All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

St. John presumably would include beauty as one of those made things. The alternatives to the Christian view are disturbing.

It's possible that we ourselves made beauty. This would perhaps be the view of the naked pastor, Thomas Kinkade, Steve Pettit and Mark Scandrette. Or perhaps there is no such thing as beauty at all; what attracts us may all be personal preference and culturally determined prejudice.

But to discuss beauty would require that we familiarize ourselves with the explanations offered by those who actually made beautiful things. And if we did this, we would be doing aesthetics.

A Remonstrans reader sent me this atrocity. I don't know exactly what is wrong with this unsupervised simpleton and his fellowship of bouncing cretins, but I hope they were quickly cornered and tranquilized without incident. I encourage you to watch this, and take the trouble to read the sorts of critical judgments offered in the comment column. Many, many people found this offensive.

But why did they find it offensive? To me this is more frightening than the show.

If it is at all possible, I suggest you do this before going to bed. Brood far into the morning hours: what does this portend?