Catholic-ometer: 5 of 5
Enjoyability: 5 of 5
I haven't read many Chesterton books, but hopefully, I'll get the chance to read more of his work in the future. He's witty, clever, a brilliant logical thinker, and very faithful to the church.
In this book, Chesterton approaches the topic of comparative religions, and what an enormous load of bunk it is. From the very beginning, he defines, in very simple, logical and understandable terms, why modern man's view of himself and his history is at best, incomplete. He gradually goes over every major moment in human history, and what each tells us about the nature of human beings as they were, and as they are now.
The things that Chesterton manages to debunk with this approach are many and varied. The notion of evolution, in terms of applying it to human beings, the belief in the "cave man," the "missing link" and others, but he doesn't stop there.
Next, Chesterton establishes the mentality natural to human beings; a normal belief in a supreme, invisible being, who judges by standards of plain right and wrong. This vein, he claims, runs through even the most barbaric of polytheisms, even when its practitioners are trying to avoid considering it. It's hard, in fact, to argue with a simple, good sense approach like this, since most polytheisms seem to treat their "gods" more as very powerful superheroes/villains than as the sources of any real moral standard.
Furthermore, he establishes that on the world stage today, only Christianity, and those religions that were designed to mimic its success have really been serious religions at all, in both senses of the word. What are those senses, you ask?
The first is the mythological; the imaginative. A belief in supernatural things, greater than ourselves. The second is the philosophical; a logical and well-reasoned view of the world, which covers all the important facts of life. In ancient times, philosophers and priests didn't get along. They didn't fight each other, but no one seriously considered combining philosophy and worship. However, for a religion to be logical and true, and also be fulfilling to human nature, it had to be both. Christianity, he indirectly says, is that religion; more specifically, the Catholic Church.
Now, this book does contain some words which, in our modern times, would be considered offensive, but it's important to take this book in the spirit of the age it was made in, when these words were commonplace, and not even really considered rude. For this reason, I will not remove any points from it for this.
I enjoyed this book a lot, and am pleasantly surprised that it managed to get published. It certainly would never make it through any of our contemporary, mainstream publishers, for the very reason that I even enjoyed it at all; it implies, quite strongly, that Catholicism is absolutely correct, and all other religions are less correct. For this reason alone, I don't think I can reccomend it enough.
Chesterton also doesn't waste space on any of these pages. When he isn't telling jokes or making funny comparisons, he's considering modern or ancient religions from an interesting and original perspective; always in a way that will confound people who want all religions to be the same, and make faithful Catholics chuckle a bit. This is not a comprehensive book of human history from a Catholic perspective, nor is it a serious, scientific document, but it is well-informed logic and philosophy, presented in a very clever and amusing way, and that's all I need to say about it.
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