Christian, Faith-Based View of Parenting Kids with Autism

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OK, I know I am jumping way back in the conversation here. But I told you that you'd given me good food for thought and that I would think about it, and I have been doing just that. The above comment is the one that sticks with me over all, and here is the question that springs up for me:

How can something be proven as fact? Where, exactly, is the line between something one person believes and something that can be "proven"? If I tell you I had a dream last night, that is a fact. But I can't really prove it to you. Nobody else can touch it or see it.

While I respect that truth is very important (and that is why I am always qualifying most of what I say to my kids with "maybe" and "this is our plan i everything works the way we want it to", etc.) part of our job as parents is preparing our children for the real world, and in the real world people have a lot of different viewpoints. That's an important thing for our kids to understand, and it isn't something that comes naturally for most people on the spectrum.

Raising kids in a fundamentalist household where it is demanded that they say and do certain things in order to fufill the requirements of a religion is one thing. A parent having faith in God and telling her children that she does and why, yet explaining that not everyone believes what she does is another thing all together.

My son is similar. Somehow he "knows" there is a God. I don't think he sees God in the way most Christians would describe it, but it is something he instinctively knows and understands. God exists. It isn't illogical to him; it just is. And ... I'm not going to take credit for making it that way. I think teaching him about God simply put a name to something he already knew.

Don't you think that the definition of God is where the disagreement mostly lies? Like, I define God as the one source. I do not define God as some guy with a beard who bestows touchdowns to the "right" football team, or damns to hell all people who find a different path to God.

I know that no human could possibly stop the waves in the ocean or create the mountains in Yosemite. It is fact. This is not subjective. There must be something that is larger than human which caused this stuff to be. My personal belief is that source resides in all living things, maybe it is even science - I don't know what it is, but I know it is bigger than any one of us.

Now, when we start talking about the bible as literal and fact, I think that most AS people are going to run into trouble. It is not logical or factual.

So personally, I think that the religions may be difficult for people to work their minds around, because some of that really doesn't make sense. But, the overall concept of God- I don't think is hard to wrap my literal mind around. Religions are man's interpretations of God. Well, we know that man screws things up all the time - so who it to know what is what? There have been many great teachers throughout history. Unfortunately many people have taken their words and used them to control others. I don't think that was the original intent.

With respect to my children, we talk about how all religions are just different paths to God. They all have in common the desire to better the world and be good people. My NT 15 year old tells me he's an athiest, but at the same time also agrees that there is something bigger than human at work in the universe. We study all of the great teachers and religions and can see the common good. I prefer to ignore the parts that I find non-sensical.

I think I started having issues with Bible teachings when I was about 4. I never believed it even though my own mother was a Sunday school teacher and I had to continue going to church and Bible study for many years there after. I also saw spirits in my home when I was a young child, most of them were not nice.

both dreams and wind are quantifiable. you can measure brain activity during sleep, you measure wind with an anemometer. while we cant prove right now that you, yourself, had a dream last night, or that the wind was blowing at 30 knots at my house yesterday, we can prove the existence of dreams and wind. you cannot, however, prove the existence of non-physical beings such as gods and ghosts. that, exactly, is where the line is between those things. provable, not provable. but whether one individual believes in something has nothing to do with, and is not equatable to, whether that something can be proven. there is no line there because belief and provability are not even on the same page.

i have to say, this is one of THE MOST frustrating things as an atheist. like having someone say to you, "god loves you", and you respond with, "i dont believe in god", and then they pat you on the head and condescendingly say, "he loves you anyway." it makes me want to scream at the top of my lungs, "NO, HE DOESNT. HE CANT LOVE ANYONE. HE DOESNT EXIST."

if someone wants to believe in god, thats fine by me and they have the right to whatever they want to believe. i just find it frustrating when they insist on pushing it upon me and my person, and its annoying that people often dont even believe or see that that is what they are doing. religion is pervasive, its everywhere, you cant get away from it. i cant even raise my kids with the belief system i choose, because the pervasiveness of religion requires me to talk about religion regularly. they get exposed to it at school, watching tv, going to the grocery store. sometimes the pervasiveness of it all makes me want to creep through the mall parking lot prying jesus fish off the cars.

