Religous Thought of Aspies

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Hello, I just wanted to get some of your thoughts on religion. Particularly in belief about God, not necessarily an organized religion... I'd prefer responses from people who are officially diagnosed with AS.
Being a person diagnosed with AS, I'd like to give an example of my meaning... I was raised as Mormon. Mormons are reported as reading the scriptures and studying the Bible more than most other religions. I remember hearing a report that Jews, Mormons, Atheists, and Agnostics read the Bible more and have a better knowledge of what it contains than most any other group(s). I've also heard it reported that people with higher IQ's (such as people with AS) tend to lean more to the Atheist or Agnostic side of things (which I would probably do myself if I wasn't Mormon).
Let's face it, churches are strange, sometimes even borderline psychotic. There are a lot of weird religions out there to chose from, a lot of which are highly unlikely to catch the interest of a person with AS (as a lot of them appeal to a social atmosphere). I believe I'm a religious person because my church focuses on doctrine. As a person with AS I think it has been very helpful to have a community of people who speak about social morals. It's much easier to fit in socially when there is a defined doctrine about right and wrong. My church also offered me a lot of interaction with other members who would speak about the scriptures and then talk about the social aspects (as in what the scriptures mean we should do today socially).
Simple example so you can see what I'm saying... Matt 5:46 "For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?" A discussion about this could go in a social direction. Someone might ask, what do you gain from this? And the answer could be, well if you see someone in the hall at school you should say hello to them and smile no matter which social group they belong to. Suddenly this scripture becomes a way to help the believers in the Bible to see life in the social context of a person with AS. I always had a hard time understanding social cliques. So a scripture like this to quote to a fellow believer in the Bible can be very helpful in getting them to see my point of view.
I didn't know I had AS until I was an adult. I grew up in my church with it and I served a two year mission in New York City and still didn't know I had it. Recently my Bishop informed me that had they known that I had AS they probably wouldn't have asked me or allowed me to go on a mission for the church (it was extremely difficult/rewarding). I loved New York, it was awesome. I can see why it was so exhausting now, being surrounded by hundreds of people and your purpose is to interact with them constantly. I think what it did is gave me a sort of training, and now that I'm officially diagnosed, people have a hard time believing that I have it. There is no question in my mind of course, they just don't know the effort I put forth to make them comfortable. I digress.
Fellow persons with AS, what are your thoughts on God, a supreme being, and/or religion(s)?

P.S. This is a clip from Community, Abed in the show has Asperger's Syndrome. It just kind of shows the difference in his thoughts and the way others think about religion and God. Makes me laugh. People are drawn to the way he thinks because he focuses on reality more. (They are actually being filmed as actors for the TV show Community as they are filming a movie on the TV show.)

Go to YouTube and search for "Abed as Jesus"

I went to church through most of my teen years, much of it not by own choice.

Religion doesn't make much sense to me, it sounds more of an invention of man than something given to us upon a higher power.

I consider myself a deist for the most part.

my church as a youth/teen was a traditional,old-fashioned,small town Methodist church with very little active concern about the teen issues of those days. by the time i was a senior in hs, we only went to church on christmas and easter. through college and a few years after, i was an agnostic. i had no interest in those questions and felt the answers i came to satisfied me. then my father passed away, and i reexamined those questions for almost 2 years and at a point was 100% believer. during that time i attended vineyard churches for a few months at a time, it was more modern, more practical, and real than my old traditional church ever was or is. however the questions and the doubt never went away and i felt like i was going through the motions without any real conviction on my beliefs. of course there is all this evidence for the validity of god and it still doesnt satisfy my answers. i doubt i'll ever truly believe in god at any point in my life. i'll never be an atheist, i think agnostic is the best answer for me.

i grew up with the phrases "heaven and hell are right here on this earth here and now!" and "when you die you just rot in the ground." i hated the sound of the first one, because it meant that only the elect [i.e. the rich famous and lucky] had access to heaven whereas everybody else was doomed to barbeque in earth-hell. i hated the 2nd one even more, because i had to barbeque in hell on earth only to end up in an existential abyss. i needed something more- much more. so i searched, from my teen years until the present, for defintive answers which were NOT just retreads of those two depressing memes from my childhood. i found the answers i searched for, in the books "you cannot die" [dr. ian stephenson], "life after life" [dr. raymond moody], "return from tomorrow" [dr. george ritchie], robert monroe's 3 "journeys out of the body" books, "hello from heaven" and various books about folk who underwent hypnotic past-life regression, a small mountain of edgar cayce and a pile of [various] others.
my sister saw my late father die, and his death convinced me that there is something higher that was the last thing he saw and communicated to his nurses and family members that he saw. he died with a big grin on his face which only slowly faded after his tired old body gave up the ghost. my sister and a nurse saw a white mist over his body which ascended and disappeared in a few seconds. after his passing, my father's spirit communicated in various ways, with me and my late mother, as well as to my sister.
all of this aside, i have absolutely no use for any organized religion, all of which are the round holes this square peg just can't fit into.

