In my latest Epoch Times column I say the proposal to exempt Quebec MNAs from an oath of allegiance to our actual Constitution in favour of some pompous make-believe is a dangerous relativist attack on the rule of law.
“We cannot describe mind in terms of matter; if only for the reason that we cannot even perceive matter except by mind.”
G.K. Chesterton “The Route of Reason” in Where Are The Dead? quoted in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 # 4 (March-April 2022)
“it is perfectly permissible and perfectly natural to become bored with a subject just as it is perfectly permissible and perfectly natural to be thrown from a horse or to miss a trail or to look up the answer to a puzzle at the end of the book.”
GKC, “A Defence of Bores,” in Alberto Manguel, ed., On Lying in Bed and Other Essays by G.K. Chesterton
“This negligence [by people who simply don’t give religion much thought] in a matter where they themselves, their eternity, their all are at stake, fills me more with irritation than pity; it astounds and appalls me; it seems quite monstrous to me…. One needs no great sublimity of soul to realize that in this life there is no true and solid satisfaction, that all our pleasures are mere vanity, that our afflictions are infinite, and finally that death which threatens us at every moment must in a few years infallibly face us with the inescapable and appalling alternative of being annihilated or wretched throughout eternity.”
Peter Kreeft Christianity for Modern Pagans: Pascal’s Pensées Edited, Outlined & Explained
“there is no such thing in the world as a dull subject.”
G.K. Chesterton, “A Defence of Bores,” in Alberto Manguel, ed., On Lying in Bed and Other Essays by G.K. Chesterton
“An heir finds the deeds to his house. Will he say, perhaps, that they are false, and not bother to examine them?”
Peter Kreeft Christianity for Modern Pagans: Pascal’s Pensées Edited, Outlined & Explained
“An acquaintance, hearing someone speculate that some of the advocates of defunding the police may be less than transparent about their motives, asked, ‘Isn’t that just a conspiracy theory?’ Another fellow I spoke with reacted to someone’s suggestion that not all sexual acts are morally equivalent by demanding, ‘Isn’t that just homophobia?’ And a student responded to the reasoning of a religious author by sneering, ‘Isn’t that just a religious argument?’ What’s I find interesting is that although all three persons thought they were heading off fallacies, actually all three were committing them. The kinds they committed were fallacies of distraction. Each one deflected the question instead of considering it, then considered the deflection a rebuttal. My acquaintance didn’t inquire into whether the people in question really were concealing their motives – much less whether someone who suggests concealment is necessarily suggesting cooperation in the concealment – much less whether anyone ever does conceal his motives – much less whether anyone ever does cooperate in the act – much less whether that could have been happening in the case at hand. The second fellow didn’t consider whether the motive for making a suggestion automatically disqualifies it – much less whether the only possible motive for making moral distinctions among sexual acts is a pathological fear or ‘phobia’ – much less whether all such acts really are morally equivalent. And the student didn’t reflect upon whether the religious writer’s argument really was premised on his faith – much less whether an argument might be valid even if it were premised on faith – much less whether the argument at hand was valid. I sometimes hear that people need more training in formal inference. Maybe so. But we have a much greater need to learn about ‘informal’ fallacies, errors that occur not because we violate the rules of inference but because we are distracted from the point we are discussing.”
J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” December 9 2021
“I deny that biology can destroy the sense of truth, which alone can even desire biology. No truth which I find can deny that I am seeking the truth. My mind cannot find anything which denies my mind.”
G.K. Chesterton in Daily News November 7, 1908, quoted in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 # 4 March-April 2022