Regarding the Pain of Others

Horrifying isn't it?
In our body lecture we discussed the morality and the functionality of war photography- regarding the pain of others. Is it voyeuristic? Does war photography serve to do anything for good or for bad?
Do we look at these pictures and feel sympathetic for these people but secretly are pleased with ourselves because we feel that that there is a moral fibre in our being. This reassures us that we are human and that we have morally fulfilled our duties. But does it do anymore? World Vision and other non profit organizations flashes images of starving children, crying and bleeding babies and yet we look at them, feel bad and go on.
Does war photography enlighten us? Does it do more than just entertain us?
The function of war photography serves us in multiple ways: show as evidence so we may never forget, educate us on the rest of the world, incite us into action (donating, missions). On the other hand it can glorify and show patriotism or provoke an emotional response which can be good or bad.
The issue that lies within this war photographer, James Nachtwey, is that he makes something horrible look aesthetically beautiful. This is what we call realism vs aestheticism.
If photographing the pain of others is rendered into something beautiful, and artistic- is that just?
And as for the viewer, is it right to witness the pain of others? Or are we objectifying victims? Art transforms. Photography bears witness and 'beautiful' war photographs can be perceived as too aesthetic.

The flower that blooms in adversity is the most beautiful and rare.
-Mulan

I had a good church service today. It was on the doctrine of Man and the two different view points of human nature both positive and negative. He focused on Psalm 8 (which is apparently equivalent to Genesis 1:26) where Man is praised as being above all of earth and created in the image of God- that all things are under his feet. 'Man' in Hebrew encompasses both man and woman. He broke it down to three subpoints:
1) The idea that we are created in the image of God has Psychological Implications
-Secular culture is based on self esteem (works, value, accomplishments)
But Science has no basis for our human value if we did come from the theory of evolution.
2)Sociological Implications
(all I wrote down was poverty, racism)
3)Spiritual Implication
Sense of self worth cannot be from self. We always have to seek outer sources for self worth. He even spoke about watching the ultimate female movie: Bridget Jones' Diary. LOL. It was great. He said that she concluded that she alone could build her own self esteem and thought about this, and said it was impossible. And if all those things are taken away from you, you lose yourself.
(Cliche stuff but it sounded new due to the way he structured it)

On the flip side we examined the negative aspects of human nature with Psalm 14:2-3:

The LORD looks down from heaven
on the sons of men
to see if there are any who understand,
any who seek God.
3 All have turned aside,
they have together become corrupt;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.

He spoke about Calvinists vs Armenians and how he was convinced that the Calvinist viewpoint was the way to go (I'm ignorant on both) and how not one single person seeks God just for God; that there was always a motive behind it.
-The human heart is incapable by itself: Outside source of regeneration and power is required.
-All human morality is based on selfishness for power. Fear and pride is the motivation of our existence (dude I even wrote and thought about this in earlier entries)
-Some sociologists believe that Man is essentially good but is corrupted under social conditions. e.g. Nazis were influenced by Hitler and his ideologies therefore were turned into 'monsters'. But in believing they were 'sub human' are we not acting just as they were?
Sorry he said this point so fast I didn't jot much down.

The ultimate answer is Hebrews 2:6

Yeah that made no sense but I wanted to keep it for my own personal use.

We wrap our lives around Your life.