Religion (or lack thereof) and Autism/Asperger's?

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Agnostic Buddhist

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... google.com

Wait? How? Did you even consider how it might be possible through natural process?

No no. Anyone can be properly amazed by science. It's just religion gives convenient humano-centric answers to existence and some form of higher purpose. As for emotions, I feel tonnes of emotions. I think the main draw for us, and indeed anyone, is what fits the facts. If it doesn't fit what we think seems the case then we wont give it the time of day.

Unfortunately, that study doesnt seem to actually exist. Neither of the researchers mentioned have written anything about Asperger Syndrome, nor have they co-written anything. And searches by keywords related to the article's topic turned up absolutely nothing. All I found was the Bering (one of the supposed authors) has done research on teleological thinking in NT children and found that it was correlated with development of theory of mind.



Common misconception - people back then could live well into their 60s and 70s, and some into their 80s. The 'average lifespan' was dragged down by the enormously high rate of infant mortality - if you lived to the age of 5 your life expectancy was only slightly lower than it is now.

And I've heard my father's relatives tell stories about relatives (who I know they actually met) that diverged just as much. For example, my great-grandfather's head was crooked - like he was always tilting his head to one side. Some family members say he was born that way, others claim he got kicked by a horse as a young adult. People's memories can be surprisingly inaccurate.



To me, the idea of a Christian-style God is terrifying. Someone who wants to tell me what to do, who has absolute power over me, and has shown Himself willing to destroy entire cities in order to ensure obediance. The only way I could stand the thought of a being as powerful as God existing is if said being had absolutely no interest in humans.



Empathy. In the 'not being a psychopath' sense.

I do not want to cause harm to others. Therefore, when I realize my actions have caused harm, I feel guilty and resolve to do better. And if an action would personally gain me but cause greater harm to another person, I consider it wrong.

Stealing deprives other people of possessions, and makes people feel less safe. Killing deprives people of life, which is the most basic right. Cheating on your wife betrays her trust in you, which causes emotional pain and makes her feel less safe.

You don't need some cosmic authority figure to tell you that hurting people is wrong, all you need is to care about others.



Almost every case where pregnancy threatens the life of the mother, the fetus has little or chance of survival anyway. Death of a pregnant woman generally kills the fetus.

Mother's life in danger is the only situation where I think abortion is justified, because the kid generally has no chance anyway. And if they do (eg mother needs chemotherapy but it'll kill the baby), I don't see a reason for picking one over the other, so I'm pro-choice in those cases. It should depend on the individual and their situation - eg whether there are other children who'd be traumatized by losing their mother, whether the mother is willing to give her life for her unborn child, what the probability is of survival if she does or doesn't abort, who will care for the child if the child isn't aborted, etc.



Then if you cause a child to have a disability, is that murder too? The parents (usually) expected and wanted a non-disabled child and that was taken away from them.

Or if you made someone infertile, would that be killing the 2 children they dreamed of having someday?

As an aside, I think that notion of emathy in the "non being a psychopath" sense might be a useful addition to the threads about empathy.

When I was a child I was VERY devout. Sunday school every week, reading the bible every night. Then I asked a simple question of the pastor. I asked him if my uncle(who was at the time a wiccan) was going to go to heaven. He said no. My uncle is a wonderful, caring man and the only positive male in my life after my father abandoned the family. I could not accept that he would burn in hell for all eternity for simply following another religion. After that, I molded my religion to fit my beliefs. About 5 years later, I was casually reading the obituary section of the local paper(why not, I'd bought the whole thing) when I saw a classmate. Rachel was my age and had gone through an amazing ordeal. When she was 10, a drunk driver ran her down at over 90mph. She spent a month in a coma and took several years to fully recover. I read she'd died in her sleep next to her fiancee. I was extremely angry that god would allow her to suffer for years after her accident, only to kill her after she'd recovered and was on her way to a happy life. Finally I entered college and had several debates with atheists who pointed out all the logical fallacies and contradictions in religion and I could no longer ignore what they said. I am now quite happy as an atheist and for anyone who thinks otherwise, I'd recommend looking into the logic behind the bible. You'll find it simply doesn't make sense.

