Religion and Aspergers

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How can you be so certain there is no afterlife, or that God can be explained using science? What makes you so confident that you’re operating based on reliable information? Can you really trust in your own reasoning ability?

Science has been proven to be the most reliable method above any other method of reasoning, to explain the world around us.

In any case, it certainly is a better method of explaining the world, than "god".

“Proven” to be the most reliable method, though? “Proven” by what standard? Did you use the scientific method or any element of scientific reasoning or observation to make that conclusion?

Ricky Gervais, vitamin's for the soul.

For those who dont like religion but still want to celebrate something special in the last week of the year, there is the possibility to celebrate the birthday of Isaac Newton.

Merry Isaac Newton Day

Indeed.

How can we be sure that there are no fairies and elves, and that Middle Earth doesn’t actually exist in an alternate reality or planet? We obviously can’t rely on our reasoning ability here, and we also can’t prove that these things don’t exist.

Speaking of Lord of the Rings, maybe Tolkien was divinely inspired because I think it’s highly unlikely that a human would be capable of coming up with such a complex and multifaceted world, complete with in-depth history, cultures, and languages.

Oh wait... That’s what people say about the Bible... I’m more moved and impressed by Lord of the Rings. Maybe it’s time to start a religion on this Holy Text... The first mode of my business (I mean, religion) will be to organize pilgrimages to the Holy Land (the Shire in New Zealand). I’ll need to look into how I can achieve tax exemption status... I’m open to any helpful advice here. Thanks!

On the other hand, if we can’t trust human reasoning ability, how can you trust your reasoning ability when it comes to the certainty that you have about God?

It’s a perplexing problem...

Some of our scientifically inclined members (including myself apart from my Middle Earth cult, I mean RELIGION) avoid jumping to conclusions on things that can’t be proved empirically. We focus on the things that we can know and that we can discern through science.

I do think that something can be said for human reasoning when it draws from science and the current evidence at hand, but we can agree to disagree here.

And that's...maybe...half my point. It's not about proving what does/doesn't exist, but rather what you know to exist and how you know.


Not really.

If your axioms are correct, it's not such a problem. First of all, are humans omniscient? If humans are omniscient, then humans can know with absolute certainty that God exists. If humans are not omniscient, they can't be certain of ANYTHING. If you aren't certain of anything, then how do you know your logic is adequate, or that science is adequate for reliable knowledge? That's not something you can possibly know, nor is the mind capable of knowing anything.

You might as well be a patient locked away in a mental asylum. You are forced to assume that the kind orderlies giving you medication and doing things "for your own good" really are what and who they say they are, and you're forced to assume they are telling the truth about the outside world and how you fit in.

Except no one can really force you to think that way. All that you know is inside your head. So you have a choice. Believe in your own delusions, fight off the nice men in white coats, spit out your medicine, etc. etc. You can choose to believe that the medicine being forced down your throat or injected into a vein is causing you to hallucinate, EVEN IF the medicine itself restores balance to your brain and allows you to have good reason and judgment. You can reasonably continue to deny reality even if you are actually lucid because of a preferred disordered state. You prefer a disordered state because it's familiar and comfortable, whereas adjusting to reality might be painful. In order to accept reality, it means accepting that medication is effective and that the men in white coats actually aren't the bad guys (I'm not making commentary on 5150 services or quality of healthcare in the US, I'm just illustrating a point). You cannot PROVE that your delusions are delusions or that reality is reality. You must choose ON FAITH which way you decide to go.

If you don't know everything, you can't reasonably assume that the mind is whole and well and sufficient for any rational thought. No amount of evidence will help because in order to make evidential assessments, the mind must first prove capable of processing evidence. "Evidence, please," also logically fails because anyone who is omniscient already knows everything and has no need for evidence to prove anything, anyway. Someone with omniscience but lacks omnipresence might be aware of an alien civilization in another galaxy. If they want to visit such a people, they have to know how to get there. Because they know everything, they can create whatever they need to make it happen. They don't need an education, a degree, a fellowship, or whatever. They already know, they're building a spaceship, and they're leaving. If you already know the answers, you don't need evidence. Evidence is not for what's known, but for what isn't. A believer already knows God exists with certainty and has no need for evidence--at least not for THAT, but I'll get into that momentarily. Because we know God exists already, because He revealed Himself to us, because we know what He says is true, we also know that all of creation is also aware of God and, like believers, don't need evidence for what they already know. But since not everything is revealed to everyone, only SOME things, evidence plays a vital role in how we perceive and respond to the physical world.

