Atheists: Prove that beauty exists

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humble_in_doubt said:
This whole thread is so darn misguided. Of course beauty exists, and indeed atheists create beauty every day. Art finds its roots in humanism, which is of course a very atheistic idea.

To say only religion can provide humanity with beauty is not only false, it’s perhaps the opposite of reality. I know few artists who are religious (though there are obviously some). You guys seem prone to these illogical absolutist assumptions, when real life is truly far more abstract then you imagine. When you create a mold that everyone must fit into … everyone must then compete to be the perfect form of that template. When an individual discovers they cannot fit into that mold they might be compelled to find their individual identity through deviancy. This, might I suggest, is a major flaw with religion (as it is with other ideas like nationalism).

When people understand we’re not all the same, nor can we be, they understand that their individual identity is inherent within themselves. Objective morality is only useful insofar as it’s utility. Don’t kill, good idea that few would argue against right? Yet your mold goes far beyond utility, and it’s neither realistic nor desirable that everyone fit into the same mold or take the same form. Catholicism draws to a large extent from Greek philosophy (a Roman preoccupation that predates Christianity). The idea that there can be a perfect form for everything is, however, untrue and even absurd. To promulgate such an extreme objective standard is not only fallacy, but might I suggest in many cases it’s the root behind radical deviancy.
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Art does not have its roots in humanism.

Within Catholicism you will find variety to suit every individual created.
Unless your tastes are un-natural, in which case just let nature be your guide.
 
Thing said:
Art does not have its roots in humanism.

Within Catholicism you will find variety to suit every individual created.
Unless your tastes are un-natural, in which case just let nature be your guide.
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Since you claim to be so knowledgeable about all things … why don’t you explain to me the roots of art. Why were those cave men scratching things on rocks anyway? Let me guess, because you think cave men were Catholic? … you’re too funny!!!
 
humble_in_doubt said:
Since you claim to be so knowledgeable about all things … why don’t you explain to me the roots of art. Why were those cave men scratching things on rocks anyway? Let me guess, because you think cave men were Catholic? … you’re too funny!!!
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Hey, what makes you think they were “Catholic” cave men, maybe they were “Catholic” cave women? 😃
 
josie_L said:
Hey, what makes you think they were “Catholic” cave men, maybe they were “Catholic” cave women? 😃
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rumor has it that courtship back in the cave man days probably didn’t live up to Catholic standards. I think cave men were probably atheists … the only period of human history where atheists were stupid 😃
 
humble_in_doubt said:
Since you claim to be so knowledgeable about all things … why don’t you explain to me the roots of art. Why were those cave men scratching things on rocks anyway? Let me guess, because you think cave men were Catholic? … you’re too funny!!!
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Obviously the roots of art are buried in spare time. But art is not and never was a self sustaining industry, it always relied on sponsers, even in the stone age. So communities contained artists, those who devoted a large proportion of their own time to expressing something of themselves and of their own community. A group would support their artists.
The cave-man or woman, I imagine, would seek out quite places in the far back-waters, so-to-speak, of caves. There she would try to capture the nature of the animals they hunted. You will not find a boring diagram of a beast, you will find animals running, suspended, crouched, very expressive, very difficult to capture sucessfully the spirit of the animal and its very difficult for modern artists to emulate some of those cave paintings.
Whoever these artists were, they were inspired designers and artists, no boring, nihilistic, hopeless creature spent hours chipping a fine outline of horses running and sensitively coloured them. I think these artists must have had a love of nature, an appreciation of ‘spirit’, that which enlivens and animates creatures. These artists had a sense of the spiritual.
 
humble_in_doubt said:
rumor has it that courtship back in the cave man days probably didn’t live up to Catholic standards. I think cave men were probably atheists … the only period of human history where atheists were stupid 😃
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Ahhhhahhhhhahha!!! I wasn’t expecting that.

P.S. People hardly live up to Catholic standards, even nowadays. 😃
 
Thing said:
Well, I think we could armwrestle.🙂
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I’m not familiar with this idiom/expression, but does this mean you’re slightly younger than me or slightly older?

P.S. Why a happy Wednesday, and not a happy Thursday, Friday, . . .etc.?
 
josie_L said:
I’m not familiar with this idiom/expression, but does this mean you’re slightly younger than me or slightly older?

P.S. Why a happy Wednesday, and not a happy Thursday, Friday, . . .etc.?
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You are younger; Wednesday is in the middle of the week and so Wednesdays are greeted with modified rapture
 
Thing said:
Obviously the roots of art are buried in spare time. But art is not and never was a self sustaining industry, it always relied on sponsers, even in the stone age. So communities contained artists, those who devoted a large proportion of their own time to expressing something of themselves and of their own community. A group would support their artists.
The cave-man or woman, I imagine, would seek out quite places in the far back-waters, so-to-speak, of caves. There she would try to capture the nature of the animals they hunted. You will not find a boring diagram of a beast, you will find animals running, suspended, crouched, very expressive, very difficult to capture sucessfully the spirit of the animal and its very difficult for modern artists to emulate some of those cave paintings.
Whoever these artists were, they were inspired designers and artists, no boring, nihilistic, hopeless creature spent hours chipping a fine outline of horses running and sensitively coloured them. I think these artists must have had a love of nature, an appreciation of ‘spirit’, that which enlivens and animates creatures. These artists had a sense of the spiritual.
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so in other words, as I simply said before, art has been around long before religion? So then mankind has never needed religion to express beauty, or as the OP states show that “beauty exists”?
 
humble_in_doubt said:
so in other words, as I simply said before, art has been around long before religion? So then mankind has never needed religion to express beauty, or as the OP states show that “beauty exists”?
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Art has been around before revelation, you mean.
The cave-men, and cave-women, had an appreciation of beauty, they recognised something in nature of a spiritual kind. They could not know what exactly that was.
Revelation revealed the Truth behind the beauty which the cave-men and women saw and appreciated in nature and in life.
 
Thing said:
Art has been around before revelation, you mean.
The cave-men, and cave-women, had an appreciation of beauty, they recognised something in nature of a spiritual kind. They could not know what exactly that was.
Revelation revealed the Truth behind the beauty which the cave-men and women saw and appreciated in nature and in life.
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That’s just your claim. The better view is cave men just scratched stuff on walls & there was no spiritual force behind it. Who knows why they did it … perhaps they were bored and sought a diversion from their mundane lives?

I can remember in high school sketching stuff in my note pad, yet I can say with a high degree of certainty there was no mystical force behind those drawings. I did it because I was bored … no big mystery. At any rate my point remains … art long predated religion (and the tangible evidence supports my view).
 
What is beauty or better yet how do you define beauty? And what do find is beautiful in our everyday world?

" Great beauty elevates the soul, and the literature of conversion is replete with testimony from those whose hearts were truly moved to faith by the works of Bach, and Michelangelo, and Dante, and the romances of the Holy Grail. Plato spoke of four transcendentals: the one, the true, the good, and the beautiful. Any of these paths can take our friends above and beyond the everyday; and from there they might see their way clear to God."
 
humble_in_doubt said:
That’s just your claim. The better view is cave men just scratched stuff on walls & there was no spiritual force behind it. Who knows why they did it … perhaps they were bored and sought a diversion from their mundane lives?

I can remember in high school sketching stuff in my note pad, yet I can say with a high degree of certainty there was no mystical force behind those drawings. I did it because I was bored … no big mystery. At any rate my point remains … art long predated religion (and the tangible evidence supports my view).
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Being that they were “human”, I believe they were compelled as we are, to express themselves. Why are we the only mammals/creatures to do so?
 
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