Autism and atheism

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If that's true then I messed up and do have misconceptions . Sorry if I offended anybody

huh? I guess I don't understand. Where did I generalize? I never said other people wouldn't come up with the idea on their own, I was just saying that I wouldn't.

No, actually.

Lack of belief in spiritual things (not belief that they aren't real, or belief that they are) is agnosticism.

Some people call you an atheist so long as you don't believe in any god. However, some people use it as a shorthand for not believing in any type of supernatural stuff.



...Nope, the Bible is meant to be literal. Certain parts are explicitly marked as illustrations of certain concepts (such as the parables Jesus told) and most of the prophetic visions use codes that are always immediately explained. Some of the prophecies are metaphorical, but usually the meaning is obvious. Like, if the main thrust of a prophecy is that God's going to have some specific cities destroyed a specific way, that's literal, but when he goes off explaining how Israel has committed adultery and has oil in her hair, that's metaphor. It's clearer in context.

If you're speaking to people at church, they either take it literally or are pretending to. Now, some people don't actually believe in any of it, but claim to be Christian and say they believe it's all metaphorical and stuff, or don't believe it or claim to believe it in any sense except when they're at church. But most people who are at church on an ordinary Sunday take it literally. The people who show up on Christmas and Easter are more likely not to believe it.

I'm firmly convinced that autism does NOT make you more likely to not believe in God. It just makes you more likely to admit it all the time, instead of pretending, if that's how you feel.

I'd like to just tweak that definition of agnosticism a bit, if I may. I wouldn't call it 'lack of belief' but rather belief that there's insufficient evidence to have knowledge of that kind of thing. It's not just 'I don't know that I can throw myself into this belief thing' but more an epistemological claim like 'it's practically impossible to prove a negative universal'.

Doesn't matter, though, most people just conflate atheism and agnosticism.

Then what's it called if you just don't know, but think there could be evidence that you haven't yet seen, sort of like I haven't yet seen evidence of your gender but I'm sure it's possible to know?

Well, I find the Christian god pretty illogical--no that's incorrect. Not the concept of a god itself, but Christian creation illogical. Why would god have needed to create us in the first place? Was he missing something, or needed us for something that he couldn't do himself, or could he just not control creating us (like Boethius' god)? Because all of that implies that god is not omnipotent. Which he's supposed to be. Isn't he? In any case that's the one question I've never been able to find an answer for.

Still, I was an atheist before I thought of that. If there is actually a theist gene, autists could certainly be more prone to it than NTs. Autists also tend to be more emotionally independent than NTs, so maybe there isn't that need to reach out to something "bigger" than them for help/guidance.

Maybe it's an "emperor has no clothes" sort of effect that disinhibits some from realizing that some of the conventions of organized religion don't make sense. Imagine I bake a cake and set out a pitcher of beer, say a prayer and thus declare that the cake and beer represent the body and blood of Santa Claus. The choice of cake and beer is arbitrary, but seems fitting as Santa is portrayed as fat and he'd have gotten that way faster on a diet of cake and beer than on a diet of bread and wine. As each piece of cake is handed out, the host says "the body of Santa" and you're supposed to respond by saying "Ho, ho, ho!" as you take the cake. Then you go by a person handing out small cups of the beer, representing Santa's blood, and you can either take one and be a symbolic vampire in addition to symbolically cannibalizing Santa, or not.

There are other things like how the Virgin Mary was declared free of sin almost two centuries ago. Why did it take so long to declare this? If this is true, then it should have been apparent at the time, not, as in this case, more than a thousand years after the events.

Do you believe in little green men living on the far side of the moon? Why not? You can't see that they're not there, therefore you must believe that they are!

Faith is taken as a thing-in-itself and has its own value to the individual as such. To prove God's existence is to make religion into science. That is not why religion exists.

This is why I am agnostic. I feel more free. I also see myself as multidimensional and beyond the duality conflict of athiesm vs. religion. I can see athiesm is just the opposite side of the same coin.

What I am going to say might be immediately bashed but this an observation. I am not saying it is true or not, but I observe that the "religious God" usually exists in a group setting. People's belief gets weaker with the less people they interact with or the less religious community. This is why I think people with autism have a harder time believing in a diety. The person with autism cannot make that empathic connection that many people enjoy.

I think of the religious God as the result of a human group's own psychology. Because the autistic cannot easily blend in the human group, that person has a harder time believing in God. That person also has a harder time contributing to the human psychology of God.

I don't know why I chose this as a quote as I had a preferred one, but I shall address it first:

Dogma and doctrine are often held as a point of contention with those who believe with intellect. I was raised Catholic by scientist who assured me the Bible was purely metaphorical. Perhaps this is perceived by non-religious persons as irregular, but having attended several highly ranked Diocesan schools, I assure you that it is not.