If you don't know everything already, but you've set your mind one way or another, evidence is going to be irrelevant, anyway. You'll say things like "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." You reinterpret data to fit your own biased worldview. You move goalposts. You argue for the sake of arguing, or perhaps out of fear of the truth, and not out of any real concern for truth. You form your own world in your own mind as you want it rather than accepting it as it is and actively working to mold it and shape it. And being detached from reality leads to distancing yourself from your own personal responsibility for that reality.

A proper Christ-centered worldview, on the other hand, embraces the reality of God together with all His attributes, without which certainty of knowledge isn't possible. It adequately explains that the mind is corrupted not simply by its limitations, or lack of omniscience, but by the presence of sinful human nature. Only with the renewal of the mind by God who IS omniscient and CAN reveal certain knowledge can anyone claim to know anything. By knowing SOME things, reliable, logical conclusions CAN be drawn. Material evidence works as per the scientific method, but only because that knowledge is revealed to humanity by its Creator. Scientists, many of whom happen to be Christian as well, have to make a choice: Do they present evidence and reasoned conclusions because they know for certain they are doing the right thing (i.e. by using the scientific method), or do they choose to present what they claim to know under deluded thinking, pretending that their work is their own and not something they accidentally "borrowed" from God?


Right, but the problem is you can't know anything. You can't make truth claims without borrowing certain knowledge--which you can't have unless God reveals it to you first. If you make what you believe to be a reasoned, logical claim and stand behind the truth of it without acknowledging the real source of foundational knowledge, every correct conclusion you make only happens by accident because your thinking is delusional.


ONLY if something can be known to be true FIRST.

I think you were trying to ask something along the lines of "if we can't know anything, how do we know which one of us is right?" As in if I claim God exists, how do I know that any more than when I say a scientist can't know anything, either? In other words, nobody can know anything, whether a believer or an atheist.

It's a good, honest question. Go back to my insane asylum analogy. How does anyone know ANYTHING? I feel that the best the all atheist worldview can offer is solipsism.

My own philosophy is not purely a Christian one. But I've been thinking about that a lot lately. I feel that Christ's teachings were soon appropriated by the wrong people for the sake of control. Constantine marrying Christianity to the state was the darkest day in Christian history as far as I'm concerned. And from there you have a lot of emphasis on Christian duty, altruism/self-hating, and so forth. OK, but what exactly IS Christian duty? To whom? To what end? The point of divine effort is towards reconciliation of God and man. Everything else that was revealed to us has to do with who God is and what He expects from His creation. If God is an ego and man is created in God's image, then man must therefore also be an ego. Thus if God's activities for God's own pleasure are divinely good, then selfishness must be a virtue. If God is logical, then man must also be logical. If selfishness is a virtue, why is it so often described in the Bible as a sin? I believe the answer is that sinful selfishness is any self-seeking activity that is devoid of reason. It is man only out for his own good that places himself on the level at or below animals who sins. A man who achieves his own desires through the pursuit of value, on the other hand, brings good things to the world, cares for others, and doesn't sin.

The constant preaching of self-hate prevalent in many churches is, likewise, a great sin that contradicts the spirit of the Bible. This pattern of thinking is especially responsible for the most destructive human activities in modern times. It concentrates thinking into a single authority for the sake of the masses and robs image-bearers of God (ALL people, whether they believe or not) of their God-given agency. Do I blame people for distrusting Christians? Not at all. And that's because I believe that what most nominal Christians practice isn't really Christianity. If you go to church where you're taught to hate yourself and yet you go out and make a lot of money, you're a hypocrite. And yet making a lot of money and feeling good by the weekend and getting your weekly dose of guilt is something you WANT to do? How does that make any logical sense? But if you know you have nothing to be ashamed of AND YET you go to a church that teaches you guilt and shame, why do you do it? That makes no logical sense either. And so it comes as no surprise to me whatsoever that people would choose atheism because if we really are all sheep without a shepherd, what difference does it make whether you believe or not? Aren't we all just better off assuming there's no God?

If you don't already know God exists, or you'd RATHER God not exist if all we're meant for is daily guilt and shame, this makes perfect sense.

So if we set God's existence aside for the moment, we're left with two choices: Solipsism, or objective reality. From a materialist perspective, objective reality makes the most sense. It's certainly less problematic. So if we start from the base assumption that reality exists, we can draw all sorts of logical conclusions extending beyond material existence and into the immaterial--abstract concepts such as math, and even morality. Beauty can be assessed as an objective virtue, and music and art can be evaluated on how objectively good they are. Mankind is best seen as heroic, as special. The smart, strong, kind, fair, and just individual can be held as the objective ideal. We can learn about our world through the scientific method as a means of assessing reality in objective, measurable ways.

