Are all aspies atheists -- or is it just me?

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Lecks---I didn't say to underthink it. I said don't overthink it. You can think about it---you are supposed to. Just don't analyze it to the point where nothing will satisfy you which is what you are doing now. You seem to me to be to the point where nothing will satisfy you. Relax.

This question would probably benefit from some provisionality.

It is UNLIKELY that ALL people with AS are atheists.

There is also the possibility of another implied statement in your question, that you are an atheist. (this wasn't clear to me)

This could be quite a polarizing question as the subject matter goes to the very heart of a person's belief system.

The number of 'views' and responses your question has attracted, would seem to bear this out.

In answer to your question;

I think it's just you (thinking that all people with AS are atheists)

I need clear, concise answers and so far no religious person has ever given me one. I get told about feelings and experiences and dreams and all that stuff that just does not click with me. I'm not in tune with my emotions, I can't listen to a sermon based predominately on emotions and make any sense of it.

And if the article did answer the question, could you quote the appropriate section, please? Because I've been unable to find it.

I am grateful to God for the experiences He has given me. I have heard His voice. But to hear His voice you must listen. For me it isn't a physical voice, it is a voice that comes in through me internally. And no, it isn't imagination. It is a real experience. Something so great as God cannot be understood in clear concise answers---that is too simple. But what can be simpler than just accepting God?

If you need clear concise answers for something to exist---then you must not believe the world can exist as it is now. Its formation isn't truly understood. There are unknown things about the origins of the universe. Those haven't been answered completely. But do you still believe the universe and Earth exist? If you do, because you are living in it now, you have accepted it without knowing truly how it was formed. The stuff you hear on television about the origins of the universe is mostly theory---not guaranteed fact.

If you are between the age of 18-29 (NT or ASD, doesn't matter) you have a one in four chance of being an athiest or agnostic. This is from new research on the "millenial generation." Your chance if you a gen X'er is 1 in 5 and if you're a baby boomer, it's 16%. So, each generation loses more faith in the existence of God.

I was born at the tail end of the baby boom....only 16%, eh?

~Kate

I ALMOST lost interest after reading the following statement:

"In the beginning, about 6,000 years ago, God created the universe and everything in it in six actual days".

! !! !! !! !!


*regains composure*


Well.....that would be news to just about every geologist, biologist, physicist, chemist, cosmologist, etc......on Earth.....but OK....i'll keep an open mind and read the rest of the article.


OK.....I finished it and with all due respect Glider18, this is just fairly standard Judeo-Christian rationalization for the problem of evil/suffering.


God allows all this misery and cruelty (in both human and animal life) simply because a FEW humans murder, torture and rape other humans?

I'm not even in favor of "cruel and unusual" punishment for those who DO murder/torture/ rape though I certainly think we must punish them to some reasonable extent (life in prison for example.)

But what about the vast majority of humanity who, at worst, are guilty of far lesser "sins"?

Do you REALLY think their crimes deserve god's inexpressibly cruel punishments?


You know....god's smallpox, malaria and AIDS......HIS seemingly infinite and horrific diseases, disabilities, natural disasters, etc....?


How about the non-human victims of the Ichneumon wasp?


I'm not even close to the tip of the iceberg in terms of suffering humankind did not cause and has little or no control over.

Even so....considering god is supposedly omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent can we not (in an ultimate sense) view the sufferings humans inflict upon other humans as god's punishment as well?

Such a being could obviously prevent things like the holocaust, serial homocide, child molestation, etc.......but for some odd reason..."he" never does.

To my mind...this article only serves to reaffirm the unspeakable sadism and injustice of this dubious deity.


Furthermore.....in spite of pastor Rick Warren's little book about life being "purpose-driven".....I really have a hard time seeing any purpose for countless things in life.

Just for one example....let's take miscarriage . Now we could say god has a purpose in mind here...perhaps god wants to teach women who miscarry some sort of valuable "lesson".

There's just one obvious problem with this though.....some miscarriages occur (not long after conception) without the women's knowledge and many didn't know they were pregnant in the first place.

What "purpose" did god have in mind in these cases?

Perhaps you could argue that god might be teaching such women some sort of lesson on a SUBCONSCIOUS level here, but I think you'd be grasping at straws with that one.

So if that's not the argument you want to use.....then what other "purpose" can be ascertained here?

Did the omniscient god CHANGE "HIS" MIND???


If so...it would hardly be the first time this rather perplexing being did so. It would be yet another example (and their name is legion....for they are many ) of god behaving in a manner which is totally inconsistent with his supposed omniscience, omnipotence or omnibenevolence.


"And the LORD said, "I will wipe this human race I have created from the face of the earth. Yes, and I will destroy every living thing--all the people, the large animals, the small animals that scurry along the ground, and even the birds of the sky. I am SORRY I ever made them."

Genesis 6:7


How can an omniscient being be "SORRY" about ANYTHING???


I mean call me crazy....but wouldn't such a being be constitutionally incapable of regret?


To my mind....the most likely conclusion here is that the human authors of the bible simply created god in their own image.

The same conclusion can be drawn from almost every page of the bible.


I really don't think atheism is a "choice" either. No matter how hard I would try....I could never convince myself that i'll win the lottery in the next month, especially considering I don't even play.

Ditto for the existence of a omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent deity. The concept just doesn't square with any empirical evidence or reason IMO.

I'm sure they would be.... converts are always nice and often profitable too.

I seriously doubt they'd tell me anything I haven't heard from theists a thousand times.


Every "pro-god" argument i've ever heard seems to reinforce my disbelief rather than diminish it.


