purify and transform them.

Buddhist scholar and author Geshe Kelsang Gyatso has also explained Buddha’s teaching on the spiritual imperative to identify anger and overcome it by transforming difficulties;

When things go wrong in our lives and we encounter difficult situations, we tend to regard the situation itself as our problem, but in reality, whatever problems we experience come from the side of the mind. If we responded to difficult situations with a positive or peaceful mind they would not be problems for us. Eventually, we might even regard them as challenges or opportunities for growth and development. Problems arise only if we respond to difficulties with a negative state of mind. Therefore if we want to be free from problems, we must transform our minds.

The Buddha himself on anger

An angry person is ugly & sleeps poorly. Gaining a profit, he turns it into a loss, having done damage with word & deed. A person overwhelmed with anger destroys his wealth. Maddened with anger, he destroys his status. Relatives, friends, & colleagues avoid him. Anger brings loss. Anger inflames the mind. He doesn’t realize that his danger is born from within. An angry person doesn’t know his own benefit. An angry person doesn’t see the Dharma. A man conquered by anger is in a mass of darkness. He takes pleasure in bad deeds as if they were good, but later, when his anger is gone, he suffers as if burned with fire. He is spoiled, blotted out, like fire enveloped in smoke. When anger spreads, when a man becomes angry, he has no shame, no fear of evil, and is not respectful in speech. For a person overcome with anger, nothing gives light.

The colour of Wrath is red and punishment in hell is to be dismemberded. 

 

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Bandcamp News – New Mixtape Release; Seven Deadly Syns – Sloth

BANDCAMP NEWS

15/09/2023 - New Mixtape; Seven Deadly Syns Mixtape - Sloth

This is four of seven of my Seven Deadly Syns but pronounced sin in the normal way of saying it as in “SINNER.” I must say this was the easiest to do and is more slower and lazy track you would listen to before you go to bed at night or before you take a nap or just relax on Sunday or any day for that matter. As always I enjoyed putting it together and making the visuals, covers and thumbnails. I forgot to say but I bought some new effects for the software I’m using it’s actually inside my DAW (Digital Work Station)  FL Studio I put my own stamp on them and I’m learning how to customize it more but there’s progression. I don’t think I said but I have something lined up to go with the music and visuals but I have to finish all seven first before I publish it I also have to keep testing it which is a pain but we are getting there eventually but what a headache to figure out.

Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins in Catholic teachings. It is the most difficult sin to define and credit as sin since it refers to an assortment of ideas, dating from antiquity and including mental, spiritual, pathological, and physical states.[ One definition is a habitual disinclination to exertion or laziness.

Views concerning the virtue of work to support society and further God’s plan suggest that through inactivity, one invites sin: “For Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.” (“Against Idleness and Mischief” by Isaac Watts).

 

The word “sloth” is a translation of the Latin term acedia (Middle English, acciditties) and means “without care”. Spiritually, acedia first referred to an affliction to women, religious persons, wherein they became indifferent to their duties and obligations to God. Mentally, acedia has a number of distinctive components of which the most important is affectlessness, a lack of any feeling about self or others, a mind state that gives rise to boredom, rancour, apathy, and a passive, inert, or sluggish mentation. Physically, acedia is fundamentally a cessation of motion and an indifference to work; it finds expression in [sloth can also be referred to as Laziness], idleness, and indolence. Two commentators consider the most accurate translation of acedia to be “self-pity,” for it “conveys both the melancholy of the condition and self-centeredness upon which it is founded.”

Orthodoxy

In the Philokalia, the word dejection is used instead of sloth, for the person who falls into dejection will lose interest in life.

Others

Sloth has also been defined as a failure to do things that one should do, though the understanding of the sin in antiquity was that this laziness or lack of work was simply a symptom of the vice of apathy or indifference, particularly an apathy or boredom with God. Concurrently, this apathy can be seen as an inadequate amount of love.

Emotionally and cognitively, the evil of acedia finds expression in a lack of any feeling for the world, for the people in it, or for the self. Acedia takes form as an alienation of the sentient self first from the world and then from itself. Although the most profound versions of this condition are found in a withdrawal from all forms of participation in or care for others or oneself, a lesser but more noisome element was also noted by theologians. From tristitia, asserted Gregory the Great, “there arise malice, rancour, cowardice, [and] despair…” Geoffrey Chaucer, too, dealt with this attribute of acedia, counting the characteristics of the sin to include despair, somnolence, idleness, tardiness, negligence, indolence, and wrawnesse, the last variously translated as “anger” or better as “peevishness”. For Chaucer, human sin consists of languishing and holding back, refusing to undertake works of goodness because, he/she tells him/herself, the circumstances surrounding the establishment of good are too grievous and too difficult to suffer. Acedia in Chaucer’s view is thus the enemy of every source and motive for work.

Sloth not only subverts the livelihood of the body, taking no care for its day-to-day provisions but also slows down the mind, halting its attention to matters of great importance. Sloth hinders man in his righteous undertakings and becomes a path to rui

According to Peter Binsfeld’s Binsfeld’s Classification of Demons, Belphegor is the chief demon of the sin Sloth.

Christian author and Clinical Psychologist Dr. William Backus has pointed out the similarities between sloth and depression. “Depression involves aversion to effort, and the moral danger of sloth lies in this characteristic. The work involved in exercising one’s will to make moral and spiritual decisions seems particularly undesirable and demanding. Thus the slothful person drifts along in habits of sin, convinced that he has no willpower and aided in this claim by those who persist in seeking only biological and environmental causes and medical remedies for sloth.”

 

The colour of sloth is light blue and the punishment for committing this sin is to be put in a snake pit.

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