Objectivist purists will make a giant leap towards writing God out of the picture, which I think is a shame. But because of the virtues of an objective worldview, if one knows God exists, one must also know that God is objectively good and wrote His standard of objective goodness and virtue into creation itself. If divine virtue is woven into the fabric of creation, we can examine the EVIDENCE of divine activity and judge for ourselves whether the divine message really is from God. It's not that the Bible is wrong about anything--it ISN'T. It's about what people falsely claim the Bible to mean that is the problem. Therefore, any religion that fails to conform to objective reality, which GOD CREATED, is false:

Jesus bled on the cross and went to the grave as a victim to remind us how sinful and worthless we are. FALSE.

Jesus died on the cross and rose a victor over sin and death to remove our guilt and give us eternal life: TRUE.

Why is that objective? Because of the human tendency to value and preserve life above all else and to use the rational mind. The destructive tendencies of some humans is labeled as unexpected, abnormal, or anomalous. In modern times, we incarcerate them for CORRECTION rather than punishment, to rehabilitate them rather than only extracting their debt to society. There is value in life and compassion towards others EVEN WHEN others transgress. lf humanity as a whole is deemed WORTHY by way of objective reality, why should Christians view themselves and each other as worthless? And if life and reason are objective virtues, why worship a weak, victim god? Many people do without realizing it, and I don't even mean nominal Christians. However, if life and reason are objective virtues and God is a strong, heroic conqueror of death and sin, would that not rather be the God you worship?

If you're not going to place faith in Jesus, I understand that these questions are mostly rhetorical. I don't expect an answer. I'm just trying to demonstrate a pattern of thinking, ways of knowing anything from objective reality that I think has gotten largely lost in our faith. We've tried to replace it with false religion such as prosperity gospel, which is pure mysticism and wishful thinking. It's a false religion because it follows literal magic thinking--human activity done for the purpose of bending God to human will. Prosperity Gospel, like the Gospel of Guilt, reduces God to a weakling subject to human will and devoid of agency. It's a scam that only fills the bank accounts of those preaching it. By placing mankind and the individual at the center of the universe, one sees himself as valued by God, so worthy that God would die for him if it meant bringing him back to his Creator. And if someone knows he is that highly thought of by God Himself, then that should determine a course of behavior that reflects this reality.

Corporate solidarity, for one example. The negative circumstances that affect one of us affects us all. Hence the best outcomes for the individual necessarily require the benefit of all (within reason). If you love yourself, then loving your fellow man is the best course of action resulting in your best interest.

Fidelity, for another example. Monogamy is not a virtue because of patriarchy or the word of an authority. It is one mark of a true self-hater that he sleeps with a woman he doesn't love. If you value someone enough to promise your life to him or her, then have the decency and high self-worth enough to commit only to that person. If you cannot, it's because you don't love her. If you don't love her, don't marry her. And if you wouldn't marry her, then don't f*c|< her, pardon my language. A promiscuous man or woman is one who values himself or herself so little that they give it away for free with nothing real in return. Nothing REAL in return, nothing RATIONAL, but only animalistic gratification. Well, heck, that's nothing your hand and a little coconut oil can't fix. And if you haven't been paying attention, I find nothing wrong with self-love.

So, yes, I'm an admirer of Ayn Rand, but it would have been nice if she'd been a theist. The only question I feel Rand left unsatisfactorily answered was HOW one knows anything, which strikes at the heart of everything I've said in this latest wall o' text. I don't think modern Christianity arrives at the same conclusion largely because of how it's been approached and misused. I think the ONLY Biblical conclusion is almost identical to Rand's and that perhaps it's time that we check our Biblical interpretation to be sure what we teach really is the truth.

Consider this, if you would, science is the discovery of math. The Bible is a discovery of religion/spirituality. So, I do need some clarification on what you mean by the science of The Bible if you don’t mind expanding on that statement. I may be wrong, and I hope I don’t offend anybody, but I believe that when Christians say that Jesus rose from the dead, it was the death of the mortal soul and the rise of the eternal soul.

Brivae, regarding that bit on the "death of the mortal soul and rise of the eternal soul" hope this can offer clarification. The human soul is immortal because it is a spirit. Spirits, having no parts, are not subject to entropy and therefore cannot decay, thus they can't die.

Since our souls had beginnings, they aren't eternal. But they're immortal. There is no such thing as a mortal soul though the soul can be "killed" by mortal sin, which is choosing an action that is 1)gravely wrong 2) with knowledge of the serious wrong) with full free consent of the will. This deprives the soul of its union with God which is its life (because lets face it, heaven without union with God seems ridiculously boring) and that is that.

