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

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Anyone who actually is autisitic has a genetically different brain. This allows us to figure out that religion is stupid and BS.
A lot of people who have Aspergers and claim to be religious either haven't done enough or research or are misdiagosed, they have something such as Schzoid Personality Disorder.

Whoa--ha ha...I am a religious scholar of sorts, having done 'aeons' of hard core sorting, though "consider the lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin (the actual word that was translated as "spin" being "card," meaning to remove impurities from wool), and my brain is very whoo-ha genetically different:-) On one level I could be happy as a clam in any kind of church synagogue, mosque or Buddhist or Hindu temple--however I have better things to do than hanging with people who take symbolism literally....and the world can be like a temple if a person remembers to approach from that angle (not so easy)...,,and also, there is always personal and group inquiry, so learning....

Many people, autistic or not, are able to figure out that various material which is obviously intended to be allegorical is not literally true. The problem is, especially when a religion is in some ways poorly designed, that fundamentalism kind of tends to take over, but this can happen in science, too,

The concept of God, Allah or the Buddha of of deities, etc means different things to different people according to their individual capacity to process data comprehensively, so people who tend to take such material literally will likely believe in a primal cause and that an agent of such a cause exists independently on its own side outside of themselves and their own sensory functioning, which, in short, makes no sense:-) There are logical arguments, such as given in Buddhism, which dispute this, and I think many educated Christians also do not believe in an external primal cause, but the idea of God is to them more comprehensive, interconnected with their own brain function and deep inner emotional experience.....

LittleBee, I'm sure you'll appreciate the following then:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk[/youtube]

I agree. I experienced much more anxiety when I was religious than I do now.

<--- Doesn't like to be preached to.

That is very kind of you to say, Little Bee...

It was a sentence that describes a longer thought, at this link:

http://katiemiaaghogday.blogspot.com/20 ... ngels.html

I appreciate! Awesome!

That made me think. Maybe that is a sign that I don't connect language to emotions. I've never done poetry, never liked it, and a lot of times if I'm reading a book with poetry or a song in it I just skip over that part. I just never really understood poetry.

@hanyo, I'm very picky about poetry. I don't like overly flowery poetry. My favourite poet is Walt Whitman because his poems are very straightforward and visceral. I also love e e cummings because his style is so unique. He makes up his own words and uses them in strange ways.

"I Celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil,
this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and
their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death."

-- Walt Whitman

"what if a dawn of a doom of a dream
bites this universe in two,
peels forever out of his grave
and sprinkles nowhere with me and you?
Blow soon to never and never to twice
(blow life to isn't: blow death to was)
—all nothing's only our hugest home;
the most who die, the more we live"

-- e.e. cummings

I grew up as a fundamentalist baptist. I was born again and the pastor loved my determination and vigor for religion. I was loyal to god and the church.

When I turned 12, I started seeing the number of contradictions and messages I did not agree with in The Bible. They were so great, they overwhelmed my desire to be close to god.

By the time I was 13, I stopped believing in the church and religion itself. Since then, I have never seen the point of religion and felt it was nonsensical to believe.

Technically, I am an agnostic atheist. I do not believe in any god. That's not to say I haven't looked for it at some point or another on toast, hair shavings, side of buildings. It not possible for me to rule in or rule out its existence.

If I were inclined to be religious:

In ancient Greece, I would have believed in Zeus...
In ancient Rome, I would have believed in Jupiter...
If I were a Viking, I would have believed in Odin...
If I were an Aztec, I would have more gods than I could have shaken a stick at...

I grew up under the yoke of Christianity...
I was a committed Christian...
I should have simply been committed...
After 2 decades, I broke the chains of theist slavery and have never looked back...

Aspies tend to be more introverted, rational, objective, self honest, more independent...
These are not the best qualities if one is to become a dedicated theist...

The stuff I write, is 'too deep' for my family to read. I have found very few people to relate to it, in 'real' life...

My mother writes the "flower" poetry. It is a type of poetry I will skip right over too. The emotional words feel 'sticky' to me, as well.

When I was 37, I felt exactly how Walt Whitman described his life at that point. I was the blade of grass. That is all.

I just couldn't put it into words...

Too busy listening...

But...

Your writing...
still has
the melody...
of 'a'
poet...

I consider myself religious. I was raised in a religious home and got it ingrained somewhat early on, although I wouldn't say my beliefs are aligned perfectly with my parents. Christianity is comforting to me. It tells me that everything happens for a reason and that no matter what, everything's going to be all right in the end. The only people I talk to right now are God and the people at my church so it also keeps me from isolating myself entirely which I've wanted to do before.

^^^^ I suspect a lot of people have your functional view of religion. They might not explicitly state "religion = community and I don't actually believe in god". However, that's how they live their lives.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying YOU (Drone) don't believe in god but it sounds like it's a very functional thing for you. I could do with the function of community some days too.

Small irrelevant rant follows:

My brother-in-law is one of those religion as community people. I can tell because while he goes to church every week he sleeps through half the service and lives his life like a hedonist. Not that I'm knocking hedonism (which is essentially Satanism for those who practice it but don't believe in a literal Satan). I'm more knocking the fact that he's a conservative religious dude (gay marriage is bad, you should go to church every week, pray at every meal and get married and have kids before you're 22) and screws around on my sister, bullies his kids, drinks heavily, goes to strip clubs,etc. Then again, he has the IQ of a gnat, which would be fine, if he had some other redeeming qualities. The disjunction aggravates the heck out of me. I'd be fine with it if he was honest about who he was.

End of irrelevant rant

An infinite universe quite literally leaves the possibility of quite literally anything happening within the laws of physics, and the big bang is just a theory (for all we know it could have been a big squiggle). XD

I'm a Pagan, so I believe in Gods and other things, but at the same time I acknowledge science. Because most pagans aren't bound by dogma and are free to develop their own beliefs, most have beliefs that do not contradict science.