The Wonder of God’s Creation?
Offline I had a religious discussion with a theistic co-worker the other day and they brought out the argument from beauty. On other words, how can one look at all the beauty and majesty of the world and not see the hand of God? I didn’t have a specific response at the time, but I have considered it for the past few days and I find it actually insulting. There seems to be an implication that because I approach the world rationally, because I want to understand the how and the why behind things, I lose the mystery and wonder of the world around me. I call shenanigans. My life without God is full of more wonder and awe over the universe than it was with God.
The God of Abraham is an infinite being. It doesn’t take much for an infinite being to create a finite universe…probably not much to make an infinite universe as well, but I’d have to ponder a bit more on that. So if he did create the universe, then kudos to him, he had a plan and implemented it. But if God doesn’t exist, if he didn’t create the universe, then I do not have the words to fully capture the sense of awe and wonder that I have when I look at something as simple as the flowers growing in my garden.
The knowledge of how chlorophyll works, how the plant reproduces with the help of wind, birds, or insects, and why it is brightly colored or produces edible fruit, filtered through my understanding of genetics and evolution, makes even the weeds I have to pull nothing less then a miracle in my eyes. To be told that something thought of this and made it so in the blink of an eye cheapens it, turns it from a survivor in the struggle for life into an idle curiosity made by some unfathomable being for some unfathomable reason. And the more complex the organism, the more my sense of wonder grows.
I have a 17 month old daughter. My wife was not supposed to be able to get pregnant without medical help. Obviously, the doctors were wrong. I have had family and friends refer to our daughter as a 'gift from God'. Once again, by attributing my daughter's conception to God it devalues the miracle of her existence. After all, if the dealer of a card game is a good enough mechanic, isn't the outcome already decided?
I have looked through the eyes of a believer and seen the wonder of God's creation. But it pales in comparison to looking through unclouded eyes and seeing things as they really are.
"When you hit your thumb with a hammer it's nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a special kind of atheist to jump up and down shout, 'Oh, random fluctuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!'"-Terry Pratchett
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seeing things as they are is beautiful. i don't think he meant to say that you do not see beauty as well. we do not say that God created just the plant but God created the chlorophyll and the laws of science. the deeper we go into the meaning of why things work is where the true beauty of God shines, but that is just my opinion and i do not mean to disrespect yours.
your daughters birth is a great thing. doctors are human and have the ability to make mistakes. you said that your daughter's birth was a miracle and i congratulate you and your wife.
May God bless us and give us the words to express our ideas in a creative and civil manner, while providing us an ear that we may truly hear each other, and a voice to clearly project our thoughts.
All the beauty in the universe is balanced out by all the ugliness - cancer, disasters, birth defects, etc. As David Mills pointed out in Atheist Universe - for every baby "miraculously" born in the maternity ward, there's a lonely old man dying an agonizing death down the hall in the cancer ward - for every beautiful sunset, there's a heart attack that turns a happy wife into a grieving widow.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
But all the bad stuff is caused by sin/man/satan, or something like that.
Does beauty exist objectively?
Two people can have drastically different ideas about what is aesthetically pleasing, relative to their personalities, culture, etc.; but both are within the context of humanity and all it entails. We aren't the universe's disinterested spectator. We are ruled by survival instincts that are beyond our control which will have us call something "good" or "bad," "ugly" or "beautiful." That we can see past our fundamental compulsions at all, or recognize them for what they are, rather than obeying them unquestioningly as most animals do, is something amazing.
That being said, look at all the beautiful things in the world, whatever those are to you. Then, imagine all the other things. Not ugly things, just things that aren't striking. The nondescript plants, the great swaths of sand and rocks, the shapeless patches of clouds: things that aren't noticed. There's a confirmation bias at work that's hard to shake. We're inclined to look for things that smell good, are striking, are good to eat, etc., because our survival depended on it, and in some ways still does.