{"id":12326,"date":"2012-04-17T19:35:59","date_gmt":"2012-04-17T23:35:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/?p=12326"},"modified":"2012-04-17T19:35:59","modified_gmt":"2012-04-17T23:35:59","slug":"sense-nonsense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/2012\/04\/sense-nonsense\/","title":{"rendered":"Sense Nonsense"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was sent a copy of a new book by Francisco Garcia-Julve who is a Catholic philosopher and polymath – Sense Nonsense: Fundamental Propositions Not too Good to Be True, Just too Hard to Accept<\/a>\"\". I found this to be quite an interesting book of a string of thoughts. The way it is written is as a long series of thought\/statements that often engage in Chestertonian paradox and wordplay. There are no chapters, but successive statements often build on a previous idea or restate things in another way.<\/p>\n

Not the type of book that you would just sit down and read from end to end, but more like one to dip into meditatively from time to time. Though I did find myself returning to it each day for a week as I quite enjoyed his snippets of thought.<\/p>\n

It is like reading a twitter feed from a very wise person as each thought is quite compact. In fact the author really should start a Twitter feed and tweet much of the book. Of course when you have a book composed in this way not every thought is engaging, but there is a high ration of those that make you stop, think, and evaluate. The wordplay, paradox, and inversion can be jarring at times, but that is mainly when you respond to it the most.<\/p>\n

To better illustrate this here is just a very small sample of some of the thoughts that struck me specifically. This also gives you an idea about the formatting of the book.<\/p>\n

If Laplace\u2019s dictum\u2014in Carl Sagan\u2019s version\u2014that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs should apply to anything, it would be abortion.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

We would believe some supernatural truths, such as the Eucharistic presence, if they were empirical; and we would not believe some empirical truths, such as particle-wave duality, if they were supernatural.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

To think of oneself as incapable of being a saint is not humility but cowardice.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

We don’t think that we can’t be saints because we know ourselves but because we do not know God.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

It’s of little use trying to be a theologian without trying to be a saint first.It’s of little use trying to be a theologian without trying to be a saint first.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

You are not the exception in having tortured and killed Jesus, but you can be in atoning for it.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Conversion to God is like a marriage in reverse, where they are two until death makes them one.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

We only try right when wrong fails.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

You must, by all means, seek happiness\u2014but only provided it is not your own.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

We cannot understand God, but we can understand that we cannot understand God.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

There are two kinds of faults: the inexcusable and our own.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

We must behave so that people who know us outside the church will not be surprised to see us in church.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

The attention we give to ourselves, we don’t give to the others.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Unlike so many movie trailers – this is just a small sampling of the good bits.<\/p>\n

The website for the book<\/a>.<\/p>\n