Asperger and Atheistsm

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Is there a relationship between the two if so why.

Tentatively, yes.

Autistic thinkers tend to be left brained people, having strengths in logic and structured thinking. This coincides in rationalist and secular thought. Even the aspies around here that are religious tend to be more about the structure and rules than the feelie portion of faith. You can see that in the arguments they make.

This does seem to be accurate. To be honest, I've never been good at anything, religious or secular, that involved "THE RULES." It seems the more I follow "THE RULES," the less successful I am at anything, simply because "THE RULES" were made by "normal" people. I've never fit in that world, and at a point I just quit trying.

I never had a problem committing to my faith, and that was something that started when I was really young. For me, though, when I got older and I started trying to qualify my faith in more logical terms, I happened that compared to anything else my faith just made a lot more sense, even compared with a lot of things I'd been taught since I was young. For me, getting things figured out was something that took a long time. I went from being in church every time the doors were open to almost never going when I got to college. When I moved much further away for grad school, pretty much nothing changed until I'd been there a year, and then I felt somehow that going back to church was just something I had to do. I've never been able to rationally explain that, but that's about as "feelie" as it ever got. What was interesting about this time was that by taking time away from church I missed some of the changes that were going on outside the church I attended, which was that more and more preachers were appealing more to the intellectual aspect of the religion and moving away from "scaring the hell out of" people. So learning more about the Bible, picking up the occasional Hebrew and Greek word here and there, and getting to really understand WHY we believe the way we do became more of a focus.

It was only in the last two years that I realized that my knowledge of the Bible was abhorrently weak. At some point in my life, I'd probably read all of the Bible at least once, but I really had no idea what it said other than what this preacher or that Sunday school teacher told me. And really, the sermons that are preached from Biblical passages really are, I dunno, "generic" and basically cover the same stuff all the time. I mean, REALLY, how many times have you sat in an evangelical church service and heard John 3:16 quoted? I'm not saying it's NOT important, because it's essentially a summary of the entire message of the gospels--but quoting John 3:16 over and over again is NOT the same as studying the Bible from cover to cover. The OT gives you your background for the NT--without it, the NT isn't really important. But once I committed to reading the Bible from to cover, I started getting all the things I'd missed for most of my life. One thing that has plagued me in my day-to-day life is that I've never fit in anywhere, and I've at times been deeply disturbed by all the unwritten social rules of church life. Funny, but the Bible doesn't have any of those "rules" or structure. The only point is that God love sinners and provides the means through Jesus that those who believe will be reconciled through Jesus. That's it. And I can say regarding some funny memories I have of my religious youth what the truth really is and what it is not. So I've really been trying as best I can to try to regain what it was I lost by spending so much of my life just taking someone's word for it and not studying it myself.

The final step for me was finding this forum. I have my own strange and unique sense of logic but have always struggled to communicate it. There are those here, usually atheists, who have a sharp sense of logic and cut to the quick. The only "rules" I've really worked to learn and follow have to do with logic, and then only very elementary logic. And sometimes that's enough, because I've learned how to avoid very basic mistakes. I've also learned to recognize when someone else makes mistakes. What amuses me most is when younger atheists come in here who are about as green as I was after I'd passed my first semester of philosophy. It's refreshing to see that Christians are not the only ones making those mistakes, and I get a chuckle or two every time a young atheist comes in here and makes the same mistakes defending atheist viewpoints that I made defending Christian ones. It just goes to show no one is immune to fallacious argument, no matter how well you think you hold the upper hand! It just kinda makes me sad that some of these don't tend to stick around very long, and for as long as they ARE around, they refuse to admit the argument is lost on logical grounds as though atheism has a monopoly on logic. Same goes for Christians, too, but typically for the opposite reasons. We aren't used to having our beliefs challenged, and when the Bible should win by default and it DOESN'T, we don't try to dig in and find the best explanations for our failures--sometimes they aren't really failures at all, and the right refutation is in there if you just think about it. During times when I haven't had much to do, I'd find myself opening up my Bible and looking up passages relating to the discussion and the answers to challenges were obvious. But it took a long time to figure it out. And in doing so, I've found that I've learned a lot more about the Bible than at any other point in my life.

I think there are probably more Christian aspies out there. I just think that most likely what has happened is that, while atheism does have its appeal for various reasons, the atheist approach to intellectual discourse can at time seem intimidating to those who are not taught to question their beliefs in order to seek and find ultimate truth. PPR is a scary place until you get used to it, and I think too many Christians probably allow some characters, who aren't necessarily malevolent characters, run them off.

In fact, many of the atheists I've seen active on here in the last two or three months are by far NOT the meanest guys I've ever seen. Just a year ago this place was MUCH less friendly.

So in summary, if I am right, we bark, but dont bite?

