Who Wants to Join a Book Club?

H

Husband&Father

New member
The Book:
The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton
The Club:
Read (aprox) a chapter over a week or so. Post a analysis, comment, question, critique. discuss on forum. repeat until finished.

I’m proposing an online book club to read, analyze and comment on G.K. Chesterton’s seminal classic The Everlasting Man.

To those not familiar with the work, Chesterton wrote it in answer to H.G. Well’s An Outline of History. Chesterton thought Wells gave short shrift to the person of Jesus Christ in his Outline so the great man penned The Everlasting Man to put Jesus in his proper place which, according to Chesterton, was at the pinnacle of world events.

The Everlasting Man is considered by many to be a foundational work in the area of modern, intellectually sound, Christian apologetics.

If there is enough interest we could conduct the book club on this forum or on it’s own board with links to and from this forum.

I’d be looking for about a dozen participants who would commit to composing and posting thoughtful comments and criticisms on each chapter as we read it according to a predetermined schedule.

The book may or may not be in the public domain it can be downloaded for free here:
http://www.freecatholicebooks.com/books/The Everlasting Man. G.K Chesterton.pdf or purchased as a kindle book from Amazon for $1 - $3 dollars.

I’m of the opinion that both Christians and Skeptics should read the book. Christians will gain confidence by having their beliefs reinforced (by an undisputed intellectual giant) and skeptics will gain an understanding of the basis of Christian beliefs that might allow them to combat those beliefs better.

Please indicate:
Yes, I'm in
No Thanks.
I might do it.

Note: Atheists beware. C.S. Lewis said of The Everlasting Man:
(it is) “the very best popular defense of the Christian position I know”
He said the book: “baptized my intellect” and, by virtue of the book he was “more than half converted”
 
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chrysostom

chrysostom

Well-known member
Hall of Fame
Husband&Father said:
The Book:
The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton
The Club:
Read (aprox) a chapter over a week or so. Post a analysis, comment, question, critique. discuss on forum. repeat until finished.
Click to expand...

I might do it.

I will get the book
and
I will start reading it
 
Jeep

Jeep

New member
yes, I'm in.

Let me know when to start reading.

I don't know if I will participate much. You guys on TOL intimidate me sometimes. :)
 
George Affleck

George Affleck

TOL Subscriber
Jeep said:
yes, I'm in.

Let me know when to start reading.

I don't know if I will participate much. You guys on TOL intimidate me sometimes. :)
Click to expand...

Soooo... you think you're "IN" do you? Why? Because your name is a car? State your theological justification for this along with 5 pages of testimony. Do it now!!

How are you going to read if you aren't going to participate much? Hmmmm?

(This has been a message from the Intimidation Dept.)

:carryon:
 
chrysostom

chrysostom

Well-known member
Hall of Fame
Jeep said:
yes, I'm in.

Let me know when to start reading.

I don't know if I will participate much. You guys on TOL intimidate me sometimes. :)
Click to expand...

I already started to read it last night

not sure I like it
already read his 'orthodoxy'
not sure I liked it
he may be just a little too clever for my taste

anyway he talks about man mounted on a horse
could the horse be the church?
you can get there without a horse
but
it is easier with a horse
my analysis, not his
 
H

Husband&Father

New member
chrysostom said:
...he talks about man mounted on a horse
could the horse be the church?
you can get there without a horse
but
it is easier with a horse
my analysis, not his
Click to expand...

Chesterton loved horse analogies and made many horse references and even wrote poetry about horses. I don't think he was using the horse as a metaphor for the church; he thought of the church as something men could be IN and be members of and that had a hierarchy of men not something men were ON for the ride.

That-being-said could you tell me what particular horse passage you are referring to?

Chesterton loved the horse as a symbol. The animal was a symbol of man's vast difference from the beasts; what other animal would look at a horse (something much bigger and stronger than himself) and say I'm going to catch it, tame it and ride on it's back? Only man would try that, which shows that man is not an animal or, at least a very, very different kind of animal. Chesterton also used the horse as an illustration of majesty and to highlight the (uniquely human) practice of chivalry. He would also point out the fact that a good man takes good care of his horse and mistreatment of horses is a sign of insanity.
 
