"Look at the beauty of nature!" How is this an argument for the existence of a god?

Question

Beauty is a subjective thing. I see lots of beauty in nature, and at no time does it lead me to think of a god. Why should it? Beauty speaks of beauty, of natural processes, of evolution, of matter, of stars etc No need for anything else

Answer 1

It's not, unless one has no better evidence to offer. Hence, its common usage as "proof of God".

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

Actually I do not know who suggested the beauty of nature is an argument. However those who suggest it proof or disproof of intelligent design don't really understand the intelligent design argument. Intelligent design claims it is the specified complexity of organisms that cannot self assemble is inference towards design. They also say the highly complex language used in DNA which according to Bill Gates "is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created. We can know from experiance that conscious intelligent agents can create informational sequences and systems and since all natural processes cannot we infer design.

Answer 4

Actually, Bob has not asked a question, possibly a rhetorical one, but most certainly made a statement.

However, I agree totally with Bob. This World runs as it runs without any input from God.

That in no way means that God does not exist, merely that the Universe is NOT His creation.

How could it be? He only makes permanent things, like You and Me [and I do NOT mean our bodies].

The hallmark of this Universe is endless change. EVERYTHING changes from one millisecond to the next. So what IS the creation we are talking about? the one NOW or a millisecond BEFORE or a millisecond LATER?

WE, you and me, create and maintain this Universe with our minds. We created and continue to create a playground to experience Life in the Flesh. It is no more than [and no less than] a super high tech video show.

Answer 5

Its not an argument. The fact that the world IS so beautiful and complex and it didn't require a magical self existing creator is far more profound and awe inspiring. I always say this. I have always felt that the simplicity of Intelligent Design completely undermines the beauty of the universe. In fact it renders such an utterly, awesome thing redundant.

Answer 6

"Look at the beauty of nature" is an argument for how beautiful nature is.

If you subscribe to the notion that nature cannot exist without a higher power to create/control it, then you could turn it into an argument that the beauty of nature = {insert your higher power here}.

I see nature as both beautiful and painfully cruel. So then that higher power that is responsible for the beauty must also then be responsible for the cruelty, right?

Answer 7

If someones thought process already starts with the assumption that God exists, they can interpret any and everything as proof of God. Some of the more memorable examples of theist arguments for God include:

The complexity of the human eye
The way a banana can fit in our hand and is easy to peel
The earths ability to sustain life
The popularity of the idea of God
That we are able to wake up and breathe in the morning

And they are all ridiculous.

Answer 8

Beauty evokes a response in most people that is very sublime and profound. It touches us on a deep level that we don't even fully understand. I'll take a stab at analyzing it.

I have noticed that pretty much everything natural is beautiful. Artists can spend years developing a sense of proportion and composition, in order to set up their artworks to evoke the response that beauty evokes in people. Yet nature does it spontaneously and virtually all the time.

When I'm driving home on the freeway, there is some ugly scenery and some beautiful scenery. The ugly scenery is all man-made: characterless modern buildings, smog, a featureless roadway filled with dirty cars, billboards. The beautiful stuff is all natural: the mountains in the background, the trees lining the streets, the clouds in the sky, the colors of the sunset in the distance. The beautiful things touch us, the ugly, man-made things don't.

This is not to say that man can't create things of beauty. He can. But generally it takes years of training and practice to develop that ability. Once he has done so, an amazing act of communication takes place between the artist and the viewer of the work of art. The beauty that the artist had in his mind, which he was trying to convey, does get conveyed, and enters the mind of the viewer. One mind communicates beauty to another.

To someone who believes in God, it seems obvious that God is communicating himself, who is the source of all beauty, to us, to whom that beauty speaks on a deep and profound level.

You may be one of the unfortunate ones to whom beauty evokes no response. I don't know.

To say that beauty speaks to you of "evolution" shows your obvious predilection to resist anything that points away from your preconceptions. I mean, come on, beauty points to evolution? What the heck does that even mean?

Answer 9

God is in nature, and nature is the essence of god.

So you have to forget your kind loving individual, and look at nature, the brutal dog-eat-dog world, where everything is on the menu of another, and the geological movements of the Teutonic plates throws molten lava, gas clouds, tornadoes, droughts, floods, Tsunami, frost pockets - ice ages - famine, mud slides, forest fires ...etc

If nature is anything to go by, then its creator was a blood thirsty indifferent and sadistic individual. Anybody that could have dreamt up parasite insects, and bacterial infection was way above the Marquis de Sade playing field.

Forgive me my ignorance in these matters, but I would like to think that nature is the random wonder of a series of biological accidents, and not the sinister creation of one sick individual.

Answer 10

A logical fallacy (a flaw in thinking) known as the "Argument From Incredulity"... which is a sub-category of the "Argumentum ad Ignorantiam" (Argument From Ignorance). It is also known as the 'Divine Fallacy'. It goes something like this: "I can't conceive of (or imagine) how this might have come to be; therefore, God did it."

It is part of the intellectual legacy of that pesky old Greek philosopher, Moronicus.

Answer 11

Fundamentally I have come to regard myself as ignostic. What you are asking speaks directly to my beliefs. Before a proper discussion of theology and its sisters can be enacted the participants must first agree on definitions. In the case of "beauty" perhaps this is not possible.