Christian parenting of a child with ASD

Post Reply New Topic

... listen to your kid when it's their disability, not yours. "

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.

My point: please, never, ever, EVER make your kids think that it is somehow "their fault", for any "reason" (religious or otherwise). That will not convert them--it will send them in the opposite direction. Furthermore, they will be left feeling that they are somehow "wrong" or "defective", when what they need is YOUR unconditional love no matter what.

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).

I know it is a complicated philosophical area but I too broadly believe that some view has to be 'right'. But I am afraid it is not religious people's view, religious people's beliefs are rarely founded in a thorough exploration of alternatives, questioning reality and weighing up the evidence. A person's religion in almost a 100% of cases is based on the part of the world and family they were born into, coincidence.

It is good that you don't personally judge people, but chances are most religious organisations people belong to seek, or have sought in the past, to restrict the rights of others. That is the thing that upsets me the most, I remember seeing on the news when some american states were trying to bring in gay marriage, all these interviews of people sincerely saying 'god made adam and eve not adam and steve' as if their own personal unproven belief should restrict the happiness of others, to me that is the religious mentality made visible.

Parents should teach their children moral behaviour but this does not need to be associated with any religion.

Thanks for sharing your views, TallyMan. Can you give an example of the type of morals you feel a parent should teach their child?

Rather than reeling off a list, I believe it can be kept very simple and expanded upon where necessary, so in a nutshell "treat everyone as you would like to be treated yourself". When a child strays from this it can be explained to them why what they have done is not good behaviour towards others in those same terms. This applies to everything we consider good morality: telling the truth, not stealing, not hitting others, not being nasty towards others, not being greedy or taking more than one's fair share, not bad-mouthing others behind their back and so on. The problems start when religion is introduced and the concept of "sin" and some religions love to dump the concept of "sin" on people, right from an early age. Things that are "sinful" are not necessary immoral, especially anything regarding sexuality or intimacy with others and can lead to kids who feel ashamed of themselves or their feelings as they grow into young adults.

I do believe as a doctor and scientist that the human body and ecosystem are intricately organized which goes against entropy

Rather than reeling off a list, I believe it can be kept very simple and expanded upon where necessary, so in a nutshell "treat everyone as you would like to be treated yourself". .

Not wishing to appear adversarial but you are incorrect there. People (creationists usually) often mix up the principles of thermodynamics / entropy and think it can be applied in the way you have done so. See here for more information:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html#thermo

You make a fair point. I don't have a problem with evolution I just don't know that evolutionary pressure explains all the species of animals. I don't think that there was an evolutionary advantage to moving from chimp to human for example.

But more importantly no Athiest has been able to explain to me where the initial star or whatever you believe started things off came from. Scientifically speaking that initial input of energy and matter would be the origin of everything and therefore could be referred to as God.

Leave it to us to turn this thread into a debate. Can't help it

I do believe as a doctor and scientist that the human body and ecosystem are intricately organized which goes against entropy and that even if you accept the big boom the star had to come from somewhere. So I think there is a God at LEAST on the form of initial energy input. It would be nice if there is someone looking out for me, I was less anxious when I truly believed that. But my mom thinks I can believe enough and pray away my son's autism, and that seems delusional.

I would love for my son to have the moral grounding I had as I am still very moral and kind, albeit in an obligatory rigid way. I could also use some friends and support as we are away from famil. So if someone could help me believe again I'd be much obliged.