I speak as a Catholic. There are other Protestant faiths which are nowhere near 2000 years old and nowhere near as precise with their language but Catholic theology is readily available on the internet. I stay out of threads like these because of the mental energy of replying to stuff but it's hopefully a start and a clarification.

Regarding the resurrection of Jesus from the dead...if he really was God? Then why not? He was either God, a schizophrenic, or the filthiest liar to ever have lived. There are no polite choices here that would allow us to take a genteel disagreement that he was a "moral teacher." I hate moral teachers and systems of ethics, frankly, and enjoy Catholicism because it offers an anthropology that gives humanity purpose. (Anthropology--not talking about bones and science here, but the philosophical science of what are people for, and what are we doing here?)

So that's kind of what it works like. I can't tell if Christianity is my special interest or if I just actually try to live it but that's that. Hope no one's offended if I don't reply as I might just forget, as I do so much else.

"Fundamentalism~Quicksandtalism"

With a foundation you have a formwork, concrete iron comes in it to make the foundation more powerful. If the concrete is hard, you have a foundation for further construction, a structure that is powerful. If you are going to build that same structure on quicksand, then problems will come sooner or later with that house. Certain people and movements are described as fundamentalism and fundamentalist. For some reason I find these people and currents too honorable to call them that. In my opinion, their structure is not built on a foundation, but on quicksand. I cannot look into the minds of these extreme people, but perhaps they still regard the word fundamentalist as a geuzen name, a positive name.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFA64Eq2Fqs

As Above So Below, Within Inside Outside All Around We aRe Nature And Even Science Agrees
Now As this takes No Words at All; No Books or Other Cultural Tools To See In Broadest View
“A God” So Much Bigger Than Tools We Create; Yes, Language at First as Culture that indeed may
Separate Us more From Bigger Picture View of Nature as “A God” Worth ‘Seeing’ With No “Conscious
Psychopathic Wrath” Against Those Who Must Fulfill Some “Narcissistic Need of “A God” So Small in
“Self-Esteem” to Require Worship and Affirmation from the Parts of the Whole as if our Fingers Should Worship Our Mind; Such “A Small
God” that is to See; Well, Well, Well, Well; My Asperger’s Syndrome more reflects the Original Gillberg Criteria
That in My Case includes a Hyperlexic Language Delay Until Age Four as far as Speaking Language Vocally to
other folks. Hyperlexia, didn’t stop me from finding my Mother’s Keys for Her When she was Looking for
them well before i could verbally speak at about the Age of Two or Three according to Her Recollection
of Course when i was that Young then; i found them under the Bed and Smiling put them in her Hand
in the other Room then. The Doctor Wasn’t too worried about my Language Delay for the Spoken Word
Until Four; He Had common sense of Humanity in enough Experience and Empathy to know that there
Was Deep Intelligence Behind my Eyes. He Basically Said; He’ll talk when he gets ready to;
Meanwhile, Try not giving him everything he needs; perhaps he will ask for something then.
i Felt And Sensed Before age Four At Age 3 Looking Across A River into the Forest Nature
God Me i Feel and Sense then Now as Human potential in deed Integral Part of Nature God
no Separation Origin of All Eternal; Now All God to Feel and Sense and yes Know Even more Now.

A Very Loving Mother Makes all the Difference in Nurturing as far as How Much Love Will be Wired
into a Child to Give and Share for the Rest of that Child’s Life; She stayed at Home with me in the most
important Years of Life for this; Yes, ages 0 to 3; Constant Nurturing as what ‘Full-time’ Mothers do;
the Focus of their Life to get the Job FULLY DONE FOR GARDENING LoVE IN THE child for Success across the
Lifespan; as Love Removes so Much Fear when Trust is Nurtured with Love at ages 0 to 3; Made a Huge Difference
in Enduring the Bullying the Odd of me that i would work through in School; Having Love as a Home Base Within
Will Surely Lighten or Darken a View of a Larger Force of Love, one Feels and Senses in the World; Depending on
if that Force of Love is Bred And Gardened into their Reality from Yes, ages Zero to Three at Core of What May Continue to Hold
Us Up as a Foundation of Love That Stays Within and Never Totally Goes away; even with no Feeling of Love as the Moral Code
Will Be Remembered Closely And Very Importantly to continue to Carry on in Change No Matter what Happens next.

