Aspergers and Religion

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From what I can tell, aspies fall into one of two camps in regards to religion: they either disregard it and see it to be total bull (sometimes to the point of being quite intensely against anyone else believing religion as well), or they become totally obsessed with it to the point where it's one of their special interests. While I'm sure there's some that fall somewhere inbetween, these seem to be the minority.

I think I fall somewhere in between. I believe in Judaism, and most of the stuff written in the Torah. I've also traveled to Israel for religious reasons. At the same time, I don't follow most of the formal laws and rituals, and the Reform Judiasm doesn't strictly require it to begin with. When I was growing up, I pretty much had a choice between Judaism and Orthodox Christianity, due to the environment I was growing up in. I ended up sticking with Judaism, after I took a really interesting class about Israel (it also motivated me to travel there).

I'm not one or the other, and I'm not inbetween ... I'm both!! !

I'm an atheist - but the history and origins of religion fascinate me deeply. I really get into religion, but more like a historian or anthropologist would, rather than a believer.

how can we sustain a relationship with an all powerfull immortal being if we can hardly have one with a mortal human

I consider religion to be absolute bull, but the philosophy of the religion has some interesting points. I am familiar with Buddhism because I was born into it, and it has some interesting concepts like the middle way. Some of the Buddha's teaching hold meaning too. I would have been a Buddhist if it wasn't for the rebirth bull, tho (I am an atheist).

Great question, I share the sentiment. However; I have never been able to take the step to "religion is bull". How does anyone know for sure, one way or the other, how can an anyone be so certain; is that Aspie?

If someone believes in something and that belief makes them a better happier person, is it really relevant whether that belief is true or false. If someone is dieing in great pain yet they bear it with a smile on there face because they think they will go to heaven, does it actually make any difference if they go to heaven or not?

Religion seems to be the cause of most wars, but also the cause of development and society as we know it today.

In someway I wish I was a Christian but my mind is to argumentative to surrender to something that is inherently flawed and illogical..

Well, logic definitely includes imaginative leaps as abductive logic, i.e. inferring a possible hypothesis to explain a state of affairs. The kind of stuff detectives do when they suddenly discover that all the evidence and clues would be explained if the butler murdered the lord of the manor. I definitely don't think aspies in general are any less capable of this than any others, as it is the most common day-to-day type of logical reasoning. It's nonetheless always a "leap" and very unreliable - but deduction/induction basically only exist as "checks" on abduction.

Entertaining "God" as an explanatory hypothesis for the state of affairs in our world (existence of mind, existence of order/natural laws in our universe) is just the same, really. It's just a bigger "leap".

However, the problem for me is that I "believe" in God in that I regard the existence of a Divine Being as a very plausible hypothesis. I can also see the point of religious ritual, organized religion, etc. But I am not sure if I have any "faith" as such. In fact, I am not sure if the term "faith" really makes any sense to me.

Can you be certain that there are no leprechauns? I know I can't disprove the existance of leprechauns but I still think they are bull.

*Nods* That's me to a T. I simply cannot be religious, because it's just too... illogical. I'm just the kind of person who analyses everything and needs solid proof. I've been told I'm _too_ logical in my thinking, but that's just the way I am. To me, believing in God is no more rational than believing in the Flying Spaghetti Monster (and I affiliate with FSM because the ironic sentiment is super). There are so many fallacies, so many contradictions, so much that _doesn't make sense_ in the Bible and in the belief in God... I just can't bring myself to look at it seriously at all. I do not discount the possibility of a higher being (or beings) completely - after all, the notion of the Universe coming from nothing, or from two stray particles, is just as fantastical as believing a God created it (and where did this God comes from anyway? He's been around forever? Well, so could the Universe have been, then, so why does God have to have created it?). But I certainly do not believe in any specific God, and consider myself to be athiest, even if a tiny part of me remains agnostic about 'higher powers' of any sort.

I cannot disprove or prove anything. A teacher I had in the 8th grade once said there are only two certainties in life, two things that each of us have to do; they are to die and to pay your taxes.

I cannot prove "the big bang" theory; did life begin from a single celled organism that evolved to mutil-celled animal and then climbs out of the primordial soup? That seems as logical as anything, but I can't "believe" it is the absolute truth.

Our whole family are born again Christian, Baptists to be exact. my husband is a preacher(the fire and brimstone type). Church is the only place my son can go and get treated exactly like everyone else. If it wasn't for our faith we would have not been able to get through all the stuff we have went through. Our son is pretty grounded in his faith and sometime that is something that separates him from kids his age because he doesn't drink. So he takes a lot of trash talk from guys he works with for that reason and I am so proud he does not cave to the pressure just to make friends.

I strongly believe in God personally, but i believe religion is created by humans and is thus greatly flawed and imperfect. I'm interested in religions though. I like to watch documentaries about Bible research. I wasn't raised to be anything but i went to a Lutheran elementary school for 5 years. I think that was a good healthy dose; just enough.

It's pretty much how I feel, too. A huge part of me keeps pointing out dryly 'Well, if he's so all-powerful, why did polytheism show up so late in mythological history and when it finally did show up, why did it take so long to spread? Can't he even keep his own Chosen People from getting screwed over?" I like FSM; it amuses me. So does the Invisible Pink Unicorn thing.

Science isn't really about absolute truths. It's about models that predict the phenomena around us.

Yes, well, but the Big Bang has been proven as solidly as anything can be in science, so we pretty much _know_ that the Universe hasn't been around forever. The thing is that it does seem to be the case that time emerged only _with_ the Big Bang, or emerged from a dimension from space "after" the Big Bang. And cause/effect relationships are necessarily located in time. Which means that on the one hand, we cannot sensibly say that the Big Bang/Universe has been caused by anything. In the normal meaning of causation, that is. On the other hand, it means that the "who caused God?" objection to religion is unsensible.

I think our metaphors lead us astray here. We're so used to thinking about stuff in terms of this thing causing that thing to happen - with space and time being a given. When speaking about the Universe, or God, all that falls to pieces.

I think that also means that the very traditional, dogmatic idea of Creation (God creating everything in more or less exactly six days) makes no sense. I like to think in terms of the Universe being a property of God, or perhaps under some kind of continuous process of creation.

But then, the whole question-and-answer game "How did the Universe come about? God." fails as a justification of religion. Why would anyone think that God exists? My provisional answer would be that the Universe is understandable, rational, and in some ways very beautiful - and that this points to the existence of an underlying entity that is rational and beautiful.