My religious thoughts are "sod it, it's all rubbish to me."
I used to be a casual god believer in primary school because that's what the teachers taught us and most kids went along with it, I changed my mind when I was 10 though. I went to church services with the brownies and found them extremely boring even when I believed, the only thing I like about them was getting palm crosses in easter so I could crucify my dolls with them.

I've actually read "Life After Life" and "Return From Tomorrow" myself. Very interesting books. While I was in New York I met a man who had a near death experience himself. I asked him a lot of questions about it. Very interesting, he had gotten in a car accident and needed facial reconstructive surgery. In the process of everything he had the experience of "dying" and eventually returning to his body again. I showed him several scriptures from the Book of Mormon and the Bible that supported what had happened in his experience. To this day we are still good friends and we call each other from time to time to hear the news about our lives.

"after his passing, my father's spirit communicated in various ways, with me and my late mother, as well as to my sister."

Did he happen to appear in anyone's dreams? That seems to be the most common. Some report knowing they are present and/or receiving some inaudible communication from them. I believe in the reality of these things.

Religion is a pacifier for those who fear death.

ruveyn

Everyone has some kind of religion, Ruveyn, and even the atheists who might not fear anything.

I'm not sure I can agree with that. I suppose it depends upon how you define religion, but I think if your definition of religion is sufficiently broad as to include atheists, it ceases to be a useful word.

Possibly so, but I see no value in defining/viewing some people as "religious" and others not.

In any case, "religion" serves many purposes beyond dealing with an occasional fear of death.

Was this man part of a religion? And does he fear death? Maybe he once was a part of religion, came to not fear death, then became "unreligious". Or best yet, maybe he was someone who never was a part of religion never will be, and never will fear death. Either way I don't agree. I think no one should fear death because we already live in hell. This world is hell. Why would we ever fear what's next? It can only get better from here. Something to keep in mind for certain. However, I myself am deeply religious and I find death a very exciting thing. As a matter of fact, I have spent much of my time and energy in thinking about death and I have often come to the conclusion that it would be preferable to living. At the same time, I believe that suicide is a sin. And a suicide can bring you to the next life, only to live there in misery having not accomplished what you ought to have here. I might rewrite his words...

Religion is a pacifier for those who would like to better understand what death is all about.

(However, a pacifier doesn't mean that you are a baby...) If you make impulse buys, eat ice cream or fast food when you're depressed, or experience any emotions in your lifetime, that makes you a baby who needs to be pacified. Let's not forget that the word pacify existed before the rubber piece that is used to comfort babies.

Pacify
1. to bring or restore to a state of peace or tranquillity; quiet; calm: to pacify an angry man.
2. to appease: to pacify one's appetite.
3. to reduce to a state of submission, esp. by military force; subdue.

When I was a baby, I used to suck on a pacifier for comfort. I stopped doing that as I matured. (Some carry habits of thumb sucking later in life...) Suppressing emotions and certain thoughts can be damaging. Who doesn't want to be pacified?

"We are confident - We are of good courage, notwithstanding our many difficulties; because we have this earnest of the Spirit, and the unfailing testimony of God. And notwithstanding this, we are willing rather to be absent from the body - we certainly prefer a state of glory to a state of suffering, and the enjoyment of the beatific vision to even the anticipation of it by faith and hope ..."
(Clarke's Commentary)

I certainly agree that religion serves far more purposes than dealing with fear of death. I think there are many positive uses and negative uses and it all depends upon the person.

I also sort of agree that it isn't always useful making distinctions between those who are religious and those who are not. But it is useful between people who want to point out that particular contrast between themselves. A lot of descriptive words are based on contrast between one concept and another. "Religious" only makes sense if it can be contrasted against what isn't religious.

I'll admit I kind of bristle at the thought of being called "religious" because the word, to me, implies a belief in a mystical, non-material aspect to reality. I think the universe is quite strange and wonderful enough based only on what is scientifically verifiable. I also don't like how some religions demand a faith in something. I will believe what makes sense based on evidence. Asking me to take something on faith seems to be going a bit too far.

Same here, and even though we might each be quite committed to our personal practices.


Even "walking by sight" requires some kind faith in at least one's perception of the ground where each next footstep is placed being solid.

In the final analysis, every human being *does* have a measure of faith, and we each live in accordance with what we believe even if/when we are not each actually "religious" about doing that.

I don't believe in God. It has a lot more to do with my outlook on the world and human nature than logic. I just don't think a religious system is compatible with our inherent nature or the way the world works.

It may seem a bit nit-picky, but here I'll make a distintion between faith and trust. Maybe this is just my personal definition, but the way I see it is that faith involves the belief in something without evidence. Trust, in my view, is a belief that something will occur or be there or whatever based on prior experience. I trust that when I take a step, the ground will be there. This is because that is what has always happened when I take a step.

I suppose if I examine how I interact with the world, I might find that there are things that I do have to rely on a kind of faith. Nothing specifically comes to mind, but you make some good points worth thinking about.