Common Sense Not Needed

Rating:
Summary: Another useless book lost in its own paradigm.
Review: First off, I hope this book never happened. To ingrain philosophy to people with no choice in the matter is wrong, and it is impossible to ask someone's opinion if they don't understand your query. The mentally handicapped, especially autists, have trouble dealing with our world as it is, because they expect many things that we understand to be metaphoric as literal. You cannot teach them religion as Boom suggests using the same metaphoric language we use -- because they will beleive it the way we beleive in mathematics. This is as unfair as lying to children. We know that God will only help those who help themselves, and the reason mental handicaps are so terrifying is they make you unable to help yourself in many instances. If you tell people that only understand language literally that God will help them, they will expect this help in a tangible fashion. It's asking for trouble; it's asking them to give up whenever something seems hard. The justification for learning, for overcoming adversity, is no longer there.

Furthurmore, the books' conclusions are terribly paradigmatic. If you tell somebody something that they can only believe literally, you shouldn't be surprised and consider it amazing when they reiterate your points in a literal manner. To say that we can learn something from this level of idealistic regurgitation is foolishness; may as well feed lines into a computer, or train a parrot to speak aphorisms. It's sad that Boom doesn't try and understand these people, rather than just adapting their view of consciousness to her own. Surely, their perspective is important; after all, they don't doubt the way we do. It is lost in the messy prose and disjoined narrative of this novel, which in my opinion does nothing but degrade both the classical model of thought, the teaching of Christ and the pride of the mentally handicapped.

Rating:
Summary: Another useless book lost in its own paradigm.
Review: First off, I hope this book never happened. To ingrain philosophy to people with no choice in the matter is wrong, and it is impossible to ask someone's opinion if they don't understand your query. The mentally handicapped, especially autists, have trouble dealing with our world as it is, because they expect many things that we understand to be metaphoric as literal. You cannot teach them religion as Boom suggests using the same metaphoric language we use -- because they will beleive it the way we beleive in mathematics. This is as unfair as lying to children. We know that God will only help those who help themselves, and the reason mental handicaps are so terrifying is they make you unable to help yourself in many instances. If you tell people that only understand language literally that God will help them, they will expect this help in a tangible fashion. It's asking for trouble; it's asking them to give up whenever something seems hard. The justification for learning, for overcoming adversity, is no longer there.

Furthurmore, the books' conclusions are terribly paradigmatic. If you tell somebody something that they can only believe literally, you shouldn't be surprised and consider it amazing when they reiterate your points in a literal manner. To say that we can learn something from this level of idealistic regurgitation is foolishness; may as well feed lines into a computer, or train a parrot to speak aphorisms. It's sad that Boom doesn't try and understand these people, rather than just adapting their view of consciousness to her own. Surely, their perspective is important; after all, they don't doubt the way we do. It is lost in the messy prose and disjoined narrative of this novel, which in my opinion does nothing but degrade both the classical model of thought, the teaching of Christ and the pride of the mentally handicapped.

Rating:
Summary: About humility and God's love for the mentally handicapped
Review: There are stories from this small book I was privileged to read once that still challenge and draw me in... Corrie writes about her work teaching a Bible class to mentally-handicapped children in Holland. She tells wonderful stories about how God revealed Himself very personally and simply to the children, how they understood and responded to His love, and how valuable they are to Him personally. She contrasts that with the Nazis' opinion of the mentally handicapped. There are children in that small book that I myself long to be more like, in the simplicity of their devotion and love for Jesus.