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H

Husband&Father

New member
George Affleck said:
Soooo... you think you're "IN" do you? Why? Because your name is a car? State your theological justification for this along with 5 pages of testimony. Do it now!!

How are you going to read if you aren't going to participate much? Hmmmm?

(This has been a message from the Intimidation Dept.)

:carryon:
Click to expand...

Dude! The first rule of the Intimidation Department is never tell people you're from the Intimidation Department.
 
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H

Husband&Father

New member
chrysostom said:
it has already taken off

why do you need more people?

let them catch up
if
more wish to join
Click to expand...

Sure, I'm always open to talk Chesterton and The Everlasting Man.
If more people join I'll set up a structure and start a thread for every chapter.

So, lets look at the author's first point. Chesterton says:
"I should try to see even this earth from the outside, not by the hackneyed insistence of its relative position to the sun, but by some imaginative effort to conceive its remote position for the
dehumanised spectator. Only I do not believe in being dehumanised in
order to study humanity. I do not believe in dwelling upon the distances that are supposed to dwarf the world; I think there is even something a trifle vulgar about this idea of trying to rebuke spirit by size."
Do you agree that men are not objective when looking at the world? Is the best way to try to think about our history and our existence to try and see it from afar?

Remember the beginning of the Carl Sagan's show "Cosmos" how he showed the earth as a tiny speck of light in the Milky Way and told us how utterly insignificant earth (and by extension man) was? Was that an example of something "a trifle vulgar about this idea of trying to rebuke spirit by size?
 
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chrysostom

chrysostom

Well-known member
Hall of Fame
Husband&Father said:
Do you agree that men are not objective when looking at the world? Is the best way to try to think about our history and our existence to try and see it from afar?
Click to expand...

yes
but
isn't he talking about the church?
this is why I have a problem with converts
they saw the church from afar
I can't
I never knew what it was like not to belong to the church
 
PureX

PureX

Well-known member
Husband&Father said:
Sure, I'm always open to talk Chesterton and The Everlasting Man.
If more people join I'll set up a structure and start a thread for every chapter.

So, lets look at the author's first point. Chesterton says:
"I should try to see even this earth from the outside, not by the hackneyed insistence of its relative position to the sun, but by some imaginative effort to conceive its remote position for the
dehumanised spectator. Only I do not believe in being dehumanised in
order to study humanity. I do not believe in dwelling upon the distances that are supposed to dwarf the world; I think there is even something a trifle vulgar about this idea of trying to rebuke spirit by size."
Do you agree that men are not objective when looking at the world? Is the best way to try to think about our history and our existence to try and see it from afar?

Remember the beginning of the Carl Sagan's show "Cosmos" how he showed the earth as a tiny speck of light in the Milky Way and told us how utterly insignificant earth (and by extension man) was? Was that an example of something "a trifle vulgar about this idea of trying to rebuke spirit by size?
Click to expand...
A wise man would not be biased by one 'perspective' or another. If I were to visit the Grande Canyon, I would want to see it from many different perspectives. From a satellite out in space; from the tip of the highest rim, from the bottom, looking up; perhaps from the back of a horse traversing down an ancient wall path, … etc. My humanness would want to experience all these perspectives. Not deliberately limit myself to one perspective, calling it "human" and the others "vulgar".

They're ALL human, both the actual and the imagined; the microcosmic and the macrocosmic.

So I find this statement suspect; perhaps indicating a bias against science and/or philosophy.
 
D

dialm

BANNED
Banned
PureX said:
A wise man would not be biased by one 'perspective' or another. If I were to visit the Grande Canyon, I would want to see it from many different perspectives. From a satellite out in space; from the tip of the highest rim, from the bottom, looking up; perhaps from the back of a horse traversing down an ancient wall path, … etc. My humanness would want to experience all these perspectives. Not deliberately limit myself to one perspective, calling it "human" and the others "vulgar".

They're ALL human, both the actual and the imagined; the microcosmic and the macrocosmic.

So I find this statement suspect; perhaps indicating a bias against science and/or philosophy.
Click to expand...

Don't think view would be that great six feet under. Hehe
 
PureX

PureX

Well-known member
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