Maureen Dowd Demonstrates that She’s an Idiot.
19th September 2011
Perry told the students, “God uses broken people to reach a broken world.” What does that even mean?
Well, Maureen, for Christians, of which I realize you are not one, it means that people are broken and the world is broken but nevertheless God uses the one to attempt to improve the other.
It would probably help if you used as much effort to understand the people you cover as you do to keep up with What’s Happenin’ Now on the Upper West Side.
September 19th, 2011 at 10:26
Given Dowd herself and her surroudings, its the “broken” part she doesn’t understand. Except for Republicans, the world to her and wealthy friends isn’t “broken.”
September 19th, 2011 at 10:39
Your title left off the word “Again”.
September 19th, 2011 at 16:13
By what criterion do you judge the world to be “broken”? Was there ever a time when it wasn’t as venal and violent as it is now? (And I don’t mean in some primitive creation myth, of which the Christian version is but one; I mean as evidenced by either historical record or solid tangible evidence from archeology.)
The fact is that the world is as it is, and always has been thus. Therefore it can’t be “broken”, anymore than can the law of gravity. It is what it is.
September 19th, 2011 at 19:08
You can use “broken” in that sense if you like. You can even defend it. But in the given quote, Perry is using it in another sense.
Christian orthodoxy states that no human is perfect, that we all fail repeatedly – a principle I see vindicated on a daily basis, by myself as much as anyone else. It further states that this is an indication that things aren’t as they are intended to be by the world’s Creator.
I cannot prove this true to a non-believer, just as you cannot prove it false to me. Stating that it is false because you cannot see what, if it were true, you would not be able to see, is tail-chasing, not reasoned discussion.
September 19th, 2011 at 20:06
And faith is just an excuse for not thinking.
No human is perfect. Accepted, even though we haven’t really established what “perfect” means.
However, there is no evidence to indicate that we are not exactly as we were intended to be, much less “broken”. So much for “as they are intended to be by the world’s Creator”. Since the Creator has not spoken to you personally, I will posit that you believe what you were told by another person, whose motives and/or understanding are suspect at best.
If God has anything to say to me, my phone is on and I’m sure he knows the number. Otherwise, all you have to go on is hearsay of hearsay; not a very rational position.
September 19th, 2011 at 22:12
“And faith is just an excuse for not thinking.”
Quite the contrary Dennis. It takes a great deal of reasoning to take a step of reasonable faith.
This is not like the Left. They continue to have faith in a theory (evolution) that defies reason.
“By what criterion do you judge the world to be “broken”? Was there ever a time when it wasn’t as venal and violent as it is now? (And I don’t mean in some primitive creation myth, of which the Christian version is but one; I mean as evidenced by either historical record or solid tangible evidence from archeology.)”
In a nut shell, the experience of pain as a consequence of evil.
History is pretty convincing to me. It confirms the existence of evil as far as I’m concerned. If you are unmoved by the death of 6 million Jews, about 16 million Russia dissidents, and over 20 million Chinese peasants, to name a few, nothing will convince you.
Evil and the sense that it is here with us is as convincing an argument as there is. If we have a sense of what is evil, that we possess inherently, we also know inherently what is good. Knowing good and evil, makes us understand something is wrong when evil is done, the world is broken.
“I will posit that you believe what you were told by another person, whose motives and/or understanding are suspect at best.”
I have to presume that you “believe” some things as well. Everyone has core beliefs they live by. Your sources are not subject to corruption or error?
All the information we have comes from or through people Dennis.
So you are certain God does not exist because He hasn’t called yet?
September 20th, 2011 at 03:37
Once you can explain why humans, alone among animals, have evolved social institutions that function to prevent individuals from acting on their natural impulses, then perhaps we’ll listen to you about human nature. God knows your number but you’ve got your phone turned off.
September 20th, 2011 at 06:58
“Once you can explain why humans, alone among animals, have evolved social institutions that function to prevent individuals from acting on their natural impulses…”
Oh, please…every social animal population has mechanisms by which the natural impulses of individuals are subordinated to the welfare of the group. The simplest expression of it is those animals who, upon sighting a predator, instead of following their natural impulse to run like hell or hide and stay quiet, actually draw attention to themselves by barking, calling, or leaping in a distinctive way so as to warn the group.
You draw a distinction between man’s social constructs and other social animals which is unjustified; at best we are at the extreme end of a continuum, not off in a separate category by ourselves. Special pleading.
And I’m still waiting for that call–but not from some late-night preacher in a cheap suit and a bad haircut pleading for money.
September 20th, 2011 at 07:11
Oh, and Whitehawk, I’m afraid I don’t accept “the experience of pain as a consequence of evil” as a valid argument. It presupposes several things, none of which has been established:
That pain is somehow abnormal.
That pain is soley the consequence of evil.
That “evil” has an objective reality.
“Evil” is strictly a man-made construct. Nature does not recognize “evil”. If millions of animals die because of the actions of one, nature doesn’t give a shit. It just shrugs, moves on, and makes new animals. We have defined “evil” as that which we don’t like, and have interpreted it differently from age to age and from place to place. One simple example: Modern Christians define homosexuality as evil, yet in ancient Greece it was normal and unremarkable. Killing infants is considered evil, but there are countless examples of societies which routinely exposed unwanted babies on the hillside to die and nobody thought a thing of it. So “evil” has no objective reality outside the mind of man.
