Philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom. Formal philosophers create models and follow structured logic to draw conclusions. Amateurs, not trained in logic or not exposed to philosophical frameworks, tend to make assertions, and when questioned, support their assertions with statements intended to add depth, like "there is no absolute truth," but which self destruct when poked on a bit. In the case of absolute truth, a simple question can set the discussion about the original assertion back on track - "Is that true?" And if you're willing to pooh-pooh that response, perhaps a stronger argument can be made that requires the individual making the statement to possess infinite knowledge. Otherwise the individual doesn't have all the necessary information to validate his assertion. And if he does possess infinite knowledge, well then, he knows absolute truth.
In any case, from time to time while driving a stretch of highway or showering, I may come up with some creative idea that takes a couple of pieces of random information and strings them together into what I think is a new piece of knowledge. For a few minutes I ride high on the thought that I've come up with something new. And a minute later I'm able to talk some sense into me, realize that I'm an amateur philosopher not applying any rigor to my assertions, and I come back down to earth.
C.S. Lewis, a one-time atheist, describes this phenomenon in Mere Christianity.
In other words, Theology is practical: especially now. In the old days, when there was less education and discussion, perhaps it was possible to get on with a very few simple ideas about God. But it is not so now. Everyone reads, everyone hears things discussed. Consequently, if you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones - bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas. for a great many of the ideas about God which are trotted out as novelties today, are simply the ones which real Theologians tried centuries ago and rejected. To believe in the popular religion of modern England is retrogression - like believing the earth is flat.
Then sprinkled throughout Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged are nuggets that make me laugh at myself and the political, social, and economic structures created to govern civilization. This nugget deals with celebrities, their personal relationships with politicians, and their influence in arenas which they know nothing about. Chalmers is a politician with presidential aspirations who thinks a bit too highly of himself.
Laura Bradford was Chalmers' current mistress; he liked her because his predecessor had been Wesley Mouch. She was a movie actress who had forced her way from competent featured player to incompetent star, not by means of sleeping with studio executives, but by taking the long-distance short cut of sleeping with bureaucrats. She talked economics, instead of glamor, for press interviews, in the belligerently righteous style of a third-rate tabloid; her economics consisted of the assertion that "we've got to help the poor."
Or this, which doesn't make me laugh because of its implications on my children's college education.
The man in Bedroom A, Car No. 14, was a professor of philosophy who taught that there is no mind - "how do you know that the tunnel is dangerous?" - no reality - "how can you prove that the tunnel exists?" - no logic - "why do you claim that trains cannot move without motive power?" - no principles - "why should you be bound by the law of cause-and-effect?" - no rights - "why shouldn't you attach men to their jobs by force?" - no morality - "what's moral about running a railroad?" - no absolutes - "what difference does it make to you whether you live or die, anyway?" He taught that we know nothing - "why oppose the orders of your superiors?" - that we can never be certain of anything - "how do you know you're right?" - that we must act on the expediency of the moment - "you don't want to risk your job, do you?"
The train he rides is involved in the most tragic railroad accident in history. The wreck permanently closes the only East-West tunnel through the Colorado Rockies.
Both of these works were written 50 years ago, and, outside of a piece of language structure or a reference to an idea directly responding to, say, a threat of communism on capitalist economic structures, both of them could very well have been written today. The thinking, the cycles, and the behavior remain the same over time. Literature records this.
What I don't understand is why our civilization is hellbent on perpetuating them.