The erudition of those who offer them doesn't matter to me either. There are millions, if not billions, of theists far more intelligent and educated than myself.


I've asked highly educated Catholic theologians why god permits "evil" and suffering.


The general consensus among them is that god permits evil/suffering in order to bring about a "greater good".



So what we appear to have here is a cosmic utilitarian....a Jeremy Bentham writ large.

NOT an omnipotent and omnibenevolent god.....a being with both those qualities would neither need nor desire evil/suffering to bring about a "greater good".

What do we NEED evil/suffering for in the first place?.....It seems like alot of people (many atheists included) think life would be boring and empty without both. This seems to stem from lack of imagination.....I can think of an infinite number of "goods" and pleasures I would never grow weary of.

Now SOME suffering might be good and useful considering we are egotistical creatures who like to conquer things like Mt. Everest and Calculus II so we can feel good about ourselves and be proud of what we've accomplished.


Ultimately even these things hold no value in ACTUALITY to a determinist like myself since Sir Edmond Hillary and Issac Newton have only nature and nurture to thank. Human emotions care little for the rational and actual though.




So until if and when humanity no longer needs accomplishment and challenge in order to feel good about itself.....many will willingly suffer altitude sickness on the slopes of Everest or sweat blood trying to grasp Quadric surfaces.

There's nothing wrong with any of this really and Calculus, at least, obviously serves more of a good purpose then mere accomplishment and challenge alone.

So to be clear....i'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing to be egotistical. It's just part of the human condition often enough and it has both positive and negative aspects. Therefore the type of suffering i'm referring to can be viewed as positive and life-affirming suffering which truly does bring about a greater good for many of us.

But what "greater good" REALLY comes from the holocaust and serial killers?


The state of Israel and entertaining television shows like "Criminal Minds"?

I wonder if the victims would consider these things "greater goods"?


So idk.....maybe god can be forgiven for SOME of the sufferings he permits since many of us know no greater pleasure than self-overcoming.


I'm just not willing to give him a pass when it comes to things/people like the holocaust and serial killers.

NO good that has ever come from either is worth the sufferings of the victims IMO.

There is no such thing as a "guranteed fact"....in science or anywhere else.

We certainly understand the universe and it's formation better than we did 200 years ago. Everything you've stated here is just a classic "god in the gaps" argument.

So long as science and the limits of human reason can't answer every single question about life/the universe/the ultimate origins of both with 100% certitude...someone will always try to insert god in the gaps. No offense to you Glider18....I have read many of your posts and you seem like an exceptionally kind, intelligent, talented and well-meaning person even though I don't share your religious beliefs. That said.....this "god in the gaps" line of reasoning has always struck me as an argument born out of desperation. This is just me being honest and i'm afraid I can't help that.





Now if you're referring to the Big Bang theory, the germ theory of disease, the theory of evolution, etc......


"In the sciences, a scientific theory (also called an empirical theory) comprises a collection of concepts, including abstractions of observable phenomena expressed as quantifiable properties, together with rules (called scientific laws) that express relationships between observations of such concepts. A scientific theory is constructed to conform to available empirical data about such observations, and is put forth as a principle or body of principles for explaining a class of phenomena.[1]

A scientific theory is a type of deductive theory, in that its content (i.e. empirical data) could be expressed within some formal system of logic whose elementary rules (i.e. scientific laws) are taken as axioms. In a deductive theory, any sentence which is a logical consequence of one or more of the axioms is also a sentence of that theory.[2]

In the humanities, one finds theories whose subject matter does not (only) concern empirical data, but rather ideas. Such theories are in the realm of philosophical theories as contrasted with scientific theories. A philosophical theory is not necessarily scientifically testable through experiment"



God is nothing more than a philosophical theory.....and yes.... a bad one IMO.





If you ever decide to venture into The "Democratic" republic of the Congo....it might be a good idea to get an RX for Mefloquine (or some other anti-malarial) and start taking it about a week or two prior to your arrival.




In this case.....i'm willing to bet the Germ Theory of Disease would start looking like something close to a "guaranteed fact" to you.

And if somehow the stakes were equally high for you....so would the other aforementioned scientific theories.


I really hope i'm not coming across as nasty or arrogant.....I just think you're expecting something from science and human reason neither can deliver.

I'm too lazy.....it's a bit easier for god to come to me since he's omnipresent

All very true.....but for reasons I won't get into here and now I think even many self-proclaimed believers are atheists-in-denial these days.


George W. Bush may be an example of a closet atheist.

I'm a Christian.
I think many people with AS don't believe in God because they have a concrete thinking and would rather have facts than theories.

Wanna know the best argument against all the various types of godbeing/creators though?


The Universe is not a process which was set off like a chain of dominos, it is a 4 Dimensional structure existing in a completed form which spans what we like to wrongly call "the big bang" to the far end of time.


Time is a direction within that structure, it is not something that happens, nor is it something which happened TO it, which raises ridiculous questions like what sort of meta-time was there "before" time?

Sorry folks, it doesn't need a creator, it exists because it is logically consistent, and thus must be expressed against all the other potentialities contained within what we sorta call mathematics.

yes! that's exactly my thinking.

i don't see why god didn't just create heaven and nothing else.

Because he wanted to create humans, not pre-programmed robots.

I believe in God, and my beliefs lean towards Christianity.

Edit: This is just an observation, but has anyone else noticed that on the internet, if there is a religious debate some of the Athiests believe they're superior because they don't believe in god, some of the Believers think they're superior because they DO believe in god, and some of the agnostics think they're superior because they don't go either way?

Of course, this doesn't apply to everyone or even most people with these belief system, just the most... fundamentalist ones, if you will. I wonder why this happens with some people...