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How does your view explain syncing beauty in creation and the world

whirlingmerc

Well-Known Member
Why would a male ostrich feather need to be so beautiful?
Why is a sunrise or sunset so beautiful.

I would say God's glory is baked in creation and those things give a small hint of that glory.

Rich Mullins sings about this
 

beenherebeforeagain

Rogue Animist
Premium Member
There is a lot of beautify in the world, but there is also lot of mind shattering horror to behold as well.
sometimes those two categories overlap as well...and there's a whole lot that we may or may not consider beautiful or horrible or both at the same time...

The categories, I believe, depend on our experiences and the sensemaking we do to literally make sense out of our experiences...
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Why would a male ostrich feather need to be so beautiful?
Why is a sunrise or sunset so beautiful.

I would say God's glory is baked in creation and those things give a small hint of that glory.

Rich Mullins sings about this

Fractal patterns in nature have survival value in the evolution of life.
 

SomeRandom

Still learning to be wise
Staff member
Premium Member
Behold! The beauty of nature
ugly%2Bfish.jpg
 

beenherebeforeagain

Rogue Animist
Premium Member
Behold! The beauty of nature
ugly%2Bfish.jpg
I'll suggest the awe-inspiring wonder of life...terrifying looking, yes...but is simply another life-form that has evolved to survive in the ecosystem in which it dwells...

My view favors that life has evolved, affected in its diversity by the ability to survive and reproduce...that is both beautiful and terrifying...and indifferent to the opinions of us mortals...

The above "monster" well-illustrates this...
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I thought it was all in the eye of the beholder.
Consider what a fly must find attractive.
 

SomeRandom

Still learning to be wise
Staff member
Premium Member
I'll suggest the awe-inspiring wonder of life...terrifying looking, yes...but is simply another life-form that has evolved to survive in the ecosystem in which it dwells...

My view favors that life has evolved, affected in its diversity by the ability to survive and reproduce...that is both beautiful and terrifying...and indifferent to the opinions of us mortals...

The above "monster" well-illustrates this...
I was just being a smartass lol
Nature is fascinating, it’s just that humans have a tendency to anthropomorphise it’s characteristics.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

But so called “beautiful designs” do serve purpose. Either acting as camouflage or even a warning to predators. This ensures the more outlandish designs are favoured by sexual selection pressures. So I’m fully aware that nature only looks pretty or terrifying. There’s always an underlying “cause.”
 

beenherebeforeagain

Rogue Animist
Premium Member
I was just being a smartass lol
Nature is fascinating, it’s just that humans have a tendency to anthropomorphise it’s characteristics.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

But so called “beautiful designs” do serve purpose. Either acting as camouflage or even a warning to predators. This ensures the more outlandish designs are favoured by sexual selection pressures. So I’m fully aware that nature only looks pretty or terrifying. There’s always an underlying “cause.”
Sorry, wasn't meaning to look critical, I was expanding what I saw as your point. Far too often humans equate "ugly" with "evil" and in the case of Mr. or Mrs. Fish, many people would not see the amazing wonders of nature, in which "beauty" in a 'normal' human sense is not present...
 

SomeRandom

Still learning to be wise
Staff member
Premium Member
Sorry, wasn't meaning to look critical, I was expanding what I saw as your point. Far too often humans equate "ugly" with "evil" and in the case of Mr. or Mrs. Fish, many people would not see the amazing wonders of nature, in which "beauty" in a 'normal' human sense is not present...
I thought your reply was entirely reasonable, actually. I was merely explaining my viewpoint seperate from my usual snark. :)
 

steveb1

Member
Why would a male ostrich feather need to be so beautiful?
Why is a sunrise or sunset so beautiful.

I would say God's glory is baked in creation and those things give a small hint of that glory.

Rich Mullins sings about this

No, I don't think the world or the heavens reflect the glory of any deity, first because along with the beauty, there is much ugliness, pain, suffering, injury and death (including the extinction of entire species). "Paradise", if such ever existed, should never have been "lost" by the mismanagement of a flawed Creator.

In my view, God is real, but is not a creator or an intervener. As a panentheist, I believe that God is "here" (immanent) and "more than here" (transcendent). Because God is not a creator or intervener, God cannot be praised for the world's beauty and goodness, and God cannot be blamed for the world's ugliness and evils. In my view, God is off "the theodicy hook". A theodicy is a model that attempts to explain and justify the existence - and more important, the persistence - of evil in a supposedly good creation that was constructed by a good Creator.

Nothing in the world testifies to a Creator - not the good, the bad, the ugly or the indifferent.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Why would a male ostrich feather need to be so beautiful?
How did you miss the class on sexual selection in high school biology?
Sexual selection
A peacock's tail: how Darwin arrived at his theory of sexual selection
Evolution - A-Z - Peacock's Tail
Why is a sunrise or sunset so beautiful.
Is the answer in God's artistic whimsy, or in ourselves? Had we found a sunset ugly, and a rotting corpse beautiful, could you not ask the same about the beauty of rotting corpses? Why do you find evidence of God in human aesthetic perception?
I would say God's glory is baked in creation and those things give a small hint of that glory.
I would say the wonders of creation are the result of natural, understandable, automatic processes. Your lack of understand of these processes is not evidence for magic.
 

Goodman John

Active Member
The world and its flora and fauna are indeed often pretty to look at, but it's just a thin veneer laid over what is at its most basic a deadly, rotting world with every living thing- including Man- either killing or being killed. The world works, but it is as flawed and selfish as its maker (hint: it's not God).
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
Why would a male ostrich feather need to be so beautiful?
Why is a sunrise or sunset so beautiful.

I would say God's glory is baked in creation and those things give a small hint of that glory.

Rich Mullins sings about this


The male ostrich feather is beautiful for sex. Its sole purpose is to attract a mate.

A beautiful sunrise of sunset is simply impurities/pollution in the atmosphere reflecting the sunlight.

I would say the ostrich has evolved to grow feathers that attract mate.

And a sunrise or sunset is a/ in the eyes of the beholder (never see another animal gawping at a red sky) and/or b/ Its nice until you think why it happens
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
God did not create the world to appeal to human aesthetics. Human aesthetics evolved to assist the survival of our species. Aesthetics just got entangled.

Salubrious landscapes attract us, difficult ones, not so much.

Colors assist primates with food acquisition, but the attraction remains even when there's no food in the offing. The aesthetic perception of beauty evolved as part of our genetic survival package.

The world is not a divine work of art, with an objective beauty. What's beautiful is subjective; in the eye of the beholder. Our appreciation for particular shapes, configurations and colors is utilitarian, it evolved through natural selection. It's not evidence for anything but evolution.
 

whirlingmerc

Well-Known Member
God did not create the world to appeal to human aesthetics. Human aesthetics evolved to assist the survival of our species. Aesthetics just got entangled.

Salubrious landscapes attract us, difficult ones, not so much.

Colors assist primates with food acquisition, but the attraction remains even when there's no food in the offing. The aesthetic perception of beauty evolved as part of our genetic survival package.

The world is not a divine work of art, with an objective beauty. What's beautiful is subjective; in the eye of the beholder. Our appreciation for particular shapes, configurations and colors is utilitarian, it evolved through natural selection. It's not evidence for anything but evolution.


Male peacock feathers have quite a bit of esthetics with golden ratios all over the place and how necessary might that be?

"You make Leviathan to play in the sea" Psalms
 
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