Post or currently mormon aspies?

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I'm a Mormon NT mother of two aspie boys, 21 and 12 years old. We are the prototypical mormon family in some ways, in that we are very active in church, our older son has been on a mission, etc. We are most definitely NOT the propotypical family in other ways, because of our somewhat liberal political leanings. It is a very uncomfortable balancing act at times.

Having said that, yes, there are some aspects of the social life of mormonism that could be difficult for aspies. My older son has few aspie characteristics that are challenging to him, but one of them was, at one time, understanding romantic situations. He has been naive in the past. He has always been intelligent, but didn't understand how to be hunble about how intelligent he has been. He has a really wonderful, wicked sense of humor, but sometimes doesn't realize that the things he says are hurtful. Much of this was not looked upon kindly by a few members of our church. When he went through his rebellious, long-haired teenage period, a few church members misconstrued that as his going against church values. He is still super liberal politically, but still manages to stay "true to the faith."

With our other son, who has had more challenges, church is beneficial and detrimental at the same time. Being a member of a congregation forces you to socialize. The are more opportunities for people to be understanding of one's diagnosis if they've known a child since birth. People at church tend to give our son a little slack. He often has difficulties socializing, is young and innocent for his age, and doesn't like big crowds at church. This is hard for him. But he gets better everyday, and he knows that people at church love him.

How do you feel about the church and being aspie? What has your experience been?

Kris

I'm an exmormon. I got involved with it in my middle teens and I was totally devoted to it for several years. There weren't any mormons in my family background and practically none in the community.

The human capacity for ignoring reality is incredible. There were a lot of things obviously wrong with it from the beginning. This was back when blacks couldn't hold the priesthood and I was appalled by the racism that was endemic to the mormon culture and the tacit support this racism received from the brethren; mormons know who "the brethren" are.

I was an utterly isolated teenager with parents who disliked pretty much everything about me and I suddenly had a community and a purpose in life. In outlying areas, mormons are pretty much obligated to accept anybody as a full member of the community.

I went to BYU, thinking I was going home to zion, and I was horrified to be forced to accept the reality that all the stuff I saw that was obviously wrong wasn't just a few individuals. The mormon church and the culture is exactly the way the people who run it want it to be.

Incredibly, I still hung on for a few more years, before I finally accepted the fact that there was too much wrong with it for it to possibly be true.

Since then I've wandered alone. Never been accepted by any kind of community. People whose politics and beliefs are similar to mine don't like having me around any more than anybody else.

I never felt any inclination to go back to being a mormon. Like Huck Finn said, "You can't pray a lie."

This would all be just an odd episode in the distant past, but I focked up really bad years later and "married" a mormon, and now my kids are growing up under the complete control of the mormon church. Cults aren't harmless, but there's nothing I can do about it. Nobody in power over family relationships cares about fathers or kids, and nobody pays any attention to anything I say. They can tell there's something wrong with me and they can tell that I'm stupid.

It's odd that butch the feminist insists I'm mentally ill because I object to my daughters being raised under the complete control of a cult that teaches that the inferior status of women is an eternal law given by god through his prophet.

But the world's full of things that don't make any sense. Just something I gotta live with till I ain't living no more.

CanyonWind, oddly enough, your experience is very similar to mine. I grew up Mormon, but moved with my parents to London for a couple of years, where I learned about non-mormons, mormons who sacrifice a LOT in order to be members of the church, and where I was able to learn how other cultures lived.

I then went to BYU, which was incredible culture shock coming from London. What, people don't think a topic over before declaring it to be unworthy? Not in Utah. I hated BYU, but I knew that going there protected me from the usual college antics. I met a like-minded engineer, married, and we left Provo as soon as we could.

Unfortunately, during a brief weak moment, we thought it would be a good idea to move back. Bad idea. Three years taught me to never want to do that again. I felt like leaving the church myself. I stay because, frankly, families have a good track record of staying together, with less problems with drugs, alcohol, and other problems, than outside of Mormonism. We've seen it in the people around us, or we would have left long ago.

I highly recommend, if one must be a Mormon, to do so outside of Utah. There just seems to be a better sense of reality elsewhere. The conservative thinking still drives me bonkers, but I deal with it.

Kris

I mean moderate in terms of observance. My family is politically conservative, but somewhat liberal on economic issues and the military (my dad especially. He gets mad whenever the topic of military spending comes up.)

I sometimes go to church functions for social reasons (I have Mormon friends), but most know I'm not Mormon, though I haven't bothered to "resign."

Well, if you mean that both fundamentalists and atheists tend to be rule-bound, but in entirely different ways, I can see that (e.g., atheists tend to focus on logic while fundamentalists tend to focus on religious rules governing behavior). I thought you meant both were equally dogmatic.

How's your relationship with your kids?

