rusmeister wrote:If you want humor, though, read Chesterton...although I guess you won't, and probably the very thing to not do. As Lewis said,
A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. . . .
Ah, a dare. I like it. If I accept your dare, will you try to read some Dawkins, Hitchens, or Hume? How much time do you spend reading the works of atheists?
Chesterton wrote:The Revival of Philosophy - Why?
By G.K. Chesterton
From The Common Man
The best reason for a revival of philosophy is that unless a man has a philosophy certain horrible things will happen to him. He will be practical; he will be progressive; he will cultivate efficiency; he will trust in evolution; he will do the work that lies nearest; he will devote himself to deeds, not words.
I do have a philosophy (a mix of existentialism, phenomenology, neutral monism), and yet I still consider myself practical and efficient. I trust the veracity of evolution. I do not necessarily devote myself to deeds, unless you call trying to publish six interconnected novels a “deed” (though I admit that this deed has a lot to do with words). I do not see anything “horrible” about efficiency or practicality, nor do I see anything about philosophy that either precludes or facilitates this list of “horrible” things. There are plenty of practical, progressive, efficient people
with or without philosophy.
Frankly, Chesterton is speaking nonsense right out of the gate. If this is the “best reason” for a revival of philosophy—to get people to be impractical, inefficient, eschew deeds and nearby work, then Chesterton really needs to rethink his position. There are much better reasons for studying philosophy that don’t disconnect you from your life. In fact, I believe that philosophy is best used by enabling the opposite: to awaken you to your own life, your being-in-the-world, as opposed to using it as a means to escape your daily reality in metaphysical speculation. Chesterton’s position is a life-denying, inauthentic view of both philosophy and existence.
Chesterton wrote:Thus struck down by blow after blow of blind stupidity and random fate, he will stagger on to a miserable death with no comfort but a series of catchwords; such as those which I have catalogued above. Those things are simply substitutes for thoughts. In some cases they are the tags and tail-ends of somebody else's thinking. That means that a man who refuses to have his own philosophy will not even have the advantages of a brute beast, and be left to his own instincts. He will only have the used-up scraps of somebody else's philosophy; which the beasts do not have to inherit; hence their happiness.
That’s pretty ironic, considering that most of your own thoughts appear to be “scraps” of Chesterton. In this thread, you argue against having a debate of our own opinions, and yet Chesterton himself says, “. . . a man who refuses to have his own philosophy will not even have the advantages of a brute beast . . .” So I’m confused by this conflict between the two of you: are we supposed to have our own philosophy, or are we supposed to just agree with Chesterton? If I agree with Chesterton here, am I guilty of his charge of adopting the “tail-ends of somebody else’s thinking”? Or is it only when I
disagree with Chesterton that I’m guilty of this?
Chesterton wrote:Doing the work that is nearest is obvious nonsense; yet it has been repeated in many albums. In nine cases out of ten it would mean doing the work that we are least fitted to do, such as cleaning the windows or clouting the policeman over the head.
While I can agree that “clouting the policeman over the head” might be undesirable, I see no connection whatsoever to cleaning windows. Do you not tidy up your own home? Is this horrible? You really think a man who utters things like this is smarter than any of us here?
Chesterton wrote:Some people fear that philosophy will bore or bewilder them; because they think it is not only a string of long words, but a tangle of complicated notions. These people miss the whole point of the modern situation. These are exactly the evils that exist already; mostly for want of a philosophy.
Okay, fair point. But what does this have to do with science vs religion debate?
Chesterton wrote:When a man has all these things in his head, and does not even attempt to sort them out, he is called by common consent and acclamation a practical man. But the practical man cannot be expected to improve the impracticable muddle; for he cannot clear up the muddle in his own mind, let alone in his own highly complex community and civilisation.
