Aspies and religion

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Why is the evolution argument still going on? It's over. Evolution is real and undeniable. It's not even a biological concept - it's a mathematical concept. Given a randomly varying set (even young-earth creationists admit that mutations occur) and a selective process (everybody knows living things die and either pass on their genes or don't), evolution occurs. In this situation, it can't not happen, unless the mathematicians are all wrong and numbers are magical.

Fight over. Evolution wins by ring out.

The belief in god is a byproduct of various functions of the brain. Things that we evolved to be able to do but didn't evolve a way to turn off. I wish I could find the Ted.com video that explained this perfectly but I can't. This is a Newscientist.com article which goes over much the same thing. It's a really interesting area for right now.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... ?full=true

Because arguing is fun

I've never heard of Myers, I've heard dawkins talking about weather its ethical to breed musical or mathematical ability (I can't remember what his answer was) but eugenics is not natural selection (or automatically evil, I don't like it but not everyone fond of eugenics believes in forced sterilizations, death camps or other ways of "culling the heard"). Natural selection would be kill the week and let the strong survive.

Well yeah, of course self evolving software would look different to software that is hand coded.

That's a bad analogy, a good analogy would be you flip bits, if it breaks the computer you start again. If your flips results in an improvement that's your new starting point. It also is extremely unlikely to work, its not the biological equivalent of DNA but rather the biological equivalent of radiation poisoning.

They're not biological species, of course they're going to evolve in a different style, and a lot faster.

Not only do we have very similar species, we have them on a timeline, something vanishes and something similar appears, then that vanishes and something similar appears. We have laboratory and field tests showing that species can and do change over time and we have DNA evidence to support the whole thing. Actual biologists probably know more examples than me.

No one is assuming that similar species automatically means evolution.

Yes it dose, changes within a species and one species to another are fundamentally the same, they just differ in magnitude.

Now that's just being silly, saying one group of humans is a diffrent species to another isn't racism its just stateing an inaccurate fact. Its only racist when you start discriminating.

Why not? statistical improbabilities do happen, people do win the lottery. I notice your not providing an alternative explanation to evolution and the fact were here means there must be some origin.

Its "each of these are likely, so the whole thing must be possible".

So long as the probability of god existing within the physical laws of the multiverse is greater than 0% then yes, he exists somewhere. However i sincerely doubt he exists or has any influence here.

I predict that if the LHC finds the Higgs they will stop "respectfully disagreeing" and expect you to prove any counterclaims.

Tell that to Monsanto, like them or not you can't deny that they're successfully mutating plants to do what they want. I'm pretty sure someone successfully mutated some bacteria to grow insulin.

On the contrary, providing that that mechanism is selective and only targets bad mutations it becomes even easier for positive mutations to flourish.

Send your math to the scientific Journals, its not Science until its been peer reviewed.

Last edited by TheKingsRaven on 27 May 2009, 4:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

Remember this is the parenting board. An detailed discussion of the science and math involved with evolution might be better elsewhere?

I am agnostic, I think anyone who thinks about it in depth enough can see why people came to the conclusion of a supreme beng, the problem is the CLAIMS surrounding such a hypothesis been muddied by our ancestors making people unable to think straight about the issue.

I also believe that an evolved primate that lives less then 100 years is very unlikely to begin to explore the question in enough depth to make any kind of satisfactory conclusion.

Myers, Dawkins on several occasions,

I'm pretty sure I've read an essay by Richard Dawkins, A Devil's Chaplain, arguing specifically against the belief that we should live our lives according to evolution.

OMG, this is so far off from the original post. I had asked how Aspies see religion, not whether God exists. There are debate boards for this.

You asked whether aspies have trouble accepting religion. Presumably if this premise is true there would be reason(s) for this. God(s) are a major part of religion so their existence would obviously be related to the subject.

What did you expect? (that is a rhetorical question)

Evolution is not something the involves thinking. It just is (in the present).

Beliefs are part of behaviours which are no necessarily counter evolution (whether they be true or not). Well nothing is counter to evolution really. You could say that inorganic nature is different from organic evolution but they both interact and are subject to the natural chaos.

Civilisations are not counter to evolution either. “Survival of the fittest” is a vast oversimplification. Most modern evolutionary scientist acknowledge this.. Take humans in a society we are simultaneously competing whist also making use of different skill we have. There is a play between individual survival and group survival. Group can mean many, many thing and these groups are heavily overlapped especially in humans, which live in great numbers. We are pulled in all sort of direction. Dawkins is merely exhibiting some of this behaviour through his writing.

