does your AS have any effect on your religious views?

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There may have already been a topic about this but I could not find it...

Basically I was wondering if there are any people here whose AS partly decided their religious point of view. From experience with other OCD sufferers (I have both OCD and AS) some people became more fanatically religious as they found their love for god had become something to hold on to while going through a tough period in life ; other sufferers rejected their religion because they felt no good god would ever let them go through a disorder like OCD for a reason. A third group of sufferers had their own view (some atheist and some believers) without their OCD having had any effect on it, they basically kept the same religious attitude they had prior to getting OCD.

I was wondering if there are links between AS and religion as well?




PS: I am an atheist and always have been. I found out about my AS in adolescence but already declared atheist as a child. So my own religious view was not fuelled by any OCD or AS topic. I never believed in a god and that did not change when I was diagnosed suddenly with AS and OCD.

Yeah, it probably has everything to do with my spiritual interest.
I was raised Catholic actually, and then I became an Atheist, but when I was most atheistic, thats when I tried to kill myself. I no longer believed in god, an afterlife, or anything spiritual. It all sort of went out of me and I felt that killing myself was the only logical course of action. I think when I finally put logic, absolute belief in science, and rationality to rest, and I stopped caring about what other people thought of me, thats when I was diagnosed with PDD. I know, it sounds weird.

I won't allow myself to entertain such ideas as atheism, materialism or absolute rationality. I already know the path they lead me down, one of self destruction.

I read a study linking low serotonin levels(something that's a suspected cause of OCD) and religiosity. All views on religion seem to be represented by the population on this forum though, doesn't seem that different from society in general. For me, religion is my hope for justice and reward for good acts, and consequently removing the sinners from their existence in the world with us to a certain other place.

Interesting question.

I was only diagnosed with AS this past March or April. However, as a kid I was diagnosed (well, misdiagnosed) with childhood schizophrenia. Nonetheless, at the time, there was no separate autism category. Consequently, kids who displayed autistic traits were diagnosed as having schizophrenia. (Adults with autistic traits were diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder.)

While I won't mention the specific religion I joined, I will say that I joined a small religion which most people, at least at the time, never heard of. It was, I suspect, my lack of desire to conform, coupled with the constant bullying by my peers, which influenced my decision to join this religion. So, yes, I suppose that AS did play a substantial role.

ive been a flipflopper in my life when it comes to religion, but ive finally identified why. its because i want to believe in something. but now i know that absolute certinty is insane, and doesnt make very much sence

Having AS might have helped me become the rabid anti-christian I am today. The way that I see things literally and in a sort of black and white, its very difficult for me to think about god and religion and believe it. I was raised catholic, but as I grew older and smarter, I started thinking about the legitimacy of it all more and more, and it started falling apart the more I thought about it. Eventually I came to a point where I couldn't believe it anymore, no part of it makes sense to me, and I can thoroughly explain why, and I have in a 3 page essay. But as far as the afterlife, I got everything figured out. First of all, if the militant christians are right, then god is a total a**hole, then its not worth sacrificing my life worshiping him just to go to heaven with a bunch of people I dont know, all my friends and family will be in hell! But if god really is caring and loving, he will accept me even though I dont believe in him, but because I am a good person, as good as I can possibly be with the problems he has given me from birth, and its his own fault I dont believe in him, he made it impossible. I just have a hard time finding that one likely though, because if god was loving and caring, what did I do to piss him off so much before I was even born? But if I am right and there is no god, well huzaa for me.

I would like to think that my AS saved me from my fundamentalist christian up-bringing and helped me become the Agnostic/Atheist that I was meant to be..

AS made me skeptical and cynical enough to realize how ridculous religion really is.

I might be defined as atheist agnostic, and if my religious choice had anything to do with AS, then it would have to be how I prefer logic to faith. I prayed to God once for something to happen when I was younger, and it didn't happen, so I logically concluded that since it didn't happen, God did not exist. I later also was able to logically conclude that since the Earth isn't flat or 6000 years old, and studied biology, it further confirmed for me that whatever the bible said about Earth was incorrect, and this made it less likely for God to exist. I chose to accept evolution over creationism and not believing in God because I thought it was the most rational choice. If I might have been sensitive, I could have difficulty making this decision, but I don't, so if being insensitive and rational has to do with me being an Aspie, then perhaps they are related.

I'm not raised in a specifically religious family, but at the age of 8, I found some old Christian children's books and started to believe in God, more "consciously" than before (I've never really been an atheist though).
The funny thing is that the psychologist who diagnosed me with Asperger's meant that religion was an aspie obsession I got about that age (and maybe still is), but he's not sure... Funny, I've never thought about it that way (that may be why, when I tell people that I became a Christian by reading books about it at the age of 8, many say it's "impressive"... hmm... I thought faith was a gift, and that the Kingdom of God belonged to the children, and now, it's suddenly "impressive"?? ) But, yes, maybe uncommon. I read uncommonly many uncommon books as a kid.

Today I am a student of theology.
Since I didn't grow up with church and Christianity, some of the views I discovered among my fellow students and fellow Christians in general, I found a bit strange and unlogical, and often I would think (and still do sometimes): why is it just me who see things this way, I think it must be so evident?? (NB: I'm aware that faith isn't a logical thing, it's not what I mean, but it's explained later.)
But after discovering AS and after myself being a diagnosed aspie, I think it may have something to do with that also? A kind of rigidly logical thought that I also have discovered myself having in other areas?

E.g. I hear a lot of people talk about "feeling God's presence" or "feeling God's absence", or "God just wasn't there", or "I feel my prayers only reach the ceiling." And then I think: why all that stuff?? Don't we believe that God is omnipresent - why then that talk about feeling absence or presence? Or what are your prayers to do above the ceiling if you believe that God is right next to you and live in your heart? And why don't people question the sentence about the ceiling, when it should be so obviously unlogical according to the omnipresence thought??

So maybe it's both my background and my aspieness...

Maybe there is a special aspie theology?

Like many here have been saying, I think AS makes me more logical, which in turn makes it more difficult for me to believe in religion based on faith rather than fact. I believe in God, but not Jesus Christ because there should be more evidence for him. (And I don't buy the theory that the universe is only 6000 years old.) I am definitely agnostic, though.

It's interesting to see so much agnosticism here. A lot of people in the world tend to be very for or against religion, but if we are being logical and looking at facts (an Aspie thing to do), agnosticism seems to be the truth (because there is no truth that we can deduce).

I am an atheist for a wide array of reasons
1. I was raised that way by parents
2. AS related logical thought patterns
3. What type of god would make me or other people suffer so much?

About it.