Don’t know what ‘neurotypical’ means? Well, read the essay.
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8 Responses to “What Can Society Do for the Neurotypical?”
Does this article have a point to make? Other than the concept that God kills Jews because he loves them?
(“In order to save the village, it was necessary to destroy it.”
Dennis,
The point I’m making is that it is intensely difficult to change people’s fundamental nature. God has been trying to do this (teach Man to love Him and be grateful for what He has given them) for God knows how long. He hasn’t had much luck. Expecting to have more luck than God is folly. Society should attempt to work to limit the damage our natures cause, and restrain them to some degree to make life less unliveable, but it shouldn’t expect to actually reshape people at the gut level.
In the spirit of pointing out the elephant in the room, humans were–according to the Judeo-Christian myth–presumably created exactly as He wanted us. Are you now suggesting that our nature is somehow a surprise to Him?
In any case, He presumably is creating human souls all the time (unless He created all the souls which will ever live at the beginning, which leads to even stranger thoughts); if He’s unhappy with how His handiwork turned out, isn’t it about time He stopped producing the beta version and released a more satisfactory Human 2.0?
Dennis,
Humans were created in God’s image, but you’ll note that they are now Fallen—broken as it were. My guess is that Adam before the fall was neither selfish nor ungrateful.
The question of the manufacture of souls is one that the Bible doesn’t give us an answer for—everything around it is a matter of pious speculation.
If you prefer the software metaphor. God released Humanity 1.0. Humanity 1.0 promptly became infected by the Malware Sin and Death. All further copies of Humanity 1.0 were made from this infected pair of copies.
Around 1 AD or so, God made another instance of Humanity 1.0, and basically made it His Avatar. He then performed an odd programming ritual that made it possible for infected copies of Humanity 1.0 to become reconciled to the original Source and to eventually after he comes again be uploaded into new and improved bodies.
Dennis,
To expand on the earlier point, about man being created initially in God’s image but being presently broken, although in different ways. Different human beings are more and less broken in different aspects of their character viewed from God’s perspective. The classic neurotypical is ungrateful as Hell. The classic non-neurotypical is selfish as Hell. Different people are disproportionately prone to different sins. This is part of why Christianity is a communal faith. We can only perceive dimly the character of Jesus through the aggregate example of the Body of Christ.
Sounds like fancy-dancing and rationalization to me.
Either He’s omniscient, or He’s not. If He is, He understood exactly what He was doing. If not…well, He’s not God then, is He?
Either He’s omnipotent, or He’s not. If He is, He can make things to His liking. If He’s not…well, see above.
In any case, I think the ‘neurotypical’ concept is a poor choice of metaphors for your point. It implies either that 1) we are normal, but God is a whacko, or 2) God is normal, but He deliberately made beings that He knew to be whacko (or knew would become whacko), and now punishes them for not being ‘normal’, which is itself a whacko–one might say psychopathic/sadistic–thing to do.
Either way, God ends up looking like a whacko. Which is not what I think you had in mind.
January 13th, 2012 at 07:04
Does this article have a point to make? Other than the concept that God kills Jews because he loves them?
(“In order to save the village, it was necessary to destroy it.”
January 13th, 2012 at 08:04
Sorry if the blog is too intellectual for you. Try Stadium Cards & Comics on Golfside drive; that may be more your speed.
January 13th, 2012 at 10:54
Ah, I get it now–God is autistic. That makes a weird sort of sense…
January 13th, 2012 at 17:52
Dennis,
The point I’m making is that it is intensely difficult to change people’s fundamental nature. God has been trying to do this (teach Man to love Him and be grateful for what He has given them) for God knows how long. He hasn’t had much luck. Expecting to have more luck than God is folly. Society should attempt to work to limit the damage our natures cause, and restrain them to some degree to make life less unliveable, but it shouldn’t expect to actually reshape people at the gut level.
January 14th, 2012 at 22:50
In the spirit of pointing out the elephant in the room, humans were–according to the Judeo-Christian myth–presumably created exactly as He wanted us. Are you now suggesting that our nature is somehow a surprise to Him?
In any case, He presumably is creating human souls all the time (unless He created all the souls which will ever live at the beginning, which leads to even stranger thoughts); if He’s unhappy with how His handiwork turned out, isn’t it about time He stopped producing the beta version and released a more satisfactory Human 2.0?
January 14th, 2012 at 23:01
Dennis,
Humans were created in God’s image, but you’ll note that they are now Fallen—broken as it were. My guess is that Adam before the fall was neither selfish nor ungrateful.
The question of the manufacture of souls is one that the Bible doesn’t give us an answer for—everything around it is a matter of pious speculation.
If you prefer the software metaphor. God released Humanity 1.0. Humanity 1.0 promptly became infected by the Malware Sin and Death. All further copies of Humanity 1.0 were made from this infected pair of copies.
Around 1 AD or so, God made another instance of Humanity 1.0, and basically made it His Avatar. He then performed an odd programming ritual that made it possible for infected copies of Humanity 1.0 to become reconciled to the original Source and to eventually after he comes again be uploaded into new and improved bodies.
January 14th, 2012 at 23:05
Dennis,
To expand on the earlier point, about man being created initially in God’s image but being presently broken, although in different ways. Different human beings are more and less broken in different aspects of their character viewed from God’s perspective. The classic neurotypical is ungrateful as Hell. The classic non-neurotypical is selfish as Hell. Different people are disproportionately prone to different sins. This is part of why Christianity is a communal faith. We can only perceive dimly the character of Jesus through the aggregate example of the Body of Christ.
January 15th, 2012 at 21:32
Sounds like fancy-dancing and rationalization to me.
Either He’s omniscient, or He’s not. If He is, He understood exactly what He was doing. If not…well, He’s not God then, is He?
Either He’s omnipotent, or He’s not. If He is, He can make things to His liking. If He’s not…well, see above.
In any case, I think the ‘neurotypical’ concept is a poor choice of metaphors for your point. It implies either that 1) we are normal, but God is a whacko, or 2) God is normal, but He deliberately made beings that He knew to be whacko (or knew would become whacko), and now punishes them for not being ‘normal’, which is itself a whacko–one might say psychopathic/sadistic–thing to do.
Either way, God ends up looking like a whacko. Which is not what I think you had in mind.