Christian parenting of a child with ASD

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Last edited by something_ on 15 Aug 2014, 3:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

the bible was not written until several hundred years after the death of Jesus and were not written by the individual disciples but handed down stories, even if they did write them their testimony should be considered as suspect as anyone who has been involved in some charismatic cult follower. Does not come anywhere near the standard of evidence required to overthrow are current scientific understanding of the world.

1. Erm, they don't have to accept that at all because "faith" is an English word, and it isn't found anywhere in Koine Greek. Pistis, on the other hand, can be found in the NT and the very idea of it necessitates a rational process of accepting one persuasion/argument (I mean argument in the technical philosophical sense, as in supporting a position, not in the sense of heated disagreement) over others. What we can find here is modern religious people performing anachronisms and trying to think of everything biblical using their own context. "Faith" originally involved a rational process, folks.

2. Not everything can be right at the same time. That would mean that there are round squares. There is nothing inherently terrible or arrogant about it, and it is no imposition, just to think that your ideas are right. If we were to just lay back and say everyone was right we not wouldn't make any progress, and would be stuck in the same terrible societies of the past (I don't know about you folks but I much prefer this modern era to living in antiquity, it's a good thing Hobbes, Locke, and Voltaire were so opinionated because I can thank them for many of my own personal liberties), but we would be lying to ourselves because of course someone and something has to be right. This is the real world, and religion and philosophy ask serious questions, we aren't just handing everyone a coloring book and telling them that their chicken scratches look great, we are talking about things like the very nature of reality, right and wrong, the process of history, why there is anything in the first place, how did all of this come to be, etc.

3. By and large I think non-religious people are clearly mistaken when they make so many generalizations about the religious. They have to realize that we are human beings too and there is quite a bit of variety amongst the religious. I for one am not behind condemning anyone, or pontificating to everyone about what it is that they did wrong. And I'm not the rarest bird on the planet folks, so let's grow up a little bit and apply what we think about human variation being a good thing, if neurodiversity is a good thing then diverse ideas can be good too. We can't blame people for thinking they are right either, someone has to be right about something or another, after all, and on the flip side do we expect them just to think they're wrong about everything? Of course not. It isn't the worst thing in the world that someone would want to convince another person of something. If there was never such a thing as serious dialogue and we just talked about the weather, there would be no Plato's Symposium, no Posterior Analytics from Aristotle, no Confessions from Augustine, no Stoics, no Epicureans, no Sufis, nothing interesting whatsoever really and we would never challenge ourselves or our ideas. The earth would still be flat and we would be living in caves. Obviously some ideas are good and others aren't, and it should be open to discussion between people mature enough not to get up in arms like the whole world is going to end when someone disagrees with them (this is especially addressing religious people too).

Last edited by Lukecash12 on 15 Aug 2014, 3:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

The thing about any belief system is that when someone truly believes it, they feel that if others followed their views too then the world would be a better place. A 'religious parent' firmly believes that their child is best served if the child follows their beliefs. A 'non religious parent' firmly believes that their child is best served if the child follows their belief. Stalemate.

Link to story here

In over 50 years of faith, I too accepted evidence like the above. But the more I studied theology, anthropology, old, ancient and current cultures, the less I believed in such evidence. Faith for the majority of the faithful of most religions is just that - faith. I could go quite deep into this argument, but I don't wish to hijack the thread. Instead, I hope to suggest that people be accepting of people, regardless of issues (ASD and other issues) and not to impose any system of judgement, be it from belief or disbelief. If parents can pass that onto their kids, they will have done well.

So very, very sad.

Thank you all for the time you have spent on your comments and I really like how respectful people have been of others views even when they disagree. We have deviated a little from the original topic and as interesting as it has been debating the nature of faith and whether or not parents should or should not instil their own beliefs onto their children, does anyone else have thoughts about how Christian parenting has helped or hindered the raising of a child with ASD - or if you have no children, how has Christian views impacted you positively or negatively?

I wish I had something more illuminating, perhaps something will come to mind given thought. But the process for us was very problem free and done the same as with any other child that did not have ASD. Biblical principles were used and worked as advertised . But our son has milder case and is not aware that he has it as far as we know (as I was not aware until later in life), so aspects/behaviors of ASD were not addressed as ASD. They were addressed within the same framework of social training as anyone else. We were however more tolerant perhaps of his need for privacy and I did at times provide feedback to my wife not to press too hard for responses, but rather wait till they came naturally (within reason). He was unique but in many ways similar to myself and I knew how he felt and knew his occasional retreats into privacy were natural not anti-social. His faith however, he lives out in action, in helping people I believe. He started as a volunteer Katrina relief worker during his High School summers. He is now in the military and is a volunteer fireman in his free time.

And with Christianity that confidence is usually based upon wrong knowledge. Like the poster above claiming the gospels are eye witness accounts.

Or in other cases, the confidence is based upon personal experience, which doesn't mean anything to me. My personal experience tells me its all a bunch of malarkey. There is no logical reason for me to put someone else's personal experience over my personal experience.

I agree with your statement. However, that confidence is not based upon logic and reason.

In this day and age, I can't believe people still consider the gospels to be eyewitness accounts. They are so easily proven not to be. The bible itself doesn't even make them all eye witness accounts.

Let me post the beginning of Luke here for you.

Luke is not even claiming to be an eye witness. He is saying he is putting in writing what was handed down from the eyewitnesses. It's right in your own bible!