I wasn't really here much a year ago, so I'm not too aware of how unfriendly it was. I had a brief PM conversation with one of the Theist gentlemen here who thinks a lot of the Atheists here spend a lot of time mocking Christianity or religion in general. I suppose that's true. But sometimes they really make themselves easy targets, and there are certain facets I think most of the logically-minded Theists here also find difficult to defend or rationalize. That being said I don't think Atheists have a monopoly on logic either, though I am not really referring to any of the Strident Atheists here, but more to some people I know IRL who identify as 'Atheist' but I more or less see as punks who just like hating on everything. Myself, I identify as Apatheist, as I am really unconcerned with the whole god/s argument, whether they are real or not.

Frankly, if they/it/Him/etc did turn out to be real I would still not believe in the supernatural, as I would view it as an extraterrestrial or extra-universal phenomenon. Or perhaps as the only way a conscious mind could comprehend a fundamental force of the universe that is in itself not actually conscious. But I suppose I have a rather unique view, though I think ruveyn claimed to also see it similarly to me

Yes. The idea that AS/HFA might cause one to lean one way is just as foolish as believing it might cause one to lean the other way. AS/HFA is completely neutral.

I highly doubt AS doesn't lean one way, I think it's pretty reasonable to believe that a different way of thinking brings about different views, I know people claim AS people come from all over the political spectrum and religion and morals, but I doubt how we are spread out is the same as how NT's are spread, I wouldn't bat an eyelid to see that an unusual amount of autistics are atheists, or materialists (philosophicaly)

The first AS/HFA folks I ever met were all Christians, and my own AS/HFA has simply driven me to me more logical about "faith" than to actually drive me toward a specific logic against it.

I don't ever accept arguments based on personal experiance

or, in other words, "all the jews I know are rich"
(I know 2 jews)

You could eet a 1000 aspies and they all be christian and it still wouldn't be statistically relevant
I believe in statistics, survey and studies, not personal expierance.

Do the studies you reference include initial and following environmental factors such as home nurturing (parental religion) and school?

No, there's plenty of bite. I'm just saying the bite isn't quite as painful as you might otherwise think. If an argument fails, there's nothing wrong with calling someone on it. Having someone call you out on an unreasoned point relating to your faith stings, but only because you aren't used to those kinds of attacks. It forces you as a believer to think about what you say and believe as well as the possibility you might be wrong about something. The fear in doing so, I think, is that one might find they are mistaken in their faith. More likely, though, is that one is mistaken in their reasoning. If you go into it from "I'm right" attitude on both sides, you can't deny that one or both are wrong: faith vs. reasoning. So in your mind, everyone else is wrong and deceived and thus attacks on your faith are as much personal attacks (because you're Christian) as they are on the belief itself. It's easier to just go away, and I think too many of us don't understand how to respond to being "bitten." The temptation is to "bite back," and the way Christians are taught is that this is inappropriate. It puts opponents at a somewhat unfair advantage--which again, makes forums like PPR unattractive. The trick is to find a way to respond that avoids destructive or unfriendly words. I personally have a hard time knowing the difference between an attack on faith and a personal attack, when the discussion is an honest discussion and when it is outright bullying. My approach is that if someone is hostile to the point I can no longer take them seriously, I just avoid giving any further response.

The down side to getting bit so many times is the thick skin and sometimes unnecessary offensive posture. It appears, sometimes, I can run 'em off, too!

Lately there seems to be more from the atheist/apatheist camp who do not feel the need to resort to "that's just stupid" kinds of remarks even if that's what you're really thinking. I'm referring to the outright demeaning/belittling kind of language that really was the norm a year ago.

Oh ok. Yeah, I agree then. We secularists are still human beings and have no monopoly on being correct. We attempt to follow a philosophy - the scientific method - which is a means to abrogate and minimize the error and bias of an individual. All that which does not fit into the paradigm is presumed false(as per the axioms of the method), set aside, and yes, often rudely dismissed.

The effects of following that method can be seen in western society. We live long safe lives filled with leisure and privilege. When we examine societies which reject scientific method, either in whole or in part, we see people who have much less happy lives. Whether that be modern Tanzania with its albino killings, or medieval France hunting heretics it is obvious that faith alone does not build a society equal to one of faith plus science.

The question then, is do we(as a society) need faith at all? Therein lies the basis of the classic WP PPR argument. When we examine the earthly societies that we deem most overall pleasant, we find that they are also the ones with the least faith - the Scandinavian countries. This may all be some coincidence, but unless something better is quantified, we proceed according to physical evidence and rational logic.

We secularists know that our eyes can lie to us, that our minds can play tricks, we can be resistant to the truth. So we approach life in a way that takes the synthesis of human experience and picks out the best path from that. If some wise man said "love thy neighbour", it may have merit, but his wisdom cannot stand as guidance until it has been weighed against the experience of the rest of humanity. He is not given extra weight by virtue of self claimed authority.

I do not label myself "secularist" or anything else, but I know and do the same.