What do you think about this masterpiece?

What do you think about this masterpiece?

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Its Great. Chestertons writing is as fun and fluid as Oscar Wilde, but unlike Wilde actually has some food for thought

>Wilde is not thought provoking
That's wrong.

I was not convinced by Chesterton here; it was just so many appeals to common sense, and he took what is an existentially vital question and turned it into something all too human. Mere Christianity was better in the same vein. In the end I am too old and have suffered enough in life to where this kind of fatherly chat does nothing for me. If Christ's words are not convincing enough then what good is it?

A stream-of-consciousness borderline nonsensical entertaining overview of Chesterton's thought.

A good resource: www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/264/chester.htm

Its been a year or so since I read it. I thought it was a ton of fun, and the parts about gods own atheism and the democracy of the dead are sublimely tongue-in-cheek.

He uses too many strawmen though, as far as I remember. A common formula in his work: "A homosexual, nudist jew will say" and then he'll go on to refute it.
Even when he's discussing someone in particular, like Nietzsche, he'll put words into his mouth, or else he'll quote a sentence, change it ("Beyond good and evil" means more good than good and more evil than evil) and then refute it.

god's*

Was Chesterton a better essayist, philosopher, novelist, short story writer, or poet? What was he best at?

I thought it was pretty cringy. I don't like C.S. Lewis. If you want actual apologetics stick to serious theologians.

Neither Orthodoxy nor mere Christianity are really solid and rigorous apologetics, but both are good for being a summation of Christian attitudes and worldviews. I think Orthodoxy does it slightly better, but they're both rather insightful- just not in terms of careful philosophical argumentation.

The strong are saying nothing

The soil now gets a rumpling soft and damp,
And no regard to the future of any weed.
The final flat of the hoe’s approval stamp
Is reserved for the bed of a few selected seed.

There is seldom more than a man to a harrowed piece.
Men work alone, their lots plowed far apart,
One stringing a chain of seed in an open crease,
And one still stumbling after a halting cart.

To the fresh and black of the squares of early mold
The leafless bloom of a plum is fresh and white;
Though there’s more than a doubt if the weather is not too cold
For the bees to come and serve its beauty aright.

Wind goes from man to man in wave on wave,
But carries no message of what is hoped to be.
There may be little or much beyond the grave,
But the strong are saying nothing until they see.

oops, this was supposed to say "I don't like C.S. Lewis either".

>it was just so many appeals to common sense,
ew, fuck common sense

>If Christ's words are not convincing enough then what good is it?
The Word of God is as good as much as a man's heart allows it to be. Christ's words propose, they do not impose. They convince those who have not a stone heart, but a flesh one. I hope you get there, man.

garbage that's in vogue because of soy boy alt-rights

lifezette.com/faithzette/why-chesterton-moment-arrived-church/

>formal investigation for canonization has started

HAPPENING

If it were a joke, It won't be one after Cardinal Sarah becomes the next Vicar of Christ

This but unironically

Awful book full of venom by a guy attacking books/authors he has never read. Not shocked some people here like it.

I do like Chestertons' fiction and poetry tho. He was a good writer but a dishonest thinker who was filled with bad faith.

It's a solid text some without the wherwithal to argue react against, of course. Essentially this is Chesterton's Why I Became a Catholic- what can one really say? 'too fatherly' 'strawman this and that' are not arguments. Nietzsche strawmans the entire Western religious tradition but so long as proselytes have a fun little thoroughly egoistic word like 'ressentiment' to throw around [they] hardly notice, if ever. Fucking typical.

Yeah I've never seen Christianity so caricatured before; well the Enlightment, The Black Legend, and New Atheism do caricature Christianity with a ruthlessness to its making of strawmen.

kys faggot

...

Only a convert, or a re-convert, eager to convince himself of Christianity, can eventually realise just how much of a brainlet affair the whole thing really is. Christians are by their nature cruel, and snide - like political ideologues - because they must protect themselves from foreign influences. They must innoculate themselves, give themselves a small dose of un-Christian thought, just enough to turn them against it... but I daresay they will never jump into it, not without some sort of hand-ready antidote (a Bible verse here... a piece of apologetics there... some legendary miracle...) If they must confront "worldly philosophy" at all, they will take vaccinations, typically premade by Christian compatriots, and never risk actually getting sick, letting their own body come to understand the alien particles that assail it. No no, give me the easy option chap. Give me the common sense routine. I haven't the time or energy to take so many days off the good work for any chance at real reflection.

Isn't this Chesterton's routine? The dispenser of dispensaries. Dispensations from real intellectual work and suffering. Authority behind me, I can do no wrong. I ought not to think dangerously...

I could turn this copypasta on its head and say that it's merely an atheist trying to rationalize how a fellow atheist could become a Christian.

God be with you, Cardinal Sarah!

Only a convert, or a re-convert, eager to convince himself of Atheism, can eventually realise just how much of a brainlet affair the whole thing really is. Atheists are by their nature cruel, and snide - like political ideologues - because they must protect themselves from foreign influences. They must innoculate themselves, give themselves a small dose of un-Atheist thought, just enough to turn them against it... but I daresay they will never jump into it, not without some sort of hand-ready antidote (a Harris quite here... a piece of science there... some legendary UTTERLY DESTROYS CRAIG...) If they must confront "Metaphysical truths" at all, they will take vaccinations, typically precum by God hating fedoras, and never risk actually getting sick, letting their own body come to understand the alien particles that assail it. No no, give me the easy option chap. Give me the common sense routine. I haven't the time or energy to take so many days off the good work for any chance at real reflection. I am euphoric.

Isn't this Dawkins' routine? The dispenser of dispensaries. Dispensations from real intellectual work and suffering. Authority behind me, I can do no wrong. I ought not to think dangerously...

>"A homosexual, nudist jew will say"

"Oy vey, it's hard to get a good dicking without dressing well, but clothes are so expensive." But hes wrong, everyone is dickable in Christ.

The Cosmic Patriot part was fucking amazing. Dude really had some great ideas.

Not the best apologist. But he and Lewis are good intro apologists before you get to leviathans like Augustine or Aquinas.

>Awful book full of venom by a guy attacking books/authors he has never read
Source on the never read part?

I'd say essayist, in fact I'd go as far as to say that he is one of the better essayists in the English language, though I still love his narrative. As a poet he wasn't outstanding, and he really wasn't a philosopher in the strict sense.