I did, and yes, there are reasons for it. I get that and expected it. But what I asked for was people's personal opinions, not a debate. No need to be rude.

Ok so the topic is aspies and religion:

Most of the manifestations that are recognized as "relligion" (of whatever flavor) are societal matters (e.g. attendance at group events like bible study or worship services, partaking in particular holiday activities such as ramadan, christmas beltane etc. etc.) What is pertinant about aspergers to all this is that aspies are less socially connected. Hence an aspie is less likely to be guided in religious matters as is the norm for society. So I hypothesize that Aspies are likely o be more relgiously diverse from their families than NT's would be.

Some aspies may find that it is convenient and easy to reject their parents religion and become atheists, while other aspies from "non-religious" families may find a religion that their study shows to be an orderly explanation of what they perceive about life. Still others may find in the religion of their parents exactly what they are looking for. Yet others may be too focused on other things to even notice religion.

So my second hypothesis is that if an aspie cares about religion at all it will probably be a carefully examined and adhered to position, at least to a greater degree than is common amongst NT's

Interesting hypotheses there outlander.

My Aspie son is 15 years old. His father and I were Jehovah's Witnesses when we had our children, but after our divorce I converted to non-denominational christian. After my personal experience, I had decided that I would NEVER tell my children what they HAD to believe, but I did teach them that while they were in their father's care, they were to obey him. Their father always made a huge deal about the fact that JW's are "the only true religion" and this particular religion comes with many rules to follow. My Aspie son was the only one who ever believed in it and he did so because they made it all sound so black and white. Well as my son got older he started noticing that his father didn't follow the rules. Then a year ago his father abandoned them without even saying goodbye. Their father has only seen them 3 days in the last year. Garrett got a very sour attitude towards JW's and now he says that he doesn't believe in god at all.

Thats my experience with my Aspie son and religion.

When I was about 4 years old I reasoned that Santa Claus could not exist.
My parents thought that was very clever of me.

When I was 5, I reasoned that the bible story was a bunch of hooey.

They didn't find that so funny.

Our son has asked questions about death, change, other "ultimate" concerns since he was about 4. Once, around age 5, he asked what would happen when he died. My wife (the atheist) told him his body would turn back into air and water and dirt but that he'd be remembered by many people. I (the Christian) told him that he would go to God's arms and God would hold him close, just like he likes being held by us.

A few days later he was playing with his stuffed animals. Apparently two of his ducks had "died" and gone to God. "Hey God," he said, "what are you holding?" Then he had God reply, "I'm holding dead birds. Let's turn them back to air and water and dirt."

Moral of the story: people will make sense out of whatever you give them. Aspies (my aspie, at least) are no exception.

wow! that was deep!! !! All I can say on the subject (the origional one anyway). Is that; shortly after my son was diagnosed my first reaction was to question God....why? What does this mean? What do I do with this situation. While I was praying a few things came to mind. First was two bible verses: "you are fearfully and wonderfully made" and "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you"....These verses were followed by....God doesnt make mistakes....my son is perfect!! ! He was created by God perfect.....the way God wanted him!! Second was.....Asperger's is (to my understanding) very logical and everything is very black and white...right or wrong...fair or unfair....How much more could God use my son (with Asperger's syndrome) than He could use me.....If it is in the Bible....and God said it....than why question it....where as with me and most other NT's....we doubt it....

I think if Asperger's child is introduced and taught the truth, in a positive way, about religion....then they (probably having a better understanding of God than we will) will have no problem accepting/believing.....

As with any child, there comes a point in their lives that they will question or have to figure things out for themselves.....then it is their decision on what they will do. I don't think it matters if they are AS or NT....that is just a cycle of life.

I feel as a parent/christian it is my responsibility to my God and my children to teach them about God. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it"....my children are only 13, 11, and 8. They all believe in God...even the 8 yr old who is AS. ....about a year ago my daughter who is 13 (NT)...did come to me and "question" God/religion....I reminded her of what I believe....and then told her that this was something she would have to decide for herself....(according to my beliefs, this was one of the hardest things i have done)...I told her to go back, read her bible, and pray....If she searched for the "truth" she would find her answer....I also told her that if she searched for God...He would reveal himself to her.....I am happy to say....she still believes.....I am happier to say...she still believes because she searched and found her answer....not because I told her what to believe....