Aspies, Autistic folks and religion/social/economic views

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Religion certainly, but politics can be more objective.

Assuming Aspies are more logical/scientific than the general population, I would more Aspies to be athiest.

I'm a deist and centre right moderate conservative fiscally and constitutionally, social liberal on education and healthcare. Sometimes I prefer authoritarian more than libertarian.

Deism or pantheism is more logical/rational then atheism.

Now I am interested. What are the economic and social issues where you prefer authoritarianism and what are the social and economic issues where you prefer libertarianism?

My guess is that autistic people are either going to be strongly invested in a religious/social/economic view, or entirely indifferent about the whole thing. You wouldn't hear much from the indifferent ones.

Common aspects of the autistic experience might produce some broad trends. Being part of a chronically underemployed demographic might foster support for welfare, discrimination could lead to an interest in disability rights, an absence of instinctive conformity could result in the formation of unusual sexual or gender identities, bullying could lead to misanthropy or Nietzschean power fantasies, and a lifetime of sexual frustration can lead to PUA-style misogyny for the males.

I'm an atheist. I consider a claim made without evidence as an insult to my intelligence. I was raised by Catholics who attended Mass despite the well-publicised child abuse cases, as though they valued their religious habits above the welfare of children. I'm more tolerant towards other religions, although this tolerance should not be mistaken for respect. I think the way the way that politicians and the media use Muslims as boogeymen is a disgrace. I'd also be vaguely deferential towards Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime Traditions, due to inherited guilt over genocide.

I have no idea about economics, my major economic ideal being that I could always do with some more money. That most of the Earth's wealth is owned by one percent is not something I'm thrilled about, and the phrase 'Free Markets' rings an alarm bell, alerting me to the fact that the person who says it may be living in an economic fantasy. Big fat free-trade agreements are also suspicious. Basically, I don't trust or understand economists.

My greatest political value is a profound loathing for the Liberal National Party, which unfortunately forms Federal Government in Australia. The LNP represents all the worst aspects of Australian society, such as hypocritical Christianity, xenophobia, social inequality, willful ignorance, sexism, classism, economic mismanagement, environmental destruction, and three-word slogans masquerading as policy. Prime Minister Tony Abbot's legislative agenda is so unjust that there is no misfortune that he doesn't deserve. I always vote for the Australian Greens, who stand for the opposite, and give the Australian Labor Party the second spot on the ballot paper. So politically speaking I'm defined by hatred, which might not entirely be healthy.

The above comments, which sound as though they were written by a refugee from a Sydney Morning Herald comment thread, is a good evidence for Aspies either being passionate or indifferent.

Majority of the world governments are either captialist or authoritarian today.

Most of my views lead to authoritarian
Besides

Certain freedoms
Healthcare
Education
Rights of certain groups

Tony Abott is Better than th creaking labor party lol

I don't think there's a particular connection between autism and religious / political loyalties.

I used to think there might be. My thinking was like this: we tend to distrust authority figures, and a lot of politics and possibly all religion is about authority. We tend to favour an evidence-based approach to most matters, while politics and religion use other ways of persuading. We tend to love honesty, but we see a whole set of religions and political ideologies, each with a different (but strongly held) notion of what it's all about, and we have to conclude logically that we might never know which one, if any, is correct. We tend to become social outcasts to some extent, so we might not feel that sense of unity with "society," with the State or with the surrounding religious culture. We have our own ways of doing things and we don't like being told how to think.

So I figured Aspies would mostly be out of it with politics and religion, possibly going only for anarchism and Zen. But from what I've seen on WP, a lot are religious, I don't know about the political leanings so much, but I've seen both comfort and discomfort expressed over the free market and economic inequality.

I guess R&P loyalties depend a lot more on a person's background than on whether or not they're autistic. I think I'm atheist because my parents had no religion in practice and the little bit we got at school only had a small and temporary effect on me. Political ideas expressed to me later by my family were mostly personal gripes and anecdotes about lousy employers, disorder on the streets, high-handed town councils, lying politicians, corruption, and a strong cynicism about our leaders. That's pretty much the way I see politics, though I dabbled with socialism for a few years. I haven't voted for a long time.

