GK Chesterton 101

[tekiahteruah]

Personally, I feel the only major shortcoming of Buddhism is that Siddhartha Gautama never got to meet Jesus Christ. The Buddha personally seemed to feel no special connection with the Indian gods of his time and didn't really see God as necessary to his life; I think if he would have met Jesus, Buddhism might have had a lot added to it through knowledge of Jesus's Abba, and the Holy Spirit. Buddhism is personally insufficient for me because I believe in a loving God revealed through the risen Christ. Obviously Buddhism does not have that. Without God and without Christ, who has loved us in his own blood, Buddha's teachings would mean nothing to me.

I think you're right that Chesterton had a pretty good knack at getting to the heart of things, and I think a lot of his criticisms of Indian thought are sound. What I don't think he got is that the Buddha agreed with him on a lot of those criticisms.

As for my claim about Buddhist scholarship, it's a matter of historical record. Even go to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_the_West#Buddhism_and_Western_Intellectuals). Buddhism is a pretty new field in the West-- it wasn't really until the 19th century that Western scholars began translating and discussing it. As you can see even from the Wikipedia article, a lot of the first Western analyses of Buddhism came from a very anti-Christian, biased school of thought, which partially explains Chesterton's defensiveness.

 

[tekiahteruah]

As a side note, I should clarify that I don't consider Mahayana Buddhism a 'superior' branch of Buddhism; I simply think it emphasizes certain aspects of the Buddha's teachings which are closer to Christianity and Christ's teachings. Mahayana is by far the largest branch of Buddhism in the world.

 

[sneezingleopard]

I don't think anyone has posted this link yet. SO for anyone who would like to listen to a bit of audio about chesterton and his ideas, before committing to a book of his . . . http://www.ewtn.com/vondemand/audio/selectseries.asp
In Christ,
Matthew

 

[rusmeister]

I don't think anyone has posted this link yet. SO for anyone who would like to listen to a bit of audio about chesterton and his ideas, before committing to a book of his . . . http://www.ewtn.com/vondemand/audio/selectseries.asp
In Christ,
Matthew

Thanks, Matthew, but this link leads only to the general site of audio teachings on Catholicism (As this is an Orthodox forum, and the focus on Chesterton, that's not terribly useful (people don't want to flip through page after page looking for Chesterton). Could you provide specific links for the Chesterton files/pages?

 

[rusmeister]

Personally, I feel the only major shortcoming of Buddhism is that Siddhartha Gautama never got to meet Jesus Christ. The Buddha personally seemed to feel no special connection with the Indian gods of his time and didn't really see God as necessary to his life; I think if he would have met Jesus, Buddhism might have had a lot added to it through knowledge of Jesus's Abba, and the Holy Spirit. Buddhism is personally insufficient for me because I believe in a loving God revealed through the risen Christ. Obviously Buddhism does not have that. Without God and without Christ, who has loved us in his own blood, Buddha's teachings would mean nothing to me.

I think you're right that Chesterton had a pretty good knack at getting to the heart of things, and I think a lot of his criticisms of Indian thought are sound. What I don't think he got is that the Buddha agreed with him on a lot of those criticisms.

As for my claim about Buddhist scholarship, it's a matter of historical record. Even go to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_the_West#Buddhism_and_Western_Intellectuals). Buddhism is a pretty new field in the West-- it wasn't really until the 19th century that Western scholars began translating and discussing it. As you can see even from the Wikipedia article, a lot of the first Western analyses of Buddhism came from a very anti-Christian, biased school of thought, which partially explains Chesterton's defensiveness.

This is what I was afraid of. Tekiah, when you say 'personally', and 'for me', you offer what can't work as argument for anyone else. As far as others (like Justin) are concerned, that is no reason to select Orthodoxy (because Tekiah feels this way) and it leaves you yourself exposed to turning towards Buddhism should you cease to feel this, especially given your enormous admiration for it. Unless/until you work out objective reasons as to "why Orthodoxy?", you shouldn't weigh in on arguments with potential Buddhists, because you offer them no reason to choose Orthodoxy. Given what you do know, your knowledge can correct mistakes of Orthodox posters like me, but I won't find your arguments so convincing; I'll accept them like I do wikipedia articles - not out of emotional response, but simply because you are so aligned with Buddhism that from the standpoint of people (like me) who don't really know you, you could be a Buddhist. Please understand, I am not questioning whether you are Orthodox, but I find the reason why you are not Buddhist to be unconvincing. It is a purely personal reason. It may work for you; it is not an argument for anyone else.