I also like to point out that Luke 1:1 says there have been other accounts written before him. Some versions of the bible use the word "many" accounts. So your bible doesn't even claim to be the oldest account on top of it.

I am afraid it is you that is basing your opinion on this specific subject, the New Testament Scriptures, on wrong knowledge. I study archeology with the scientific method and do follow the latest digs, findings and studies on a broad variety of subjects. The Roman era is my current special interest and has been for about 20 years. Anyway, they keep on finding older fragments of the NT. They are now within 100 years of the events and have entered the possible lifespan of the original disciples. I do not doubt will eventually find older still.

If you ever wondered how they determined which writings would make up the NT, it was done by making several basic criteria (I believe 5) the writings had to meet. The main one was it had to authored by someone contemporary if not in fact witness to the events. I also find it possible that may be proven eventually, at least in some cases.

I am only talking about the factual origin of authorship the NT writings here, not if what they relate is true. If you are going to claim science you have to accept all of it, even if it doesn't agree with your preconceptions or 'likes'. That's what science is about, constantly changing your concepts based on the newest information.

I was an undiagnosed aspie child raised in Christian family in Christian country (you could say Poland is non-religious country but it is a lie, The Church influence is strong here, even in goverment). But fortunately there was no fanatics around me so noone called me possessed. I was just a "spoiled child" if anything.

I remember attending the Masses and similar festivals. I was always very calm then. It was boring but I was told to be silent so I was. The whole lecture was boring to me so I was spending my time counting stars on ceiling (the church got a nice ceiling decoration) and looking at the paintings trying to figure out what they mean.

I was always confused when there was a change (stand up, kneel, sit down), I could never figure out when it happens, I had to look at other people to know what I am supposed to do. If I was sitting in the 1st row I was usually last one standing unless someone told me to sit down. Knee and sit moments were especially hard for me - people got the same height in both positions so the only way to figure it out was to look at legs of the 2 people surrounding me. But the moment I hated the most was the "greeting". Thats when you stand up, shake hands and even kiss with strangers around you. I was only shaking hands with people who insisted. I remember how happy I was when I finally heard the words "Go. May the Lord bless you"(my translation from Polish). That was the only moment when I knew what to do - it was the end of Mass.

However there was one thing that I liked during the Masses - singing. Those are not so common in Polish Church because we don't have Gospels but there is usually a few religious songs during the Mass. Its not like I knew the lyrics or anything because the songs were often changing but I was pretty good figuring out logically what word comes next so I could sing without getting lost. I'm pretty sure lots of people could hear my loud voice but I never cared - it was the only fun part of the Mess.

Oh, and I also liked the Communion. For the first a few years after I got my first communion I was going for the wafer each Mess because I liked the taste. I stopped when I acknowledged I am supposed to confess before taking it. And confessions were pointless for me. I was telling the same sins all the time (not keeping room clean, not listening to parents, being stubborn) and I was always getting the same atonement (3x "Hail Mary"). And the confession always ended with lie (that was the text they forced us to tell every time when they were preparing us for the first Communion) "I very sorry for all those sins and I promise to be better.". But I was not very sorry. I was thinking my parents were wrong by forcing me to do stuffs I didn't like so my stubbornness was reasonable. I was telling a lie during confession which was a sin so in the end I was never clear of sins...
So I stopped taking communion and going to confession. I was dirty. I was sinning and I was thinking I am doing the right thing so I was not worth of getting the wafel.

Outside of Mass I was also doing some religious stuffs at home.

I had a Bible for children and I liked reading it. It was like a fairy story for me. I especially liked the part when Jesus was child and he escaped his parents to went to a Chapel. If Jesus could what his parents didn't understand why couldn't I?

I also knew a few prayers. My grandma teached me them and told me that God will make my wish come true if I tell the wish after the prayers. So I was praying every evening but I was not greedy. My wish was always the same - "God, please, make me fall asleep fast today, I am tired of laying for hours and waiting till sleep come". I was having trouble falling asleep.

And I had some rosaries. I never had patience of telling "Paternoster" so many times but I liked fidgeting with the beads so I liked to have a rosary with me. I remember I forced my parents to buy me one during an All Saints' Day because I was bored of visiting graves. Once I got the rosary the boredom went away because I was focusing on fidgeting.

My adventure with religion ended when I was 13/14 year old and stopped believing in God. I didn't attend my Confirmation at 15. I didn't want to. Confirmation means you accept the religion as your own and become an aware, adult member of the Church. I didn't want to lie anymore. People were telling me I might have problems if I don't take it because I will not be able to get married and stuff but I didn't care.

But I was still attending religion classes. I went to Christian private school so I had to. Fortunately I didn't have to lie on my Confirmation because they never asked me. Apparently they had no idea any agnostic/atheist might attend the school (I attended it because good families children were studying there, I was sick of being bullied by ill-mannered block children in publish schools). The religion was not hard. All I had to do was remembering some sets of rules. To get a good grade I just had to know answers for questions like "What is the forth of ten commandments?". It was all about memorizing.

Great Quote from Luke 1 verse 1. And if you go to the next verse, Luke talks about since he was there from the first too and has investigated everything from the beginning of Jesus' ministry, he decided to write his own account of what happened so that others can know the truth of what is taught.

Luke 1: 1-2 1 Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled[a] among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

Thanks Kiriae, for sharing your story.

Actually, Cash, you if you read my post again, I say the opposite. I say you can't be confident in something without some basis for that confidence.