Bond James Bond wrote:Let's agree on something for once. Atheists will accept religious art as excellent in all cases if theists will accept evolution as fact and not dispute the teaching of the same as fact to children in all schools.
How about if we call good religious art good and crappy religious crappy.
Further, let's all treat science as always open to falsification, and that a fact in science is simply a short hand way of referring to the current best explanation for empirical events.
The question of why human beings evolved to appreciate aesthetic is one of the great mysteries being explored in neuroscience today. There has been progress, but also much supposition. The person who can explain this easily, accurately, and comprehensively would be well on their way to wide-spread recognition and acclaim in the world of the sciences. And probably notoriety in the world of the arts.
I've linked to this before. It's long, but I think worth the time.
Bond James Bond wrote:Let's agree on something for once. Atheists will accept religious art as excellent in all cases if theists will accept evolution as fact and not dispute the teaching of the same as fact to children in all schools.
How about if we call good religious art good and crappy religious crappy.
Further, let's all treat science as always open to falsification, and that a fact in science is simply a short hand way of referring to the current best explanation for empirical events.
I'll agree to those terms.
Whatever appears to be against the Book of Mormon is going to be overturned at some time in the future. So we can be pretty open minded.-charity 3/7/07
MASH quotes I peeked in the back [of the Bible] Frank, the Devil did it. I avoid church religiously. This isn't one of my sermons, I expect you to listen.
Hoops wrote: And you're a scientist? Hmmm..... Telling indeed.
Telling of what - that I would seek confirmation from a third party rather than make a determination based on my "intuition" that you were just playing rhetorical games?
(Not that it matters.)
David Hume: "---Mistakes in philosophy are merely ridiculous, those in religion are dangerous."
DrW: "Mistakes in science are learning opportunities and are eventually corrected."
Blixa wrote:While I don't think that art is an argument FOR god (which is sort of what your OP was implying), I do find that the human imagination is probably the closest thing to "the divine" that I recognize.
(Musician in the Rain by Robert Doisneau)
by the way Robert Doisneau would be banned here because of breasts. See here the original...
- Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, the human race spends centuries deciphering the message. - Umberto Eco - To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin. - Cardinal Bellarmine at the trial of Galilei
Buffalo wrote:As to the first part, I would think that was self evident. The most intelligent species on the planet (namely, us) is clearly the most successful.
By what measure? We're not the most successful organism if you measure by population, biomass, or geographic extent.
See here the original...