Atheists: Prove that beauty exists

[JMJ_coder]

Most atheists I’ve encountered tend to be “materialists”, denying the existence of that which they cannot prove with physical evidence (usually scientifically garnered).

So, can you prove that beauty exists? What proof and evidence do you have that such a thing that beauty exists? What scientific tests did you use to prove this, and where is your evidence and results that can be independently verified and reproduced?

 

[Sam_777]

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Beauty exists and certainly there is Someone Who engineered it.

And that Someone is the one Who engineered you and I, Who Is the First and the Last the Alpha and the Omega.

 

[kellychrysler]

oh noes…why does athiesm just feel like anti-Catholic most of the time.

 

[AnAtheist]

Most atheists I’ve encountered tend to be “materialists”, denying the existence of that which they cannot prove with physical evidence (usually scientifically garnered).

So, can you prove that beauty exists? What proof and evidence do you have that such a thing that beauty exists? What scientific tests did you use to prove this, and where is your evidence and results that can be independently verified and reproduced?

Too easy.
First a definition (you may accept because the Aquinate made it).

Beauty := The property, quality or state of being “that which pleases merely by being perceived”.

Whether something perceived pleases the observer can be measured with modern neurological equipment. Proof enough?

 

[kalt]

Too easy.
First a definition (you may accept because the Aquinate made it).

Beauty := The property, quality or state of being “that which pleases merely by being perceived”.

Whether something perceived pleases the observer can be measured with modern neurological equipment. Proof enough?

Do you think you can use this same technology to prove that God exists? If people have a similar neurological reaction to that when someone is pleased by a photograph of a flower or a mountain scene, does this prove that God exists?

They’ve measured recognition in people. People have reactions to seeing a photo of someone they recognize. If you mention God and the person has a similar reaction, does this prove that God exists?

 

[chrisse]

Love. How do you prove the existence of love scientifically? What is it? Does it exist at all? I know it does, but I can’t prove it to someone who has never experienced it.

 

[AnAtheist]

Do you think you can use this same technology to prove that God exists? If people have a similar neurological reaction to that when someone is pleased by a photograph of a flower or a mountain scene, does this prove that God exists?

They’ve measured recognition in people. People have reactions to seeing a photo of someone they recognize. If you mention God and the person has a similar reaction, does this prove that God exists?

Good question.
“Perceiving beauty” is a (measurable) state of the human mind. “Perceiving God” in the same fashion would then also be a state of the human mind. In that manner God does indeed exist, but that’s not exactly the type of existence Christians would attribute to their god, is it?

 

[Jean1964]

How about that Susan Boyle’s voice. Thats not beauty? How about when an artist creates a beautiful picture or when a musician creates a beautiful “piece”? Thats not beauty. Where does it come from and isnt it inspired by something?

The word “grace” is a wonderful thing. Mentioned in the Catechism.

Several meanings of grace are: elegance or beauty of form, manner, motion or action.
A pleasing or attractive quality or endowment.
The influence or spirit of God operating in humans to regenerate or strengthen them.

You mean to tell me there is no beauty in the Eucharist which operates within us from God?

Im from the North where things “die” and are reborn. The best time is during “rebirth”.
This is for everything around us. Including we humans.

Be it Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer. At the very beginning of these seasons there is “rebirth” and then there is “death”. Like many things in nature there had to be a great creator. Its so complex the way it works yet so unpredictable and definitely full of beauty and Grace from God. The complexity of a spiders web is awesome. The colors of the birds and trees. The awesome movements of the animals in the wild. All of God’s creatures since the beginning.

The Lord walked on water and He commanded the Winds. This is not beauty? I would say its incredible and beautiful to have seen by eyewitnesses. Beauty is something that comes from the Soul. Its something I find hard here to even put into words. Its like positively charged chemicals or matter only better.

There is beauty in the Mystery of Faith and Grace. Its a strange beauty yet to unfold this mystery. A thought yet undiscovered from a bigger thought. Bigger than we are “the children” of God.

Im sure there are better examples but these are the best I can think of.