Wikipedia is a useful resource, but it must never be referred to as a prime authority for the simple reason that anybody can write whatever they want. True, others edit that, too, but the fanatics (those with the most determination and time on their hands) tend to have their 'information' up on the pages most of the time. Wikipedia should always be taken with this grain of salt.

 

[Protoevangel]

Thanks, Matthew, but this link leads only to the general site of audio teachings on Catholicism (As this is an Orthodox forum, and the focus on Chesterton, that's not terribly useful (people don't want to flip through page after page looking for Chesterton). Could you provide specific links for the Chesterton files/pages?

Direct link to the files

• G. K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense
  
• G.K. Chesterton: Apostle of Common Sense

 

[sneezingleopard]

Direct link to the files

• G. K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense
  
• G.K. Chesterton: Apostle of Common Sense

thanks for correcting my mistake. I went to these pages and coppied the address in the address bar. Not sure what happened. Thanks for the link.
In Christ,
Matthew

 

[sneezingleopard]

Thanks, Matthew, but this link leads only to the general site of audio teachings on Catholicism (As this is an Orthodox forum, and the focus on Chesterton, that's not terribly useful (people don't want to flip through page after page looking for Chesterton). Could you provide specific links for the Chesterton files/pages?

sorry about that. Protoevangel helped me out.

 

[rusmeister]

Thanks. They're .ra files, and require Real Player, which I find to be the most invasive program.

 

[Protoevangel]

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternative.htm

This is supposed to allow you to play real audio using MS Media Player.

Disclaimer: I have not tested it personally. I may this weekend, though.

 

[rusmeister]

Bringing this thread back to the surface...
I encourage people to peruse the earlier posts and pick and choose what they like.

On the topic of pacifism. we have saints representing those who fought (St George, for example) and those who refused to fight (St Maximilian, f.e.). But as to the time and place for it, herrrrrrrrrrrre's GKC!!!

Pacifism

Throughout his career, Chesterton was a vigorous enemy of pacifism. What he did believe in was the right, or the duty rather, of self-defense and the defense of others.

Chesterton was also a vigorous enemy of militarism. Both ideas, he argued, were really a single idea -- that the strong must not be resisted. The militarist, he said, uses this idea aggressively as a conqueror, as a bully. The pacifist uses the idea passively by acquiescing to the conqueror and permitting himself and others around him to be bullied. Of the two, Chesterton thought the pacifist far less admirable. In fact, the pacifist, for him, was "the last and least excusable on the list of the enemies of society."

They preach that if you see a man flogging a woman to death you must not hit him. I would much sooner let a leper come near a little boy than a man who preached such a thing.​

This should not be understood as a lust for fighting. "The horror of war," Chesterton wrote, "is the sentiment of a Christian and even of a saint." But in refusing to strike any blow, pacifists announce their readiness to surrender the higher ideals of "liberty, self-government, justice, and religion."

http://www.chesterton.org/discover/nutshell/pacifism.html

We can also consider how Leo Tolstoy took the concept of non-resistance to evil and made it into a "little blind Oyarsa" (Lewis, The Space trilogy); ie, taking a single principle and using it to determine the entire Faith, and wound up apostasizing.

 

[rusmeister]

Great thread and concept behind the thread.

I have a question and it is not to challenge but to understand.

Inlight of this part that proto pasted:


How does that fit in with the idea that the masses have seemed to go crazy here where 70-ish% of the US support BC in the middle schools among the myriad of other horrors that it seems the majority of the US supports that clearly go against tradition.

I know I am missing something here, but could you or others speak to this?

Thanks.

Haven't seen this pop up elsewhere, and so I guess I might as well address this here.

This looks tricky, but (to me at least) the answer is pretty simple and dovetails with the American education thread (although I think this applies to the entire western world): http://christianforums.com/showthread.php?t=6072877

The extremely short simplification (OK, oversimplification, but you do want short...) is that mass schooling can quickly and artifically bring up children to believe things diametrically opposed to what their parents believed. The Soviet Union did this openly in the 1930's with a declared ideology; in the US (for example) the process was more gradual with a mostly undeclared ideology (pluralism) which, for that very reason, was far more effective. All you need are several departments or ministries of education working to do stuff like that. They control what the teachers teach - the teachers in turn (partially and usually unaware of the indoctrination) teach the kids and *boom!* - half the planet now buys things their grandparents would be rolling over in their graves to hear.

Even if you think that's not the case, can you at least see how it could answer your question?