i dont see my son as "a gift". i see him as the result of biology, the being created by fusion of sperm and egg. i am SO happy to have him and am glad he is who he is, but no one gave him to me. my SO and i made him ourselves, mostly me but i like to give my SO credit too, since his part was vital even tho short-lived =P we did an excellent job!

i have been atheist most of my adult life, and i believe in the inherent goodness of man. i believe most people are decent, they are not evil, or at least we start out neutral. its the things we are taught or learn that make a lot of people do bad acts. unfortunately, one of those things is often religion. millions of people have been killed in the name of religion. if thats what having god in your heart does, i certainly dont want it in there =)

i will warn the op against creating threads like this in some of the other forums. it would be chum and you would be eaten alive. the parenting forum is usually more accepting and docile tho. i did warn my SO to stay out of the thread tho, as one of his special interests is atheism/skepticism. i only foam at the mouth a little bit on these debates, but he becomes a raving lunatic. and now, i am off to the mall!

This is precisely my philosophy as well. I often wonder what my son will grow to believe. Upon hearing the Christian belief of the resurrection of Jesus, his instant response was "but that's impossible." I see no point or benefit to pushing an ideology on my child that goes against his own sense and natural understanding. Instead, we focus on the good teachings and how they relate his world.

I like the idea of teaching children about different religions in an academic sense. It's important for having an understanding of others and I don't think we do it enough. Teaching is often the best defense against ignorance.

It's half proof, half pragmatics. I know there's an ultimate good too vast for my comprehension with which I connect when I study the Bible or pray. And there's a powerful force that's my enemy as well.

It's reasonable to assume from that that Christianity is right. Not certain, but reasonable. And if something else is true, I'd have to be guessing what's wanted of me, etc. I don't want to face every demon to know to avoid it. I don't want to figure out what prayer is through trial and error. There's no reason to gamble with my soul. This is working. Pretty sure I'm right.

Belief in no gods is just as illogical as belief in God(s). Agnosticism is logical. I accept that I don't know. I can only be the best me I can be and hope that's good enough.

I'm sorry, I don't want to get into the fray here but....that's not a reasonable assumption. A greater good can exist outside of Christianity. Christianity in and of itself goes way beyond a greater good---it demands a belief in an immaculate conception and a belief in the father, the son, and the holy spirit. A greater good can exist and does not reasonably assume or lead to a belief in all that Christianity holds as true.

A belief in A greater good can exist in just about every religion out there.

I think the primary problem in all debates about the existence of god is that first you have to define what god is/means. Only then can you debate it within reason.

I didn't just say "a greater good." I said "an ultimate good too vast for my comprehension with which I connect when I study the Bible or pray." And mostly the former, at that. Indicating it is in some way inextricably linked to the Bible (New and Old Testaments equally). Every version. I've tried it with at least one (that I recall off the top of my head) non-Christian Holy Book and it was NOT the same.

...for you. Others can and do hold different opinions.

there are hundreds of distinct large religious groups, and up to tens of thousands of smaller individual religious groups worldwide, and the one thing they all have in common is that they all think they are right. common sense dictates that a whole lot of them would have to be wrong. who is to say which ones?

a lot of people do have a firm belief in one religion or another and they often confuse their opinion with fact or proof. but i could just as easily say that the FSM is the one true religion because i get a warm, fulfilled feeling inside when my head is bent over the offering plate and i am slurping up the saucy noodly goodness. but thats just opinion, not fact or proof, and no more provable or disprovable than any other religion out there. just because i personally believe it is so doesnt make it so. same goes for all religions and all believers.

that reminds me, i meant to get my SO a FSM car "fish" for christmas. off to amazon i go.

There's a bunch I want to say to that, but I've gone far enough toward opening that can of worms.

I'll be heading right over to check your new blog out. Both my son and me and aspies and we are Christian.