Reddit reviews The Abolition of Man
We found 12 Reddit comments about The Abolition of Man. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
HarperOne
Reddit reviews The Abolition of ManWe found 12 Reddit comments about The Abolition of Man. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Welllll as a former atheist I am going to have to tell you that if "wanting to see the world as simpler" is your goal, I certainly don't think Catholicism will help. It turns out that God is complicated, theology is hard, and virtue is extremely challenging. I found atheistic materialism with a healthy dose of liberal politics made for a much simpler and especially easier worldview.
But truth isn't supposed to be what is simple and easy. And almost everything worth doing is going to be hard. Putting your faith in God isn't like having a nice sweet daddy/mommy who will kiss your boos boos any make everything better. Nope. Faith makes demands on you. Everything from not spouting off expletives when some ahole cuts you off in traffic to living chastely to putting other people and Christ first in your life. Anyone who tells you this is easy is lying. Selfishness and self-centeredness is always easier and will always tempt you.
That doesn't mean faith isn't worth having or worth doing. Your conscience convicts you long enough until you die and Christ will. The sooner you get started the better off you'll be.
Start here:
1 Read this to know God exists.
2. Read this to know sin is real and virtue is possible.
3. Read this to learn about truth and the authentic courageous intellectual life.
4. Read this to learn how one of the greatest Saints came into faith.
5. Read this for a little bit of everything.
Because I think the greatest threat to the modern Western world is what C. S. Lewis called "The Abolition of Man", and more generally the denial of the created order. White supremacy, for all its manifest sinfulness and absurdity, is doing something totally different that I don't think has half as much destructive potential(not least because it has so much less chance at becoming the dominant view) in our modern world.
For me I'm going to go a bit old school. First "The Abolition of Man" by C. S. Lewis, which argues for a sort of 'Universal Truth'. I thought it was endlessly fascinating, and it's really an easy, short read. (The audio book was only an few hours long). There's also Lewis's "Mere Christianity" which is once again easy and short. In it he sort of starts with a shortened version of the argument found in Abolition, and from there discusses why Christianity itself works as the 'Universal Truth'.
If your looking for something thicker, I would suggest G. K. Chesterton's "Heretics", which blasts away the philosophy of his contemporaries (Which is still applicable today), "Orthodoxy" which discusses his own conversion and his own search for truth, and "The Everlasting Man" which discusses the history of mankind and Christianity's role in it. (This was also the book that converted Lewis' intellect).
Chesterton is not necessarily a difficult read because of lengthy words, or because he references something no longer fashionable, but because of his ideas. I like to think I can understand things fairly well, but I had to pause often to go over a phrase, or to really think about a thought he presented. But both authors are very enjoyable.
How to Think About God: A guide for the 20th Century Pagan
Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity
Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief
Biblical Games: Game Theory and the Hebrew Bible
The Probability of God: A Simple Calculation That Proves the Ultimate Truth
The Abolition of Man
Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time: The Historical Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith
Reading the Bible Again For the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously But Not Literally
BTW, every time I listen to a lecture/debate from John Lennox, I walk away with more books to read. Here's my list so far:
>How can Christian take different stances on what love looks like?
Not every Christian denomination believes or preaches what is true. This is just a logical fact. If a dozen groups are teaching things that contradict, then all twelve must be wrong, or only one is correct. There is no other logical possibility.
>Wouldn't different definitions of love or out workings of love be blasphemous if not done or proclaimed in accordance with God's defining truth of love?
Of course, assuming one has received the true Gospel teaching. This is rare, however. We do the best we can. God is merciful. All will be judged by their good works in the end, though, regardless of what they might have believed (Psalm 62:12, Romans 2:6, Revelation 20:12). That doing the things Jesus called for in Matthew 25:34-36 is good is something that is engraved in our conscience.
>If there's only one God, isn't there only one love?
I don't know how the latter follows from the former, but whatever love is, it is what it is irrespective of what any individual thinks it is. Read The Abolition of Man, by C.S. Lewis. He anticipated the relativism we live in today - where truth is measured by an applause meter - about 70 years ago.