Meh; Religion Didn’t do much of anything for me in my Formative Years as far as the Verb of God (Love) Gardened
as Me; Basically, My Mother was my Personal Jesus Reflecting Unconditional Love; i didn’t ever really care who the
Long Haired ‘Hippy Dude’ Was with a Beard Hanging over my Bed associated with Hell where i live at Least
as Lord Knows Santa Claus was more forgiving in the Long Run than what i heard of ‘Him’; Fortunately
for me i had not much problem with Reading; Metaphors came harder to understand; but i never gave
up and eventually even Created them as Free Verse Poetry; something i hated reading Most of my Life
until the Value of the Essence of the Form Became inherent to me as Words Become Art and not just
Labels of Words for ‘something’ Concrete.

For me at least, Viewing Life in Bigger Picture View now from the Wisdom 6 Decades Will bring
as of June 6th, Specifically this Year, with even Greater 2020 Vision as a practice of Life to Evolve
All Human Potentials; God is Reality to me; but so much more than a Rarified Abstract Construct
that is Just a Literal Form no Different than a Statue of Someone Hanging on a Cross as Idol Worship
of Form over Essence too; there is a God that some Believe Exists Trapped in a Big Black Book; that
is about 10 Times Smaller than the Bible Long Form Poem i Have Created at 7.7 MiLLioN Words in 77 Months;
i surely don’t believe i am capable of Writing a Bible Big Enough and Simple Enough and Complicated Enough
to Fully House the Potential of God as God is Obviously All and Whole at the Biggest Venn Diagram even if that
will be a Metaphor Humanly Constructed to fit now; including ‘Infinity’ too; as indeed that is a construct of the
Part attempting to Describe More than the Part Will Perceive as Whole Beyond All iMaGiNaTioN Possible Now.

Meh; People who are more Concrete Black And White Thinkers, Like the Structures of Life to be Systemized
Neatly without any Loose Ends that ‘Screw’ Up their Perceived Order; Personally, i can’t see much Difference
in the Slight someone makes against the Potential of what is so much more than what we can and will
Possibly Perceive; and surely fit in an abstract Construct of Label to Worship as that pertains to a
View of an ‘Evangelical’ Person Seeing the words of the Bible as Literal Concrete Truth and
a Militant Atheist who may have the same thing in common; a Mind that is developed
as metaphor of mostly ‘just one Hemisphere’ of detail analytical systemizing think;
For Even We as Human Beings Will See So much more of Reality in perception
of totally Feeling, Sensing, and Knowing Life than someone who is basically
Using Half of their Human Potential in Much Bigger Intuitive Big Picture
Social Empathic Artistic ‘Spiritual’ View of Life as the Bigger Picture will come into
View and what used to be ‘Words Concrete Set in Stone’ become the Metaphors they truly
are for whatever Holy and Sacred Changing Meaning and Purpose We Assign to them Now.
Bottom Lines,
God is ‘Relative’;
Some Folks Do God
as Verb and some Folks
Don’t Get Past a God Set in Stone
as rarified Abstract constructs they refuse to change;
the subject of a very White and Black View of Life in deed that becomes less than subject as Object.

But of Course, i’m Hyperlexic; I naturally Decode And Create Symbols of Cultural Tools Still Now.
However; An Immersion in the ‘Tech World’ At Work for Over A Decade took away much of my “Right
Brain Leaning Metaphor” of Social Empathic, “Spiritual”, Intuitive, Artistic, Creative Intelligences
and so Much More; as even Science Shows that just about all our Gifts and Practices of Life are use it
or lose it Now. Art Brought it back so much Better in my Opinion Having Yang and Yin Full to use True.

Meh; For Me God Is Beyond Words; As Yoda says, We are Luminous Beings oF Light; Not This Crude Matter;
Can and Will You Feel/Sense’the Force’ Beyond Distance, Space, Time, and Matter Within, Inside, Outside, Above
So Below and All Around Now; AFAIF(FeeL) and KNoW NoW Only Fleeting Feelings and Senses of this Autotelic
Ascending, Transcending Dance And Song of Spirit through Most of Life Now it is Unbreakable as a Practice
of Autotelic Flow Within of Heaven now to Give and Share For free as the Dance and Song Does Go on…

It Really Helped Being Outcast From the Social Group of indeed Group Think; Gives one more Ability
to Seek and Find ‘God’ Within and When Find Happens Send that Find to the Globe in Deed For Real…

Some 'religions' don't use that word, they use the term 'Creed'.

I'm an agnostic atheist and I've never really believed in any kind of superstition including Santa Claus, astrology, etc. In fact when I was little I found it strange that people had a propensity to believe these things for which there was no salient potential evidence of.

But of course if people believe in God or any religion I don't see that as necessarily bad. Religion has caused harm but it has also brought people together and has boosted the behavior of certain individuals. If religion helps some people cope with the hardships of life and they're not trying to force their views on other people maybe it's even a good thing.