I am an atheist. I have thought for many years "I'm agnostic," but I have researched the precise meanings of the words and have learned differently. It is possible for one to be agnostic and religious, but very difficult to try other combinations.

http://atheism.about.com/od/aboutagnost ... theism.htm

This was an eye-opener for me. In fact, I'm something undefined. I have come to a logical conclusion that a god must exist, whilst believing one does not, which results in avoidance of the topic. But I can best be described as an atheist.

And perhaps such rational dilemma results in more Aspies being atheists. After all, as much as any one may believe, they cannot logically know, which would still define them as an atheist.

I find that expecting any discussion of God to be fully logical illogical. Logic is an artifact of our language and reasoning. As soon as you posit the existence of a being that is by definition greater than humans in all things, you have to allow that such a being's language and reasoning is also superior to ours. You cannot confine God within the human capacity for reason and logic. Doing so violates the assumption that God is more than us. Some would suggest that because the very concept of God so violates logic and reason that the idea itself is so ill formed it should be discarded as worthless. But this presumes human language, reason, and logic can be successfully applied to describe any and all phenomenon. I don't believe this any more than I believe that the Bible is an inviolate perfect translation of the mind of God.

But this is actually diverging from the OP. Personally, any atheism I see displayed by Aspies hasn't seemed any different than that displayed by other places on the internet. Just like in other open forums, there is a range going from the thoughtful and well reasoned to open contempt and derision of theism. I find this to be evidence that while Aspies are in some ways fundamentally different than NTs, the we are actually human, more like NTs than not.

We are not sure if there are godlike beings existing in the centers of stars. Gods can certainly be possible. God is such a subjective concept anyway. Someone's God most likely exists in the universe somewhere, in some form.
As for religious text, those are grandiose mythos designed to motivate people. Leaders attempted to get people to do what they wanted and live in a structured way so they created myths to help them.

first of all, your original question is based not on factual evidence, but anecdotal. so really, you are asking people to comment on something which may not even be true.

like tksteph, i think you have a lot of misconceptions and generalizations about atheists that simply arent true.

atheism is not illogical. to me, as an atheist, atheism is a result of the obvious fallacy of religious belief. whats illogical is to believe a man died and came back to life 3 days later experience tells us that decomposition would have set in long before that 3 day mark. illogical is a 40 day flood and predators and prey coexisting on a ship during that time. i never sat down and thought about whether its logical to be an atheist, i evaluated how logical religions are and decided i could not believe in them. there was also no emotion involved in this, it was purely what is believable and what isnt. thus i decided i was religion-free, which is generally considered atheist or agnostic.

atheism is also not a religion. there is no house of worship, no congregation, no book of rules. there is no system of beliefs. lack of belief is not a system of beliefs in and of itself. those who do believe in religion often try to call atheism a religion, probably as a way to discredit it as an alternative to religion. i imagine the thinking there is that if you can make atheism into a religion, then atheists sound silly being against religion.

most atheists also dont bash religions, except in response to atheism bashing. i think most atheists would be so happy if religious people kept their beliefs to themselves. personally, i do get very tired of religion simply because ITS EVERYWHERE. i cant even drive down the street without bumper stickers, jesus fish, and license plates shoving religion in my face. i cant even type the word jesus without my browser underlining it in red and prompting me that its an error and should be capitalized!

And yet I can't put a Darwin fish on my car without someone ripping it off or wear a t-shirt implying that I believe in evolution without someone coming up to me trying to start something. I have to be silent about it if I want to be left alone. WTF? I don't rip Jesus fish off of cars and get in the face of people wearing religious t-shirts. And yet they're the "persecuted" ones.

That rant wasn't geared towards anyone here.

And I agree that faith and science are 2 different things. Faith is something I can never have. It's like trust, and I'm not a trusting person at all. I need proof, for everything. Maybe it's over-compensation for having once been gullible. Now I don't trust anything.

In my life, it definitely has been the religious folks who try to get everyone to see things their way without question. It's like no one can have their own opinion around them. They get horribly offended if anyone questions one bible myth in their presence.
It's not that I am negating God's existence, but some of the bible is so transparent and it's glaringly obvious why it was written.
Still, they want you to believe in the Garden of Eden, the great flood, the many miracles. I've always, my entire life that I recall, have had trouble accepting those myths as fact.

Faith and I do not quite get along. It's not strictly that I am incapable of religion, but that I tended to take it far too literally. Of course, I was under 12 at the time.

I don't know if that makes sense. Either way, I prefer agnosticism now and have for some time.