Paganism works pretty well for me, actually. The way I think of it, The Divine created the rules that keep the multiverse functioning, then let it go. And poof, here we are, billions of years later. While I worship the Divine and think of Her as a Mother, I also know She created a world that I have to explore on my own, and that has more facets and knowledge and sheer possibility than I could ever understand.

I'm glad your path works for you, though--I hope you find joy and enlightenment on it.

Totally Atheist myself.

I'm Agnostic. I don't know what happens after we die. I don't believe that the bible or any religion dictates what will happen to you. I believe that people made those things up as a way to feel less scared about dying. If there is some kind of God or who knows what out there, I don't believe it'll be anything like in the bible. My dad is a Seventh Day Adventist Christian and my mum is an Athiest. I was raised mostly Athiest although my mum let me go to church with friends when I was growing up so I experienced some different faiths.

I was raised in a very religious environment, however I couldn't make sense out of any number of religious things.

Questions like: How does one know that one actually believes/has faith? How does one know that one is actually contrite? How does one know that one has 'forgiven' someone else? It would have been good to have a religious biofeedback device that could have given this information. Others instinctively appeared to know these things, but I had no concept of them.

Eventually, I encountered arguments showing that the Bible has inconsistencies. I also read the logical arguments for atheism, and they made sense.

I'm an atheist. My family are atheists but I tried to be religious for a few years when I was very ill. Once I got better I realised I was only interested in religion from an academic perspective and that I didn't really "believe", I just wanted to have something to hold on to during that time.

I was raised in the LDS church but started identifying as atheist by age twelve. I guess you could say I'm an agnostic atheist because I think that while certain things cannot be proven or disproven, the likelihood of their existence means that I essentially regard them as not existing.

Traditional Roman Catholic (convert). I'm not your traditional Traditional Catholic though, and yes, I know that sounds rather contradictory. I tend to not agree with anyone completely, so liberals often think of me as a conservative idiot, since I adhere to dogma and prefer the traditional liturgy, and conservatives sometimes think of me as a liberal idiot, because my interpretation of dogma on some points is a bit non-standard, even though I would claim my understanding to be within orthodoxy. I also don't subscribe to every teaching that is not declared dogma. Contrary to popular belief, dogma constitutes a very small part of Catholic teaching. I guess I fall within the "moderate" label (if any at all), which makes me a minority within my own faith, but at least I'm not completely alone. And the fun part of being in that minority is that we all disagree on some point or another, and most that I know like to debate on friendly terms.

Also, my faith is close to purely "fact"-based (as far as anything evidence-transcendent can be called "fact"), and systematic. I also don't subscribe to dogma because was told to (blindly), but after careful discernment and analysis. I'm allergic to emotional/charismatic religion, be it within Catholicism, Protestantism, or non-Christian. I also strongly believe that science and theology belong to different domains, due to methodology. Empiric science is just as unable to determine whether God (or even the world itself, for that sake) exists, as theology would be to determine how our species came to be biologically. Science is also unable to say anything about morals, as that belongs to the domain of philosophy and/or science. Extending a particular science (in the broad meaning of the term) beyond its natural/logical limits is dangerous, be it natural sciences, theology or anything else.

I'm a Christian. I used to go to church, but it seems like every church I've been to I've disliked. Baptist churches seem to make the most sense to me.

athiest here!

My father's side of the family is baptist and my mother's is catholic.

My parents never talked to me about religion, they let me figure out my own beliefs. They don't go to church The only times I went to church was when we visited family in Arkansas, and that was only a few times a year. My fathers side of the family is VERY religious, yet my father isn't. I think that was the main reason I always felt quite uncomfortable every time we went to visit.

Up until I was around 15 years old, I could have been described as agnostic. I started reading a lot about science, astronomy, biology and evolution. I started learning how things can appear to be "designed" but actually form by natural processes and natural selection. I pretty much came to the conclusion that this universe is so vast and amazing by itself, who needs God?

I highly recommend Richard Dawkins's books:
The Blind Watchmaker and The God Delusion

ancient aliens makes sense to me.