Prove that beauty exists: Look around you. Look deep in a respectful way at everyone you encounter and get the blinders off and see the beauty in every individual in many different and unrepeatable ways. Its everywhere when you can safely take off the blinders of skepticsm, contempt and cynicism. Beauty is underneath a dirty picture left to hang in an old attic or cellar. Once the dirt is taken away you see the “shine”. When you clip and untamed rose bush or shrub what do you see?

We are untamed rose bushes that the Lord is getting ready to prune. Once the old is cleared away you will see the beauty.

An artist can copy a painting but when he or she paints her own work its never the same in any two particular paintings of the same theme. Same as music its different.
You can copy it but when a singer sings it she or he can give their own interpretation in a different sound and pitch. I dont believe anyone singer is copied or the same. I believe there is difference and beauty.

Yes beauty exists. Colors are everywhere in every way shape or form.

Something that is different always shows beauty in this world.

Take Mother Teresa when she was at Harvard. She isnt a physical beauty yet by her oration/speech she got a resounding applause. Asked why, the reply she is DIFFERENT.

God is beauty in His different things of nature. God is beauty in what we call THE HOLY SPIRIT.

 

[Jean1964]

The only word I know that helps prove the existence of God is the word-----FAITH.

Its a word so distinct and hard to fathom that only God can explain its mystery.

That is my take on the beauty and existence of God.

 

[dixibehr]

A similar question was asked of Jodi Foster in CONTACT: “Did you love your father? Prove it.”

Aquinas’s definition of beauty as given here, aside from begging the question (“Beauty is what looks beautiful”), assumes that there is an objective standard of beauty that exists outside the perceptions of the beholder.

 

[kalt]

Good question.
“Perceiving beauty” is a (measurable) state of the human mind. “Perceiving God” in the same fashion would then also be a state of the human mind. In that manner God does indeed exist, but that’s not exactly the type of existence Christians would attribute to their god, is it?

You said that you could prove through science that beauty exists. If beauty is real, it can be proved to exist scientifically. You provided the proof that beauty is real, it does exist.
Otherwise you would have said that beauty is just something that we percieve and that perceptions can be real or imagined.

When you provided that proof, you were certain that beauty existed, and provided scientific evidence to counter the other poster’s challenge (that you can’t prove that beauty exists any more than you can prove that God exists).

Atheists say that God doesn’t exist, but I think the same science will prove (if it proves that beauty exists, then it proves that other things exist, and not just in the mind) that God exists. It wouldn’t prove that Jesus was God, but it would prove that God exists and is as real as the scientifically proven beauty.

This makes me wonder. Does have a pleasure response really prove that beauty exists. I wonder if a sociopath would register the same neurological response to scenes of cruelty.

I personally don’t believe that you can prove that God exists by any science available today. It’s through faith and reasoning that we know God exists.

 

[AnAtheist]

When you provided that proof, you were certain that beauty existed, and provided scientific evidence to counter the other poster’s challenge (that you can’t prove that beauty exists any more than you can prove that God exists).
…]
Does have a pleasure response really prove that beauty exists. I wonder if a sociopath would register the same neurological response to scenes of cruelty.

I personally don’t believe that you can prove that God exists by any science available today. It’s through faith and reasoning that we know God exists.

Well, all this proving heavily depends on the defintion of what we are talking about. So what is “beauty”? It is not something that walks around on two legs, it is a concept that exists in our minds describing something in the physical world but has no physical existence.
Like “democracy”. Does it really exist? Or numbers. Do they exist? Can you find a -4.6 anywhere in this world?
A good philosophical approach to these different types of existence is Karl Popper’s Three-World-Theory. Very interesting thoughts.
All this talking of scientifically proving God’s “existence” is in vain if “God” is not properly defined, so everybody knows what we are talking about. Is God a concept, an archetypus of human desires and thought, something physical (in the broadest sense, physically existing perhaps in a realioty different or “higher” than ours)?

 

[Thing]

…All this talking of scientifically proving God’s “existence” is in vain if “God” is not properly defined, so everybody knows what we are talking about. Is God a concept, an archetypus of human desires and thought, something physical (in the broadest sense, physically existing perhaps in a realioty different or “higher” than ours)?