I agree that being confused and indifferent about clearing up one’s own confusion can be a motivation to resorting to more practical matters. But I disagree that there is anything wrong with this. Not everyone is cut out for philosophy. Most people don’t have the capacity to understand it, nor do they have the time to devote decades to studying it. This is a very elitist view that these people are “horrible” for recognizing their limitations and focusing upon things which Chesterton believes to be unimportant. Not everyone is cut out to be a philosopher, and there is nothing wrong with that. We also need people to be janitors and trash collectors. And doctors and lawyers. I have no interest in standing above society, looking down my nose at people who are bored by philosophy, and criticizing them from an self-constructed pillar of superiority. In fact, I find Chesterton’s tendency to do this quite distasteful.
Chesterton wrote:For some strange reason, it is the custom to say of this sort of practical man that "he knows his own mind". Of course this is exactly what he does not know. He may in a few fortunate cases know what he wants, as does a dog or a baby of two years old; but even then he does not know why he wants it.
See, right there. I find it quite arrogant to compare people to dogs or babies simply because they don’t study philosophy. It’s none of Chesterton’s business how people choose to conduct their lives. This judgementalism strikes me as a self-serving philosophy designed to make himself feel superior.
Chesterton wrote:I will take one example out of a thousand that might be taken. What is the attitude of an ordinary man on being told of an extraordinary event: a miracle? I mean the sort of thing that is loosely called supernatural, but should more properly be called preternatural. For the word supernatural applies only to what is higher than man; and a good many modern miracles look as if they came from what is considerably lower. Anyhow, what do modern men say when apparently confronted -with something that cannot, in the cant phrase, be naturally explained ? Well, most modern men immediately talk nonsense. When such a thing is currently mentioned, in novels or newspapers or magazine stories, the first comment is always something like, "But my dear fellow, this is the twentieth century!" It is worth having a little training in philosophy if only to avoid looking so ghastly a fool as that. It has on the whole rather less sense or meaning than saying, "But my dear fellow, this is Tuesday afternoon." If miracles cannot happen, they cannot happen in the twentieth century or in the twelfth.
While this is blatantly obvious, it is a strawman attack. I have never once heard or read that supernatural things don’t happen merely because of the century we are currently counting as the present. I do not know a single atheist that believes that the divide between the supernatural and the natural is one that is delineated by the calandar. If this is his example of how people don’t think things out, then he would benefit from taking his own advice. This is a poorly thought out example of how people do not think things out. But I imagine it is easier to call people “babies” and “dogs” if you make up your own strawman version of their thoughts.
Chesterton wrote:Let us not be too severe on the worthy gentleman who informs his dear fellow that it is the twentieth century. In the mysterious depths of his being even that enormous ass does actually mean something.
Add “enormous ass” to the list of insults in this essay aimed at critiquing unnamed people who are never quoted in their own words in order to prove they are actually babies, dogs, and asses. Chesterton is just making up imaginary opponents to look down upon, to make fun of, and to enjoy pretend mental victories.
Chesterton wrote:What he really means is something like this, "There is a theory of this mysterious universe to which more and more people were in fact inclined during the second half of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries; and up to that point at least, this theory did grow with the growing inventions and discoveries of science to which we owe our present social organisation - or disorganisation. That theory maintains that cause and effect have from the first operated in an uninterrupted sequence like a fixed fate; and that there is no will behind or within that fate; so that it must work itself out in the absence of such a will, as a machine must run down in the absence of a man. There were more people in the nineteenth century than in the ninth who happened to hold this particular theory of the universe. I myself happened to hold it; and therefore I obviously cannot believe in miracles." That is perfectly good sense; but so is the counter-statement; "I do not happen to hold it; and therefore I obviously can believe in miracles."
Ah, we finally get to something vaguely resembling a relevance to the present discussion in this thread. But this seems to contradict your view that science is religion, since Chesterton describes these two attitudes in terms of “counter-statements.” The two attitudes are at odds, and depend upon two very different views of reality. Even Chesterton recognizes this.