Regarding socioeconomic views, I was somewhere in the range between 'libertarian socialist' and 'insurrectionary anarchist' until I stopped caring. Now, I believe that the wholesale obliteration of the entirety of the human species is both ethically and aesthetically preferable to the perpetuation of the status quo implicit in any mainstream political perspective. However the ethical impermissibility of genocide prevents me from taking any action towards that outcome, which is fine by me anyway as I am content to kick back and not stop the rest of you (all humans, not WPers specifically) from killing yourselves and eachother. Thus I suppose "hostile apathy" is a good label for my views.

Religion-wise I am a panentheist. I believe that existence is a clopen set, and that God is the union of existence and its complement.

As others have said, I don't think there's a necessary connection between being on the spectrum and subscribing to a particular religious or political view.

That being said, in my own case I've come to realize that my autism shows in my approach to religion - not in terms of what I believe per se, but in the way I relate to those beliefs. My own spiritual journey is a long and complex one, and I won't bore you with the details. I was born, baptized and raised Roman Catholic. But today I identify as a Protestant in the Reformed tradition, specifically Presbyterian (PCA). I'm a Protestant by conviction, not mere taste, meaning that I actually hold to many teachings specific to John Calvin, Martin Luther and other key leaders of the Reformation. I've been heavily influenced by some movers and shakers in the Reformed Baptist camp, but for practical reasons I'm a member of a local Presbyterian congregation.

Despite spending some years in Pentecostal and charismatic church circles (I got my BA in Theology at a Church of God college), I'm about as far from an emotional worshiper as you can imagine. Reformed theology is, in my opinion, especially appealing to highly logical people. The "petals" of the TULIP (Google it) fall together in a way that I find intellectually satisfying. I think much of the appeal for me in Reformed theology is the systematic and consistent approach to doctrine. It's intellectually vigorous and internally consistent - something I found lacking in the larger evangelical world. I've come to despise the emotional manipulation that's common in many evangelical churches - from altar calls to "casting vision" to all the other clumsy attempts at cultural relevance exhibited in some mega churches.

Over the years I've been told by multiple people that I'm guilty of "intellectualizing" my faith. After getting my ASD diagnosis last summer, my answer to those people is: "Of course I intellectualize my faith. I'm an Aspie!" At least for me, Reformed theology fulfills a spiritual and intellectual need that other traditions have failed to deliver.

I look at nature and am continually bemused by the mystery of an obviously creative principle at work in our universe - just watching a bee for example can invoke in me a sense of wonder - though I am not religious in the least. As a species we seem to me still too ignorant to perceive or understand the unseen forces that maintain the vast mystery of life in all its forms and the meta-ecology that holds it all together. We assume that we can explain life by reducing it to processes and components (classic reductionism) and yet even a bee's purposeful behaviour and life purpose within the whole represents a mystery that scientific reductionism cannot explain.

So if I believe in anything it is the mystery and wonder of the unknown. We aren't even very accomplished yet at knowing what time and space really are and how they affect our lives, beyond the conventional idea that time is some 24 hour day split into minutes etc.. we think we know so much, though I think we know so little. We assume that plants don't have feelings and can't communicate because they aren't like us - ideas that are now being seriously undermined by scientific inquiry. Human arrogance masks the human ignorance that underlies it. It's hard to "believe" in some religious credo (or dismiss spiritual forces out of hand) when there are still so many unknowns at this stage in human evolution.

I think I officially feel more at home and among my people here than any other forum on the entire internet combined. Now I hate myself for taking so goddamn long to jump in here.

First thing we need to ask ourselves in what way would being on the autistic spectrum influence our religious and political thinking. Orangez already mentioned that its influence on how our brain functions.

Then we have to focus on those elements and see how they could alter the way we think/feel about religion and politics. And that would probably be more interesting then finding out how many aspies belong to this religious group or subscribe to this political ideology.

To just post an idea. Those on the spectrum can have strong interests in certain things. Those things can be (specific) religions and/or politics. Following on this it could mean that those who such interest might be more devoted/involved and knowledgeable then those involved on that area in general. However the question that then follows, would be stronger on average then devoted NT's.

Now for those who do have such interests it might follow that there involvement might be comparable with the rest of the society of their surroundings. Or might be apathetic/indifferent towards it since it does not involve their areligious and/or -political interests.



Not so. On this forum alone we see people (excluding those not on the spectrum) who do not subscribe to the ideology of liberalism. Some might even be described as anti-liberal.