Gk chesterton why i am a catholic

Still, Chesterton's central 'The Thing' is a series of essays loosely organized around Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular.

Still, Chesterton's central points shine through, among them: Give reason its place and it will be rational. Give it pride of place, and it will morph into superstition. Some great quotes worth repeating: There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, a fence or gate erected across a road.

The more modern reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this, let us clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it. Quite apart from the theory of Church, if Christ had remained on earth for an indefinite time, trying to induce men to love one another, He would have found it necessary to have some tests, some methods, some way of dividing true love from false love, some way of distinguishing between tendencies that would ruin love and tendencies that would restore it.

You cannot make a success of anything, even loving, without thinking. There is everywhere the habit of assuming certain things, in the sense of not even imagining the opposite things.

For instance, as history is taught, nearly everyone always assumes that it was the right side that won in all important past conflicts. Say to him that we should now be better off if Charles Edward and the Jacobites had captured London instead of falling back from Derby, and he will laugh. Yet nothing can be a more sober or solid fact that that, when the issue was still undecided, wise and thoughtful men were to be found on both sides.

I could give many other examples of what I mean by this imaginative bondage. It is to be found in the strange superstition of making sacred figures out of certain historical characters, who must not be moved from their symbolic attitudes. To a simple rationalist, these prejudices are a little hard to understand. Rating Chesterton a 2 makes one really self-conscious.

But truly, it was a bit of a grind. On the positive side, he writes well, very clever, very adept at the turn of the phrase. But this series of essays really just seemed like a one-stringed violin apologetic for Roman Catholicism.

And even that would have been fine if they had been organized for this purpose. Then it would have been easier to trace arguments through the book, and follow Chesterton's flow. But as a group of essays, the result Rating Chesterton a 2 makes one really self-conscious. But as a group of essays, the result was that I found myself wearied by the repetition.

If you'd like a good helping of Chesterton, I think there are probably better selections. Porque tanto el servicio militar como el desarme son nociones muy modernas. Que un hombre pueda abandonar sus lujos es una cosa; que la humanidad deba abandonar su libertad para poder enfrentarse con el problema del lujo es algo totalmente distinto.

Cualquiera puede convertirse en pobre voluntariamente, pero es una cosa muy diferente empobrecer a toda una cultura. Es en realidad una revuelta de los sofisticados. Es verdad que se lucha contra la licenciosa tendencia actual pero se hace con una especie de tedio feroz. Acaso el problema de este libro es ser demasiado extenso y repetitivo. Yo soy un gran admirador de Chesterton, y le perdono su antisemitismo, por ejemplo, a cambio Acaso el problema de este libro es ser demasiado extenso y repetitivo.

Yo soy un gran admirador de Chesterton, y le perdono su antisemitismo, por ejemplo, a cambio de una maravillosa prosa y de un racionamiento implacable.

Sin embargo, este no es el caso. Con recoger tres o cuatro libros fundamentales hubiera bastado. It will be naturally objected to the publication of these papers that they are ephemeral and that they are controversial. A collection of essays on various subjects, overwhelmingly related to religion. Some are topical, like one about an Anglican bishop who made a fool of himself by denigrating St.

Francis of Assisi, and provide the insight into the era that primary source so often does. A controversy in America featuring Mencken, in which he mildly points out that Mencken's statements are not logically consistent.

Or a man who wants to sacrifice English enjoyment of lawn tennis -- in order to save lawn tennis. Others are broader, taking in more perspective. Any man living in complete luxury and security who chooses to write a play or a novel which causes a flutter and exchange of compliments in Chelsea and Chiswick and a faint thrill in Streatham and Surbiton, is described as "daring," though nobody on earth knows what danger it is that he dares.

I speak, of course, of terrestrial dangers; or the only sort of dangers he believes in. To be extravagantly flattered by everybody he considers enlightened, and rather feebly rebuked by everybody he considers dated and dead, does not seem so appalling a peril that a man should be stared at as a heroic warrior and militant martyr because he has had the strength to endure it.

El libro es de tan rabiosa actualidad como si hubiera sido escrito ahora mismo y no hace un siglo Al fin y al cabo como el propio escritor dice "La vida no es una escalera; sino un balanceo". Feb 15, Carin rated it really liked it.

Most of the essays are in response to events in his time, which make them a bit dated, but his impeccable logic always shines through and makes "The Thing" a great read as it forces you to think deeper and harder about your belief system.

Jan 06, Jaret rated it really liked it. The dude can be pretentious and pompous, but he's also smarter and wittier than most. The essays can be hit or miss and they also can be a bit dated by their time and place early 20th century England , but they are overall very good. But [the Church] does definitely take the responsibility of marking certain roads as leading nowhere or leading to destruction, to a blank wall, or a sheer precipice. By this means, it does prevent men from wasting their time or losing their lives upon paths that have been found futile or disastrous again and again in the past, but which might otherwise entrap travelers again and again in the future.

The Church does make herself responsible for warning her people against these; and upon these the real issue of the case depends. She does dogmatically defend humanity from its worst foes, those hoary and horrible and devouring monsters of the old mistakes Now there is no other corporate mind in the world that is thus on the watch to prevent minds from going wrong. The policeman comes too late when he tries to prevent men from going wrong.

The doctor comes too late, for he only comes to lock up a madman, not to advise a sane man on how not to go mad Every moment increases for us the moral necessity for such an immortal mind. We must have something that will hold the four corners of the world still Chesterton found that "something": The enduring truth, the exhilarating goodness and the ineffable beauty of the Catholic Church.

And he found it by being fair to it. Tod Worner. Tod Worner is a Catholic husband, father, and internal medicine physician practicing in Minneapolis. He blogs regularly as A Catholic Thinker for Patheos. And he meant them. Because four years earlier, in his 48th year, Chesterton became a Catholic. After being raised in an ostensibly Unitarian household dedicated more to living the golden rule than worshiping the Triune God, Chesterton felt the tug, began to listen and then became fond of the Catholic Church.

But what did he find? Public Domain via WikiPedia. The first in a series of "Lights in the Darkness" In a modern culture that is adrift, it is good to be reminded of the true, the good and the beautiful. The Catholic Church has for one of her chief duties that of preventing people from making those old mistakes; from making them over and over again forever, as people always do if they are left to themselves ….

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