And I see no evidence that pain is in any way abnormal or somehow a sign of “broken-ness”. Everybody experiences pain as part of the life process, physical, psychological, emotional, and even spiritual if you are inclined that way. Since it is as common as common can be, it can in no way be construed as abnormal. It isn’t the consequence of a “fallen nature”, it just is the way things are, like the sky is blue.
So no, I do not accept that the world is “broken”; only in your mythology is it defined as so, and I don’t see where your mythology carries any more weight than the next one.
September 20th, 2011 at 10:16
“So no, I do not accept that the world is “broken”; only in your mythology is it defined as so, and I don’t see where your mythology carries any more weight than the next one.”
You and I agree completely: I reject the junk mythologies of socialism, feminism, homosexuality, nazism, communism, and the rest of these awful people who claim the world isn’t to their liking and needs reformed. Their anti-Capitalist, anti-American, inhuman, inhumane nonsense is just another ignorant mythology unable to accept the world is as it has always been. Down with these phony intellectuals who insist on and hope and change. There is nothing wrong with the world and it doesn’t need fixing. Together we can fight the Left and its ignorant utopian schemes.
September 20th, 2011 at 10:55
Wow. It takes so little effort to be an atheist.
September 20th, 2011 at 14:10
Bullshit. The behavior you cite is genetically determined, hence is precisely a natural instance — Thompson’s gazelles can no more control that than the average slacker teenager today can control his erection on seeing Paris Hilton. Running like hell or hiding and staying quiet would be contrary to nature to them, however sensible it might appear to us. Evidently your knowledge of zoology is even worse than your knowledge of history and economics — an impressive feat.
If I were God, I wouldn’t want to talk to you, either.
September 20th, 2011 at 16:45
“You draw a distinction between man’s social constructs and other social animals which is unjustified; at best we are at the extreme end of a continuum, not off in a separate category by ourselves. Special pleading.”
We institutionalize people for eating their offspring. We institutionalize people for coprophagy. We prosecute people for killing other people. In the animal world we consider these within the norm. We are definitely distinct from lower species. I haven’t seen a dolphin highway, a penguin computer, an owl write a book.
They certainly have their organized social structures in many cases but in many they do not. They are without the ability to make moral distinctions and this is the key difference.
The shrew is a great example of this. We should all be thankful a shrew is no bigger than it is. (I speculate that a 100 lb shrew would end life on earth as we know it.)
“And I see no evidence that pain is in any way abnormal or somehow a sign of “broken-ness”.”
You are not thinking this through, Dennis. Ever had a broken bone? Or a tooth ache? Or a back injury? How long did it take you to get to the doctor? I guess you leave the limb dangling, flopping about till it is useless. Not. Pain is not “normal”. In fact it tells us that something damaging or abnormal is occurring or about to occur.
And yes we experience pain in our physical body, our psyche and our spirit.
“That pain is somehow abnormal.” (see above)
“That pain is soley the consequence of evil.”
Yes, you are correct pain is often associated with good things e.g. child birth. I did not make the claim that it was only the result of evil, just that one of the natural consequences of evil is pain.
“That “evil” has an objective reality.” No, but we do whether you accept it or not. The ability to discern evil has been critical to civilization. Before there was a treatment for syphilis is was life preserving to observing the “Thou shalt not commit adultery” moral law.
Evil results in damage and subsequently pain in the same way darkness results in blindness, gravity results in falling.
September 20th, 2011 at 16:54
If you were God, I’d thank my good luck that I wouldn’t have to talk to you.
I can’t believe it; I’m supposed to be the touchy-feely soft-headed “liberal” on the board, and here I am arguing rationality while you guys all sit around saying, “We’re broken because we feel the pain of evil” or some such fluffy nonsense. Give me a break!
RealRick: Yes, it takes no effort at all to be an atheist. Just stop believing in the Easter Bunny, Unicorns, the Tooth Fairy, and Santa Claus. You’ll be surprised at how much effor you save when you stop trying to reconcile what you’ve been told with what you actually can see for yourself.
ErisGuy: As usual with conservatives, you take the discussion far afield searching for a ground on which you can actually make an arguement. You ascribe to me words I have not said and positions I do not support, then knock them down and tell yourself what a wonderful job you’ve done. Pathetic.
Let me be clear: the world isn’t broken, it just is as it is. It isn’t to our liking, so we alter it. It’s what we’ve done for 300,000 years since modern humans first appear in the archeological record. BUT: There was no Garden of Eden. There was no magical Golden Age. We aren’t “fallen”, and we don’t need “saving”.
We try to change the world to suit us, and have done a pretty good job so far; it’s called “culture”. But one man’s paradise is another man’s hell. Hitler murdered masses of people and is soundly–and rightfully, in my opinion–condemned for it. Ceasar murdered masses of people and was–wrongly, to my way of thinking–glorified by all for it. Times change, and so does what is “good” and what is “evil”. Live with it. There was a time not so long ago when common men thinking for and ruling themselves was condemned as the greatest heresy by the very Christian church you adulate. (But you would have gone along, probably, because that was the “dogma” of the day.)
September 21st, 2011 at 15:02
Your thinking is so twisted it must be very frustrating to maintain clear line of thinking.
“Let me be clear: the world isn’t broken, it just is as it is. It isn’t to our liking, so we alter it.”
If the world is not broken why alter it?
You”re in denial and it is unfortunate.