We like symmetry. We like twins. We like singularities. We like triangles. Perhaps it's hard-wired. I always think of Pythagoras and Plato and how philosophy is rooted in the mysticism and beauty of geometry. (So I've read..)

I think Jung's notion of archetype is highly applicable to trends in philosophic thought as well as art and perhaps even architecture. What does something like the Washington Monument mean? Then of course we have the pyramids.

2 cents.

symmetry gives beauty the basis and simplicity makes it far-reaching.

I have often wondered the role that symmetry and simplicity play in our interpretations of beauty.

Certainly detail is influential. Few people would find a perfect circle much to stop and admire about. Though if a few colors are added, then a few more shapes, and a few more colors and then the finished product being the Mona Lisa, people will come from miles around.

But I wonder if symmetry and simplicity if even sublimity play a role on our idea of beauty.

What can be a greater good than more wealth?

Read your Bible before preaching to me... Look at the world of Jesus: So poor that people were denying their financial obligation to their parents, and bringing lawsuits over a tunic...See him attacking the money changers on the temple steps, and why??? It seems that no one could make an offering with a foreign coin, so people had to change their money for them... But where did they get the coins of Judea???You do not have to be so smart to figure out that coins were recycled from within the temple to feed the pockets of parasites... And look at the priests who would not help the man set upon by thieves, and why??? Well, to touch blood would have required a month of ritual cleaning, so to protect their livelyhoods they walked on by...And in that poor place thick with poor people, were people were fighting over a slight difference of wages, there was money... The Roman Colloseum was built out of the spoils of the city of Jerusalem...The money was there but only those with a way into the preistly class could have any, and when the bled to death Jews rebeled against Rome, Jeruselem could not defend itself, so they ruined their society for no gain to themselves, unless the diaspora is cast in a soft light...

We might well say the rich are intelligent, but not all of the intelligent are rich...The rich have their share of dolts too, but they usually find a smart lawyer to separate them from their cash...Our society has long since become frozen, resistent to change and offering very few opportunities...We can count the smart, the inventive, and the determined rich easily enough, but we have no idea how many are stiffled, and ruined, and discouraged for lack of any true opportunity...

It happens in every society and every social form... They all reach a point of taking more life from the people than they give to the people...That point Montaigne made still goes: The profit of one is the loss of another, and we can find many people who can be taken... Why stop at the unintelligent??? Why not take the old, the young, or any body without the ability to resist...

it is upon the powerless that the rich feast, and not because it is justifyable, but because they can... Might is their right...

Read your Bible before preaching to me... Look at the world of Jesus: So poor that people were denying their financial obligation to their parents, and bringing lawsuits over a tunic...See him attacking the money changers on the temple steps, and why??? It seems that no one could make an offering with a foreign coin, so people had to change their money for them... But where did they get the coins of Judea???You do not have to be so smart to figure out that coins were recycled from within the temple to feed the pockets of parasites... And look at the priests who would not help the man set upon by thieves, and why??? Well, to touch blood would have required a month of ritual cleaning, so to protect their livelyhoods they walked on by...And in that poor place thick with poor people, were people were fighting over a slight difference of wages, there was money... The Roman Colloseum was built out of the spoils of the city of Jerusalem...The money was there but only those with a way into the preistly class could have any, and when the bled to death Jews rebeled against Rome, Jeruselem could not defend itself, so they ruined their society for no gain to themselves, unless the diaspora is cast in a soft light...

We might well say the rich are intelligent, but not all of the intelligent are rich...The rich have their share of dolts too, but they usually find a smart lawyer to separate them from their cash...Our society has long since become frozen, resistent to change and offering very few opportunities...We can count the smart, the inventive, and the determined rich easily enough, but we have no idea how many are stiffled, and ruined, and discouraged for lack of any true opportunity...

It happens in every society and every social form... They all reach a point of taking more life from the people than they give to the people...That point Montaigne made still goes: The profit of one is the loss of another, and we can find many people who can be taken... Why stop at the unintelligent??? Why not take the old, the young, or any body without the ability to resist... Well; it is upon the powerless that the rich feast, and not because it is justifyable, but because they can... Might is their right...

I'd just like to add that - It was the exspense incurred due to the creation of such idolatrous monuments, like the colosseum, That led to the inevitable downfall of said empire.

Don't really see in what way. The Colloseum was fully financed, and just because they kicked some jew butt, and sold them as slaves, it was no different than kicking any other civilization's butt and sell them as slaves, buisness as usual.

It was the political system itself that was the problem, too much corruption.

What I know of great empires is - if they'd spent less on proving their power through such grand design, they'd have funded their armies properly and lessened the tax-burdens of their respective populaces.