God is the being who created you. Who created beauty in this world. Who created a capacity for the appreciation of beauty in your mind. Everything you see exists in God. He maintains everything as it is. He keeps the quarks quarking, the gluons gluey, everything you see proves God exists.

 

[kalt]

Well, all this proving heavily depends on the defintion of what we are talking about. So what is “beauty”? It is not something that walks around on two legs, it is a concept that exists in our minds describing something in the physical world but has no physical existence.
Like “democracy”. Does it really exist? Or numbers. Do they exist? Can you find a -4.6 anywhere in this world?
A good philosophical approach to these different types of existence is Karl Popper’s Three-World-Theory. Very interesting thoughts.
All this talking of scientifically proving God’s “existence” is in vain if “God” is not properly defined, so everybody knows what we are talking about. Is God a concept, an archetypus of human desires and thought, something physical (in the broadest sense, physically existing perhaps in a realioty different or “higher” than ours)?

God is the uncaused cause.

Give a definition of beauty that doesn’t rely on the science that you used to prove that it exists. Give a definition that is not subjected to the opinion of the viewer. If beauty is real, you should be able to define it.

Democracy is a political system. It can be defined and qualified. Can Beauty also be defined and qualified so that any 2 people looking at the same object will always agree that it is beautiful?

IMO, beauty can’t be scientifically proven. What was proven was that people have a pleasure response to things that they think are beautiful. Someone who thinks the same object is ugly won’t have a pleasure response when looking at the same thing.

Beauty seems not to be an objective reality that can be conveyed through reason to another as even the idea of democracy can.

But to be honest, I’ve never thought about this before. It’s just an “it seems” thought of mine.

Thanks for the conversation. It’s one of the best on the board.

 

[AnAtheist]

Can Beauty also be defined and qualified so that any 2 people looking at the same object will always agree that it is beautiful?

Ah, but that is a different question, isn’t it?

IMO, beauty can’t be scientifically proven. What was proven was that people have a pleasure response to things that they think are beautiful. Someone who thinks the same object is ugly won’t have a pleasure response when looking at the same thing.

In that sense, yes. But the same applies for democracy or perhaps - freedom. Surely you’ll find two persons on this planet who disagree on what democracy or freedom is or should be.

Beauty seems not to be an objective reality that can be conveyed through reason to another as even the idea of democracy can.

So “objective reality” is something commonly acceptable by reason or by proving or by measuring? Then God is clearly not objective reality as at least faith or a leap of it is required to accept Him. Though I won’t deny, that He is subjective reality for a lot of people, but that applies to other gods too. And to Beauty.

 

[ralphinal]

To me, a better question is why the art and music gets uglier the farther a society gets from God?

Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. However, you cannnot explain to me how modern art touches the items from the Renaissance. Modern music does not touch Beethoven and Mozart. Modern buildings are ugly all too often.

When works were dedicated to God, they acheived beauty.

 

[AnAtheist]

To me, a better question is why the art and music gets uglier the farther a society gets from God? …] When works were dedicated to God, they acheived beauty.

Oh, come on. There are beautiful works dedicated to God and ugly ones, and the other way round. As you say - Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder.

 

[ralphinal]

Oh, come on. There are beautiful works dedicated to God and ugly ones, and the other way round. As you say - Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder.

I just have a feeling that in a few hundred years, people will still consider the Peita or Beethoven’s 9th to be beautiful, while so much of the stuff in the Gugenheim or the Musium of Modern Art will be ignored.

 

[AnAtheist]

I just have a feeling that in a few hundred years, people will still consider the Peita or Beethoven’s 9th to be beautiful, while so much of the stuff in the Gugenheim or the Musium of Modern Art will be ignored.

That’s because all the rubbish from back then is forgotten. As will be modern rubbish while the good stuff will still be remembered in years to come.

 

[ralphinal]

That’s because all the rubbish from back then is forgotten. As will be modern rubbish while the good stuff will still be remembered in years to come.

I cannot argue that one.

But, you must admit that there is a LOT of rubbish to be forgotten from the last 100 years