I wouldn't say that they are equally dogmatic, but that they they have similar intensity of belief. I'd also suggest, having sat through thousands of hours of sermons, Sunday School classes, revival meetings, etc., many fundamentalists are also concerned with logic, it just doesn't start with or recognize the same "truths" that secular humanism or science do. Faith does trump logic, but most if not all of the fundamentalist belief is extremely logical in the context of the Christian Bible. That is also part of the reason that some cults can become so successful - there can be an internal logic to them.

Z

I see them whenever I can, which isn't often enough. All the time wouldn't be often enough.

I try to influence them as much as I can to think for themselves and respect their own judgment.

It's not the happiest story in world history.

So do you mean that different groups have their own world views with different assumptions, but logical consistency?

I think fundamentalists use logic to rationalize things. The logic part is secondary. In fact, the fundamentalist world view, while possibly consistent on its own, is not consistent with how fundamentalists think in their day-today lives about other things. In other words, they compartmentalize their beliefs well enough that they don't see whatever inconsistencies exist.

Also, I'd agree that fundamentalists are more consistent with the Bible than moderate Christians, but there are still areas of inconsistency (e.g., "the entire Bible is literally true," including contradictions, ambiguous passages, and ancient morals that not even fundamentalists support [e.g., "genocide is okay"])

"ave similar intensity of belief"

Definitely true of some, but a lot of atheists just don't care that much about religion or look at the absence of God as a far away probability rather than an outright impossibility.

Yes



I can still hear my parents say to me, "Question everything that people tell you to make sure it is consistent with the Bible." Yes fundamentalists compartmentalize and rationalize, but there is a great concern with having logical constructs that explain "God's Word," and if something from science or another religion is not logically consistent, then it is considered to be false and is disregarded. I would assume that the Latter Day Saints do the same thing with God's revelation to Joseph Smith - the Book of Mormon.



The best argument I ever heard about a young age of the earth and dinosaur fossils came from a traveling evangelist when I was a child. "God created fossils, and made them appear older than the earth to confuse scientists." That statement is logical if you believe that THE omnipotent God created the earth in six 24-hour days, although I never did understand why he would want to confuse scientists.





A year or so ago I read Harvard developmental psychology professor Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate, about genetics and inherited personality traits. Pinker is pretty much universally hated by conservative Christians (if they've heard of him or read his books) because he is an atheist and uses genetics to explain such taboo subjects as religious fervor. According to Pinker, all human personality traits are heritable including conservatism, liberalism, and the intensity of religious experience. He explains that an indicator of a trait being genetically linked is that people feel very strongly about the trait/belief/way of thinking, rarely change their minds, and often dislike those who think otherwise. Religious intensity runs in my mother's family, but that trait must be recessive in me because its hard for me to get worked up about religious belief (unless it is in some way destructive and then I am angry about it).

And that brings me to Mormons. I've had experience with other communities with homogeneous ethnic makeup and intense, conservative Christian beliefs. Much like the Mormons, there are any number of towns and cities in the United States that were founded by religious groups that were persecuted for their beliefs and subsequently founded communities where they could practice their particular brand of faith. I have my own theory. To have intense and uncompromising beliefs, coupled with an inability to effectively relate to others with more typical beliefs, while at the same time desiring to separate from others and live in isolated perfection, is suspiciously Autism Spectrum-like. To then live in isolation and have generations of offspring intermarrying would only serve to intensify genetically-linked traits.

Just a theory, and I don't know that it is supportable, but it has been interesting for me to think about.

Z

That’s where Occam’s Razor comes into play.



Yes, but fundamentalists don’t seem to care about inconsistencies in their own religions, even when others point it out to them.



Makes sense. It would be interesting to see whether Mormon-like religions had more members, percentage-wise, on the autism spectrum.

Also, I think Joseph Smith may have been a narcissist. I mean that not just as an insult, but quite literally as well. He showed many narcissistic traits, including tendencies towards fraud, compulsive lying, possession of many sexual partners, lust for power, etc. In fact many cult leaders happen to be psychopaths or narcissists. He was also very skilled in deceiving others, another narcissistic trait.

BTW, this just a side note, but it’s somewhat of a myth that all anti-Mormon sentiments were just persecution. Some were, but Mormons partly had themselves to blame. In some communities, Mormons got along fine with outsiders, but later caused conflict by issuing proclamations condemning non-Mormons or, worse, demanding Mormon ownership of non-Mormon land, leading non-Mormons to think that the Mormons would attempt to harm them.

There was also a case in which Joseph Smith ordered the destruction of printing press that had printed true accusations about him.

There’s also the case of Mountain Meadows Massacre, in which a group of Mormons murdered some innocent non-Mormons.

What's a mormon??

A Mormon is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or other related sects, followers of the teachings of Joseph Smith Jr. who founded the church in upstate New York in the 1820s. A particular early teaching of church was the practice of polygamy. The state of Utah was settled by Mormons in the 1840s.

Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... t_movement

I have some distant relatives (haven't seen them in about 20 years) who are Mormon, but nearly everybody in my immediate family is Assemblies of God. I am a Lutheran myself.