Relativism is one of the twin bookends of modern society. Secular humanism is the other.
It's the same as when you taste a blueberry you know it's a blueberry or when you put chocolate in your mouth it's chocolate. No one eats chocolate and goes, 'My chemo-receptors are working adequately and I am sensing chocolate'! You're not Data from Star Trek, but what you're experiencing is the loss of your humanity. You gotta take a first step and if you can't start with a Christian book because maybe you've been hurt by some or can't stand hypocrisy. God knows I can't and knows I'm not there yet. Then start here, here (CS Lewis is a Christian and I gurantee you it'll speak to what you're going through) or here. Yet, you will never know how to awake with this philosophy. If you can't get out and someday come to the end of yourself then call on the name of Jesus. Your suffering must be very great to make reality as such so you can bare it. You must be very strong.
Edit: When you read let the book let it be the subject and you be the object. It's called formation reading. Let it become something that is speaking to you. This alone will help you start to move away from just subjective thought and action. Instead of the text being an object we control and manipulate according to our own insight and purposes, the text becomes the subject of the reading relationship; we are the object that is shaped by the text. Just make sure you're reading good stuff when you do this.. don't do this with like google news
Hello, I'm a bit late to this parade (I just heard Dr. Peterson's podcast with Joe Rogan yesterday) but I wanted to weigh in here.
There are a lot of good sources from a variety of Christian viewpoints. Many of the ones already listed are very good, but I don't see anything from my own particular version of Christianity (Eastern Orthodoxy), so I wanted to suggest two resource for you from that perspective as well as another from C.S. Lewis whose words are held dear by most Christians.
The first is a lecture by Fr. John Behr, the current dean of St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary. He holds Masters of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy from Oxford University. This one is on YouTube and is 1.5 hours in length. It is called Death, the Final Frontier.There are a couple of minutes of fluff at the beginning but it starts to really roll into something I think Jordan Peterson fans would enjoy at the 3-minute mark. It is ostensibly about death, but it is a great critique of modern western culture viewed through the lens of liturgical Christianity.
This second is a recording of a lecture provided by a former dean of the same seminary that I think cuts to the heart of what Christianity actually means. It is called "The Word of the Cross" by Rev. Dr. Thomas Hopko and is around two hours total and has been broken into four individual sections by an Orthodox podcast publisher:
Part 1
[Part 2] (http://www.ancientfaith.com/specials/hopko_lectures/the_word_of_the_cross_part_2)
Part 3
Part 4
Lastly, I would direct you toward the writings of C.S. Lewis. When I was a young teenage atheist, his arguments were very persuasive for me and have been very popular amongst most Christians. I know many Protestants, Orthodox, and Catholics who have all found their first theological footing in Lewis' work. Mere Christianity is probably the best source to steer you toward, but I think his best ideas can be found in The Abolition of Man, The Great Divorce, and Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold. Since you've professed a preference for audio content, I will point you toward a YouTube playlist of the series of BBC radio broadcast lectures that C.S. Lewis gave during WWII that were the core of what later became Mere Christianity.
I'm tempted to also suggest that you read Thomas Merton, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Kirkegaard, Dostoyevsky, St. John Chrysostom, St. Thomas Aquinas, and many, many others. Enjoy your journey!
SECTION | CONTENT
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Title | The Poison of Subjectivism by C.S. Lewis Doodle
Description | This essay contains the essence of Lewis’ arguments in his fascinating short book ‘The Abolition of Man/Humanity’. http://www.amazon.com/Abolition-Man-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652942 ‘The Abolition of Man’, a series of three lectures that were published, has been rated as one of top ten non-fiction books of the 20th century, and is a booklet really. (It’s only three chapters long or two hour’s read).
Length | 0:13:54
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> I haven't yet studied nihilism enough to understand its problems, or even to identify when people are 'selling' nihilism
Well, he's basically bought into & selling a FORM of it -- may not necessarily know that's what he's doing.
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> If it is defined as 'the rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless', then yeah, that's a harmful thought virus - and calling it 'not helpful' is a mild understatement.
BINGO.
It's also usually ENTIRELY hypocritical.
