"But our back is to legends and we are coming home."
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
Monday, September 22, 2008
... traditional Christian religion greatly decreases belief in everything from the efficacy of palm readers to the usefulness of astrology. [The study] also shows that the irreligious and the members of more liberal Protestant denominations, far from being resistant to superstition, tend to be much more likely to believe in the paranormal and in pseudoscience than evangelical Christians.
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Comments on "Pseudoscience: Believe It or Not?":
2. Loren Eaton
- 09/22/2008 8:53 am EDT
Great WSJ article that was. Definitely worth a full read. I was amazed that Bill Maher could ridicule Christians as believing they're "drinking the blood of a 2,000-year-old space god" in one breath and then deny germ theory and the efficacy of the polio vaccine in the other. Amazing.
And, Lars, Chesterton gets quoted at the end of the op/ed.
4. Greybeard
- 09/22/2008 9:51 am EDT
Lars, you need to make a post elucidating the meaning and implications of Chesterton's Law. I googled to find out what it was and mostly got a bunch of links back to your use of the term, but no useful definition.
5. Lars Walker
- 09/22/2008 10:16 am EDT
Maybe I coined the term. Hooray for me!
I'm referring to the statement, often credited to Chesterton, that goes, "When men cease to believe in Christianity, they will not then believe in nothing. They will believe in anything."
Chesterton, I understand, didn't actually say it in so many words, though it's implicit in several things he wrote. So I call it "Chesterton's Law," referring to the general principle he expressed.
6. Phil
- 09/22/2008 1:18 pm EDT
They quote the great GKC as saying through Father Brown, "It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense, and can't see things as they are."
I believe what you stated, Lars, was said just about that way by Dostoevsky.
Ok, I just tried to look it up, and it appears to be Chesterton who said this. Why did I doubt?
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Chesterton's Law.