Questioning

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How many of you have a tendency to question everything? I do and it annoys the heck out of everyone.

Yes, I do that a lot. My Grandma finds it quite irritating, I think.

My old boss would always act like he was going to strangle me when I asked questions but he always took the time answer them then he would do the same thing to me when I was done with my work to get back at me or he would stand too close to me on purpose as a joke. It was funny he said he would wate for my nervous giggle if he did not hear me laughing he would get out my reach since I was 2x his size.

I've gotten myself into loads of trouble for this and have been accused of being manipulative or arrogant and all the while I never understood why
My teachers were also always very annoyed with my questions. They didn't understand that I asked so many because I had no self confidence because of my forgetfulness.

I do. I demand evidence for almost everything that i do not know about and that need to be determined because it carries significance for other matters. I have NT friends who are the same.

People who throw terms around and speculate on significant matters without defining things - or use the word "God created it in that way" i categorise as idiots.

Ive got to know everything, esp when it comes to whenever im trying to communicate with other. If i dont, i tend to jump to wrong conclusions about things or go on a completely different line of thinking. Due to that..sometimes my questions can be quite inapprioprate or not what a neurotypical person would ask. i have to keep checking things

Like i said inanother thread, i cant deal with cognitve dissonance like NTs can, so I havve to be sure what is being said is not in conflict with what I hold as true beefore i can let it in. Try doing this in a staunch catholic household, it F'd me up bad. The pervert priest actually got me to stop questioning some things and 26 years later im still trying to deal with the dissonance this created in me. With all my other problems theres little wonder why i need time alone to sort things out. I'll also mention again that a lot of this comes from us "building the whole picture from the details" whereas NTs "observe and determine the details from a more vague impression of the whole picture"

Wow, I absolutely do that as well. Growing up in a Christian household did me a lot of harm too.

I don't, at least not to the person's face - I was raised that it is very rude to ask questions. If I don't agree with something, I just do it how I wanted to, and let the person save face. Questioning people can embarrass them.

Embarrass them? Tough s**t! I am embarrassed every day of my life. I deal with, I get over it. If I couldn't I'd have to lock myself up in the house 24/7!

There is NOTHING on this earth that is above questioning. There is nothing or no one that doesn't deserve an explanation. And if you can't provide an explanation for what you're saying, then it's just opinion, and has no meaning other than to shed light upon your character (and that can be good or bad, dependent upon what the person is saying)

Maybe that is why I'm not the most talkative person in the world, I don't really feel I have a right to get involved in a subject or conversation where I don't have what I consider "sufficient expertise." Luckily I don't expect other's to follow my values, so I don't fault a person for not being able to back up what they claim... I just look at what they claim, and as a result I've learned something about THEM, as opposed to something about what they were talking about.

It's just a different culture - a whole set of considerations that are different than the western ones. From my perspective (the Hawaiian one) asking someone lots of questions is bad form and is considered terribly arrogant. There is a place for questions, and within the western construct, it's fine. I still believe being considerate of others is good manners though, regardless of the culture. Just because one is embarrassed doesn't mean the best course of action is to make sure others are, too.

The intention behind questioning also has to be considered. If one is simply impatient, well, then, patience would better serve the questioner probably in more situations than just the situation at hand. If the purpose is to expose the other's folly, then that might better call for a well thought out discussion/argument (in the true sense of the word - premises, conclusions, etc.) and consideration on the part of the questioner as to what his or her true intention is. If it is to prove a point, then the issue is the point and logic should be used, but if it is only to see the other person somehow degraded or proven less than then that is an attack on the person rather than the issue and really not an honorable course of action at all.


I agree with you. It is the method of questioning and investigation which differs, not the importance of questioning and investigation in and of themselves. In fact, the Hawaiian model (which is similar to many Asian ones) encourages thought and observation on the part of the questioner and discourages displays of ignorance, arrogance and otherwise drawing attention to oneself.

Questioning, to an extent especially when you are young, is natural, and often appropriate.

When it gets to the point of questioning something you're told to do though, and it's taken to extremes, it amount to a lack of trust. If you've been given answers, but the answers just don't satisfy you, then it can just be a lack of trust, especially when questioning your parents and other family members. At some point, it just gets to be too much.

Some questions are good. Some are not.

Here's an example of the latter. A guy finishes giving a speech, then opens the floor for questions. There are five thousand people in the audience.

"I'm opening the floor to questions now, but I want you all to keep something in mind. You've heard there is no such thing as a stupid question, but I'm here to tell you, YES THERE IS!"

There's a man at my clubhouse, who has AS, who questions everything. I think that he does it, because he doesn't know what to talk about.

I ask questions all the time. Is it somehow rude? I don't know things and the rest of the world does. That seems rude to me.

I think that stupid questions are quite rare.......the only ones I can think of are along the lines of "given the dinosauric philanthropy inherent in the future wax cylinder contingent, what is the square root of the main intentions of the archetypical yellow rabbit in an otherwise cyclical universe?" But as long as the question makes sense, to me it's not stupid. A lot of the objections seem to be about wasting time because "you should have known the answer." Crap. If you've asked a question it's because you don't know the answer (unless you're just messing about), and if you don't know the answer, it's probably because nobody told you yet.

I think it's always healthy to question anything, to challenge and confront the conclusions that so many people jump to without proper critical analysis. Sure it'll annoy some people, because they just want to crack on without checking out their assumptions. Like politicians and managers, they just want to drive through their agenda, and without the right to highlight the error of their ways, the only method left to check them is to use violence.

I accept that there's a time and place for questioning. If a religious person was dying and they said they could cope with it because they knew they were going to heaven, I wouldn't wade in with "how do you know that for sure though?" Time was when I'd have done exactly that

Sometimes people really do have to just crack on and commit to an idea even though it's not been rigorously tested, and they'll often psyche themselves up by going into denial about the possibility of being wrong, like all those England football supporters who insisted we had a chance in the World Cup. I can't relate to that kind of behaviour, because I never try to pretend that a thing will work when I know there's a risk it won't, and I'm happy to just try things out in full knowledge of the risks......so I suppose these other people are just using self-delusion as a substitute for courage. But I wouldn't try to take their method away from them. I just try to nod along with them instead, which keeps the peace better, but also makes me feel rather distant from them, because I'm not sharing my true opinions with them about something that matters to them a great deal - what kind of friend is that?