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To wit just the other day over on /r/philosophy they had someone post (yet another) of the post-modern academia's "morality doesn't exist -- there is no right or wrong" bullshit essays.
There is actually a very EASY way to "skewer" any pseudo-academic asshole that dishonestly pushes that -- dishonest, because not a one of them actually BELIEVES* it (in addition to SELLING it, as if it were some "deep thought" -- they simply USE it when it's convenient to them) -- how do you skewer them? Simple just steal his wallet (or car, or cut off his paycheck, slice his tie in two with a scissors, whatever).
In an instant he will reveal his TRUE beliefs: he will claim to have been "wronged" (gee I thought there was no right or wrong?); moreover if what you did was egregious & costly enough to him, he will demand "justice" -- i.e. retribution, revenge, recompense, punitive damages, etc; -- he will even begin to ADAMANTLY argue FOR those most "social constructs" of all moral codes: private property & "civil rights" -- and that HIS rights have been infringed, etc.
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* You see what one "believes" is not merely what someone "states" or "claims" -- especially not what someone states or claims in some abstract philosophical-theoretical manner -- no, what one BELIEVES is revealed by what one actually DOES.
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> Selling nihilism to suicidal men seems like seeing them about to jump off a tall building . . . and arguing they should jump. Not what they need to hear, unless you take glee in causing unnecessary death.
Exactly. And HERE -- in this thread -- THAT is the context.
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OP is not talking about "manning up and marrying whores then being good little corporate slaves"...
He's talking about how a man can "keep his head above water" and work THROUGH the "depression" crapfest that accompanies/follows betrayal and/or the period of "red pill" digestion with it's "dis-illusion-ment."
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Side note: on THIS topic (suicide, hopelessness, etc) I often highly recommend a little fiction book (often labeled "young adult" but I think it has far greater application) called "Hatchet" by Gary Paulsen -- it quite literally (LOL) deals with the whole suicide/nihilism issue in it's own unique (and narratively speaking, very compelling) way, as part of the story of the main (almost sole) character -- it's a very MGTOW book (if ever there was one).
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Also, rather than studying nihilism -- which I've done, and all I will say is that it is akin to shoving your head up your ass and examining the inside of your intestines in the dark (there is no enlightenment there, in fact there is no "there" there, it's an endless hall of "fun-house mirrors") -- I would recommend instead that you try to read through (at least once) C.S. Lewis's book "The Abolition of Man" ** which deals not only with the end "nihilistic" philosophy, but with it's various roots and tendrils that have been extended throughout academia to entrap people in it's snares.
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** NOTE: IIRC this is also available online ("FREE") in various forms, PDF, plain text, etc (since I think it is technically now in the "public domain" -- at least in some countries {Lewis died in 1963, and as a result under some nations' post-mortem copyright terms, virtually all of his works are now PD}) -- but even still I would recommend BUYING a copy (physical and/or ebook)... why "buy"? Because it's kind of a "tough to chew" through book, and BUYING it means you're more likely to slog through and get to the "juicy bits" the "meat" of the book (which is near the end, but you CANNOT simply "skip" to the end, as it's arguments make little to no sense without reading/slogging through the prior portions of the book {akin to trying to learn calculus without first learning algebra, or algebra without first learning numbers & mathematical operations}).
The conservative viewpoint of the humanities tends to be focussed on the Western Canon and the great books curriculum or Classical education. A common conservatives opinion is that a classical liberal arts education is critically important and valuable, but that modern Academia mired in revisionist theories and nihilism and leaving students adrift in a sea of electives taught by radicals has lost the thread and are now largely useless at best and more often than not are actively destructive.
A few books about the humanities, philosophy, art & education by conservatives and/or approvingly cited by conservatives.
It was only ten here.
The first time I heard of it was this piece of earnest and well intentioned nonsense which in turn has a lot of connections with T. Oilet's late poetry. Like the untranslated Heraclitis he put at the beginning of the Four Quartets.
Also, links in the other post? I typed those up for another eStranger. I should feel bad for trying to indoctrinate you, but I don't. And you listen to my suggestions sometimes.