Philosophic Beauty

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Mongo said:
I am not quite sure of the point you are getting at , but maybe you should reread my post that started this tangent. It seems that Charlemagne misunderstood what I was saying with the quote.
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So can you explain what I should have understood? :confused:
 
billcu1 said:
IMO there is beauty and beauty in the making. Whatever good, bad or ugliness there is in the world. God is turning somehow around to be for the good. Same with beauty.

Bill
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That may be true in a literal sense. The ugliness of a junkyard could be turned into a beautiful theme park if someone would kindly put his hand to the task. But if the junkyard just stays there, it will be forever ugly.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
". . . But if the junkyard just stays there, it will be forever ugly.
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From an eschatalogical point of view, I am happy to say that you are wrong 😃 At the Second coming of Christ, not only will all evil disappear, the new heavens and the new earth will not feature any junkyards. 👍:
 
billcu1 said:
Have you even heard the story about the chest that was opened and all kinds of evil came out. Left in the chest was a little light of hope. When sin abounds grace does that much more abound.

Bill
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That story is from the pagan Greek Myth of Pandora’s Box. 😃
 
Aunt_Raven said:
From an eschatalogical point of view, I am happy to say that you are wrong 😃 At the Second coming of Christ, not only will all evil disappear, the new heavens and the new earth will not feature any junkyards. 👍:
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That’s so true for those who deserve not to have to look at junkyards because they have beautiful souls.

But the souls in hell will still have a huge junkyard of souls to ponder … forever. 🤷
 
Charlemagne_III said:
That may be true in a literal sense. The ugliness of a junkyard could be turned into a beautiful theme park if someone would kindly put his hand to the task. But if the junkyard just stays there, it will be forever ugly.
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There are many working to clean it up. Seen and unseen.

Bill
 
Charlemagne_III said:
The Prince of Darkness is forever at work building more junkyards. 😉
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Yeah but I don’t really worry so much about that as I do myself. I have 3 demonesses to deal with. One in particular. She usually tempts and is there when there’s pornography and such. I’ve always found it’s when I compromise something and look at things. Or when I start a state of mind. And if I sin. It seems it is always ME that pulls the trigger. One thing I have found useful is a phrase from a prayer of the church. When I really have problems I pray “May God rebuke him/her” or even use her name. It works very well. Remember you can only be tempted. And even at that, only when God allows. At worst when I fall, I always learn a valuable lesson and take it to heart.

Bill
 
There’s another story about Jesus and his disciples walking and encountering a dog carcass. The disciples where all disgusted and Jesus looked and said “Look at the magnificent teeth the animal has.” Sometimes the worst of times are the most valuable.

Bill
 
Charlemagne_III said:
That’s so true for those who deserve not to have to look at junkyards because they have beautiful souls.

But the souls in hell will still have a huge junkyard of souls to ponder … forever. 🤷
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Are you sure maybe God doesn’t have something in mind to turn that situation around? Of course not. That has been revealed to a few. Remember, his ways are not ours. God speaks too to who he wants. He’s never listened to me on who to talk to. For example, Mohammed wrestled with Gabriel. I remember someone else in the Bible wrestling with an angel. Those who are hard hearted say, “No God wouldn’t do that, I know his ways.” I do not question God. He appears to those who seek him in his own way(s) and his terms.

Bill
 
Nature is beautiful, such as all the flowers in the Spring. I was contemplating some cherry blossoms today. Or snowfall, or flaming leaves in the Fall. A night full of stars. A full moon, waterfalls, canyons. Beautiful classical music, (such as Ave Verum Corpus that Charlemagne posted). Tenderness, compassion, mercy are beautiful.

Ugliness is war, destruction of nature and people, pain and suffering, man’s inhumanity to man.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
So can you explain what I should have understood? :confused:
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It might help if you read the whole quote rather than just the one sentence you quoted in your post. It is only three or four sentences long and it provides context. Simply responding to one sentence of a paragraph as if it stands alone doesn’t provide an answer.

So basically you reduced it to an argument of whether there is beauty in sodom. Many people would disagree and say it is in the eye of the beholder. And as the quote says, for the vast majority of mankind there is beauty in sodom. Beauty is what God and the devil do battle over and the battleground is the heart of man.
 
Mongo said:
“Yes, man is broad, too broad, indeed. I’d have him narrower. The devil only knows what to make of it! What to the mind is shameful is beauty and nothing else to the heart. Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe me, that for the immense mass of mankind beauty is found in Sodom. Did you know that secret? The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man.”
The Brothers Karamazov
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Here’s the whole quote:

“Beauty! I can’t endure the thought that a man of lofty mind and heart begins with the ideal of the Madonna and ends with the ideal of Sodom. What’s still more awful is that a man with the ideal of Sodom in his soul does not renounce the ideal of the Madonna, and his heart may be on fire with that ideal, genuinely on fire, just as in his days of youth and innocence. Yes, man is broad, too broad, indeed. I’d have him narrower. The devil only knows what to make of it! What to the mind is shameful is beauty and nothing else to the heart. Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe me, that for the immense mass of mankind beauty is found in Sodom. Did you know that secret? The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man.”
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
Here’s the whole quote:

“Beauty! I can’t endure the thought that a man of lofty mind and heart begins with the ideal of the Madonna and ends with the ideal of Sodom. What’s still more awful is that a man with the ideal of Sodom in his soul does not renounce the ideal of the Madonna, and his heart may be on fire with that ideal, genuinely on fire, just as in his days of youth and innocence. Yes, man is broad, too broad, indeed. I’d have him narrower. The devil only knows what to make of it! What to the mind is shameful is beauty and nothing else to the heart. Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe me, that for the immense mass of mankind beauty is found in Sodom. Did you know that secret? The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man.”
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Kosmos is the Greek term for beauty. Which pretty much means creation. Look at man his good and evil. The animals kill to survive, is that evil? Beauty? People must kill to eat and survive, is that beauty? It seems so. One of the most dangerous and treacherous things to a man is a woman. And in women there’s beauty.

Is this beauty a humanized version of the human idea of beauty? An anthropamorphic God. Or perfect beauty?

Bill
 
Mongo said:
It might help if you read the whole quote rather than just the one sentence you quoted in your post. It is only three or four sentences long and it provides context. Simply responding to one sentence of a paragraph as if it stands alone doesn’t provide an answer.

So basically you reduced it to an argument of whether there is beauty in sodom. Many people would disagree and say it is in the eye of the beholder. And as the quote says, for the vast majority of mankind there is beauty in sodom. Beauty is what God and the devil do battle over and the battleground is the heart of man.
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This time I quote the whole post, which still does not make any sense.

If Sodom is so beautiful, why did God destroy it and all the citizens in it?

Yes, God does battle with the devil, but that is because the devil is ugly, not beautiful.

Please explain more clearly what you think I am missing.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
This time I quote the whole post, which still does not make any sense.

If Sodom is so beautiful, why did God destroy it and all the citizens in it?

Yes, God does battle with the devil, but that is because the devil is ugly, not beautiful.

Please explain more clearly what you think I am missing.
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Destroying people is bad to us. God is the giver and taker of life. Maybe he destroyed them to free them from something so that they could go on to something greater. Maybe their hearts led them to purgatory instead of what would’ve been hell.
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 I am not God. If he wants to explain his ways he will. This is an idea. I don't know the answer for sure though I'm sure someone does.
Bill
 
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