Chesterton wrote:If a man sees a river run downhill day after day and year after year, he is justified in reckoning, we might say in betting, that it will do so till he dies. But he is not justified in saying that it cannot run uphill, until he really knows why it runs downhill. To say it does so by gravitation answers the physical but not the philosophical question. It only repeats that there is a repetition; it does not touch the deeper question of whether that repetition could be altered by anything outside it. And that depends on whether there <is> anything outside it. For instance, suppose that a man had only seen the river in a dream. He might have seen it in a hundred dreams, always repeating itself and always running downhill. But that would not prevent the hundredth dream being different and the river climbing the mountain; because the dream is a dream, and there <is> something outside it. Mere repetition does not prove reality or inevitability. We must know the nature of the thing and the cause of the repetition. If the nature of the thing is a Creation, and the cause of the thing a Creator, in other words if the repetition itself is only the repetition of something willed by a person, then it is <not> impossible for the same person to will a different thing. If a man is a fool for believing in a Creator, then he
is a fool for believing in a miracle; but not otherwise. Otherwise, he is simply a philosopher who is consistent in his philosophy.
Wow, what a tangled mess. Let’s try to sort it out. First of all, C is describing the problem of induction, which I also pointed out in my “sun rising” example. He’s quite right to say that we cannot be justified in precluding the possibility of a river running uphill merely on the basis of repeated experiences. To say that the future will be like the past merely because that’s the way it has always happened in the past is a circular argument. A logical fallacy. And he’s also right to say that the theory of gravitation doesn’t add any logical validity to this expectation. It only adds a mathematical description of it—but that’s still not a proof that it will continue to operate in the future exactly the same way.
However, he jumps feet-first into nonsense when he considers the “deeper question” to be “whether there is anything outside it.” This is not deeper, no more than wondering if there are trans-dimensional river Elves who make the river go downhill. The question of whether there can be anything outside of this system is an infinite question, with infinite possible answers, each of which are equally unprovable, untestable, non-falsifiable. It’s a child’s question, not a deeper question.
One could substitute “trans-dimensional river Elves” for “Creator” in his last sentence, and it would contain exactly the same amount of logic: “If the nature of the thing is an Elven creation, and the cause of the thing a trans-dimensional river Elf, in other words if the repetition itself is only the repetition of something willed by a trans-dimensional river Elf, then it is <not> impossible for the same Elf to will a different thing. If a man is a fool for believing in trans-dimensional river Elves, then he is a fool for believing in a miracle; but not otherwise. Otherwise, he is simply a philosopher who is consistent in his philosophy.”
To call a man a “philosopher” simply because he is consistent in his nonsense is a gross abuse of the word “philosopher.”
The belief in a Creator or other magical being does not in any way elucidate the nature of the river, but rather it magnifies the mystery by an infinite amount because it sustitutes the mystery of the river’s nature for the infinitely greater mystery of the magical being’s nature. What stops us from wondering if there is anything outside of this Creator? If it is a deeper philosophical question to ask this for the river, then it must be an even deeper philosophical question to ask this of a Creator. And then we could do the same for that meta-Creator, and so on in an unending chain of “deeper” questions about things “outside” what we previously considered. This does not lead to any clarity on the nature of the first object in the infinite chain of supposition. Just the opposite: it removes us further and further from reality of the object to abstract, fantastic, hypothetical,
ad hoc objects.
Chesterton wrote:Thus, when so brilliant a man as Mr. H. G. Wells says that such supernatural ideas have become impossible "for intelligent people ", he is (for that instant) not talking like an intelligent person. In other words, he is not talking like a philosopher; because he is not even saying what he means. What he means is, not "impossible for intelligent men", but, "impossible for intelligent monists", or, "impossible for intelligent determinists". But it is not a negation of <intelligence> to hold any coherent and logical conception of so mysterious a world.
But it is a negation of intelligence to think that the above reasoning by Chesterton is coherent and logical . . . which, of course, is why I don't read Chesterton. It has nothing to do with protecting my atheism. It's just that every time I've bothered to read him, I realize how inauthentic, illogical, amateurish a philosopher he actually is. It's an utter waste of time to read his work--except as an exercise in confronting poor reasoning.
I mean, don't you just specifically use two sources for your arguments? 
