-Ralph Waldo Emerson
I feel bad. I went to church twice on Sunday, and I don't think I made the most of it. I found that if one goes to a meeting early in the day, and then goes to another later, it is very difficult for said person (me) to give the same fervor at both. So, as I sat in my second Sunday school meeting, I noticed that my sarcasm began to peak. This particular lesson was about the love of God. We were reading from John's epistles, these of course being an excellent discourse on God's supreme affection for us. The teacher put forth the question "What are things that demonstrate God's love for us?" Various members responded. Then one of them made the following statement: "I think that we can see God's love in the beautiful things around us. Why else would a flower be beautiful?" It was at this point that the unholy ether began to rain down sarcastic thoughts upon my otherwise unsullied mind. Is that the only reason? I immediately recalled what I had learned in molecular biology and Bee Movie. I nudged the friend next to me and told him that the young man's reasoning was faulty and began to describe evolutionary mechanisms that could better model the reasons for flower beauty (e.g. the attractiveness of a flower and its ability to procreate through the aid of pollination by bees). I'm pretty sure I ended up drawing some meaningless chemistry on a slip of paper just to get a laugh. I want to apologize to that guy for belittling his comment, unfortunately I cannot. I do realize however that he is right. Flowers are beautiful. Grass is green. The sea is vast. The heavens are vaulted. I don't think that science can really explain everything. Math may give us the string length; physics may give us the harmonic intervals; biology can explain how the ear perceives the note, but none can fully understand why the melody affects a person so. Let us then follow the Transcendentalists and accept that somethings simply are.
Thus we come to this picture of my grandpa. This picture is great.
1 comment:
brain... when I was reading this post.. I thought... Brian would never say that....it's sounds so unlike you.... but then I thought I have those moments too when someone comments and you are just like.... wow did you really need to say that?? but then it makes me think for every comment that I say... someone is probably like... wow did you really need to say that? I agree with the kid... I am so much more willing to think that things are the way they are because God wanted to give us beauty. There are many reasons and purposes for most things. Like when Nephi went to get the plates from Laban, the Lord wanted him to have the plates, but also to teach him lessons on faith and commandments, and to teach him that things don't always work out the first time. It also was something that needed to be recorded so future people could learn. As it is will all things in the scriptures. I really liked this post, it got me thinking, as you can tell, well I need to go think some more. I think you are right science can not explain everything, in fact sometimes I think science robs us of being able to see things how we once did, when we were children, when we saw things for what they truly are.
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