 

[Yeznik]

I haven't read through the whole thread. But, here is some of his material in an audio book for free, mp3 format. I haven't yet to read any of his material.

http://librivox.org/newcatalog/search.php?title=&author=Chesterton+&status=all&action=Search

 

[Chesterton]

Haven't seen this pop up elsewhere, and so I guess I might as well address this here.

This looks tricky, but (to me at least) the answer is pretty simple and dovetails with the American education thread (although I think this applies to the entire western world):

The extremely short simplification (OK, oversimplification, but you do want short...) is that mass schooling can quickly and artifically bring up children to believe things diametrically opposed to what their parents believed. The Soviet Union did this openly in the 1930's with a declared ideology; in the US (for example) the process was more gradual with a mostly undeclared ideology (pluralism) which, for that very reason, was far more effective. All you need are several departments or ministries of education working to do stuff like that. They control what the teachers teach - the teachers in turn (partially and usually unaware of the indoctrination) teach the kids and *boom!* - half the planet now buys things their grandparents would be rolling over in their graves to hear.

Even if you think that's not the case, can you at least see how it could answer your question?

I think the C.S. Lewis book The Abolition of Man is about precisely this issue - how, as human history and science proceed, the masses will be, intentionally or otherwise, "conditioned" away from their traditional common sense.

G.K. quote - "Iceland is impossible because only stupid sailors have seen it; and the sailors are only stupid because they say they have seen Iceland."

 

[rusmeister]

This is something interesting that I unearthed - a book about Hinduism (favorable to Hinduism) with an introduction by GKC.
It certainly gives you an idea about the extent of his knowledge of the best of Hindu teachings.
http://www.archive.org/stream/hinduism00maituoft

Also of interest there I found a little-known objection to Chesterton's "Orthodoxy". Just reading it, I can see the objections to the author's objections, but just so that we find and defeat the best arguments against the faith, rather than the worst...

http://www.archive.org/stream/authordoxybeingd00whitrich

 

[rusmeister]

I just feel that this thread deserves a bump for the new generation of TAW-ers. If there is any interest I could write more about what I have learned in the past year or so...

In any event, read the posts from the beginning, if you haven't already done so. There's lots of good stuff here!

 

[Michael G]

I have only read Orthodoxy (that I remember, I might have read others and simply forgot that I read them), but it was truly an amazing book.

 

[rusmeister]

Bumping for people who have never seen this.

 

[rusmeister]

Probably the most useful and amazing works of GKC's that I have read over the last year are:
1) On the Place of Gilbert Chesterton in English Letters (by Hilaire Belloc)
While about him rather than by him - written 4 years after Chesterton's death- it is an indispensable essay for the reader who already knows Chesterton and wants to understand him better - plus, it dispels ideas such as the common one that Chesterton is needlessly or excessively wordy, and other useful points.
http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/Belloc-essay.txt

It seems to me that Gilbert Chesterton at his baptism
was visited by three fairies. Two good and one evil one.
The two good fairies were the Fairy of fecundity in speech
and the Fairy of wide appreciation. The bad fairy was struck
dead as she entered the church---and serve her right.
He was blessed in knowing nothing of the acerbities which bite
into the life of writing men.

2)The Superstition of Divorce
This work is so good because, by starting with the definition of what the form - the family - is, he gives not only an outstanding understanding of divorce as an attack on the family and why that is so, but the ideas are applicable to other modern attacks, such as same-sex "marriage", and makes it clear how modern thought has gone wrong enough to lead us to where we are.
http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/divorce.txt

There is perhaps no worse advice, nine times out of ten, than the advice
to do the work that's nearest. It is especially bad when it means,
as it generally does, removing the obstacle that's nearest.
It means that men are not to behave like men but like mice;
who nibble at the thing that's nearest. The man, like the mouse,
undermines what he cannot understand. Because he himself bumps
into a thing, he calls it the nearest obstacle; though the obstacle
may happen to be the pillar that holds up the whole roof over
his head. He industriously removes the obstacle; and in return,
the obstacle removes him, and much more valuable things than he.
This opportunism is perhaps the most unpractical thing in this highly
unpractical world. People talk vaguely against destructive criticism;
but what is the matter with this criticism is not that it destroys,
but that it does not criticise. It is destruction without design.
It is taking a complex machine to pieces bit by bit, in any order,
without even knowing what the machine is for. And if a man deals
with a deadly dynamic machine on the principle of touching the knob
that's nearest, he will find out the defects of that cheery philosophy.

 

[Coralie]

thank you rus, I was just thinking yesterday of you and GKC, telling myself I should pick up a copy of Orthodoxy. I tried reading it online, but my eyes just get too tired!

I'll go through this thread for now...