A world of design and beauty

When you see a well-known landmark, such as New York City, sitting in rubble and smoke what do (did) you feel? 




Or a scene of children disfigured from war, bandaged and bloody, missing a limb or a eye etc., 

what is your reaction or feeling toward these... sadness, anguish, fear, anger? But why? What is it in us that causes us to feel these things? 

We all seem to have this internal and universal notion of what is good and beautiful and what it is not. There may be nuances of difference within various cultures, but generally speaking, we all recognize when something is *repulsive versus attractive. Most are drawn to a majestic mountain range and *repulsed by a landscape filled with destruction or someone marred from a violent act or accident.

Where does this sense of attraction and repulsion come from? 

In an accidental world that comes about by time plus chance, this attraction or repulsion should not even exist much less make sense. If there is no design, no grand purpose to our existence, or the existence of anything else, there should be no attraction or repulsion. Therefore, the notion of beauty has to be an illusion if the world happened by chance. 

In a world of design, created with specific intent by a purposeful Designer, our attraction and repulsion make perfect sense. In a world of design, things are meant to be a certain way. When they are not, we sense it and are repulsed. 

And here we are, with an unspoken universal notion of beauty, harmony, order, and a desire for all of these. As much as we try to reason away that we and our world have no purpose, meaning, and design, we cannot deny our experience, desires, preferences, and longings that tell us we and our world (universe) are more than some random cosmic accident. Our desire for beauty is our clue.

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*What is intriguing is we are awed by both the extremely beautiful or terrible. Each provokes a different kind of awe but awe just the same. There is something about seeing or experiencing things that go way beyond us and our everyday experience, things much bigger than us, things that can overpower and disrupt us. We were designed to be awed by something greater than us. We are hard-wired for meaning, purpose, and significance and drawn to anything that makes us feel this way and repulsed from anything that makes us feel the opposite. For a further discussion on awe click here.

We may be intrigued by destruction in the make-believe world of movies or curious about it in real life -- the reason traffic always slows when there is a serious accident - but do not find it pleasant, especially when it involves those closest to us who we care about most.