Aspergers and Religion

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When I was a kid, my brother and I would attend church services every Sunday with our parents. My Mom was Lutheran, so that was our faith, a pretty mild religion. It was just something we did Sunday morning. I just never connected with religion. I would find it hard to sit still during services, my mind would always be somewhere else; it just didn't make any sense. One of the worst parts was the end of the service walk out. Everyone would stand and walk out the center isle. It was a mass of bodies, I felt like I was going to explode. I would have to close my eyes and stumble along holding onto my Mom.

When I was confirmed, I was 13 I believe, I was given the choice to attend or not; that was the last time I attended services. Later when my parents retired and moved, they became Christians. They tried to interst me in their church, but I really, really could not relate to their new level of religiousity. I am not anti-religious; just non-religious.

Are aspies less likely to be involved with organized religion than NT's?

i dont think anyone under the age of 18 should be allowed in churches. it just messes with your mind, i went to a baptist church when i was little and the pastor talked only about the end of the age and hell. s**t scared the f**k out of me, and has greatly contributed to my fear of dying, and worrying about weather or not ill make it into heaven.

I was adopted by Christian Scientist when I was 5 and I loved the religion...It is a really odd religion and intelectually stimulating...they dont have picture of jesus on the cross or talk about hell and damnation.There is no babtism or confessions.Up until 16, there was no "church service" we went to "sunday school" groups divided by age and you would sit in small groups and just talk about the meaning of certain stories in the Bible or what Jesus was trying to teach people and how it applied to your daily life.It was rreally interesting to me.They didnt teach that Jesus was the "Son of God" any more then anyone else....God created everyone so we were all children of God and Jesus was just more highly "evolved" but we could all evolve....I think there was alot of "eastern philosophy" in the religion.They believed that all physical things were an illussion ...a faulty copy of its "spiritual" and perfect counter part...the goal of life was to be able to see behind the illussion to the spiritual reality of the object.When you could do that...and it took several life times and much hard work...you would eventially evolve out of your physical being into a spiritual perfection.....For a person who was disgusted by the world in general and my life in perticular...this was a pretty tempting prospect.I made it my goal to try and "evolve" as soon as possible by being the best person I could be...This "goody-too-shoes" attempt just made me more of a target for my peers to mock...but I turned the other cheek...around 16 I was so depressed,angry that I gave up on the whole thing...I was old enough to see the hypocrisy of those who claimed to be "christians" and it was really disappointing....

They say a cynic is an optomist who has been hurt or disappointed one to many times...perhaps that applies to me...intelectually I can not reconcile myself to all the contridictions in the bible or the brutal history of christianity....I can not forget the whitch burnings,the crusades,the inquistions,the genocide of native populations(america,south america,etc)I know there are Christians who have done good works(mother Teresa)but so did Gondi....that was the individual not the church.

I was in a baptist church when I was little, we had sunday school and childrens church, it was really good. I don't recall hell fire and brimstone teaching, I was never afraid of hell, nor the end of the world. When I got older i just stopped going, and did the typical teen thing of the 70's......not good, I had older sisters, so I partied with them untill I ended up at a non-denominational Christian Church...it was very Jesus movement, drums,guitars ect........alot of fun. I kept going and rededicated my life to Jesus Christ.One of the head Pastors...Merlin Carothers, heard I had a birthday coming up, and he made sure I had a surprise Birthday Party (this church had a 1000 people in it) he was famous back then for all the books he wrote, and very well known. He was at my party playing ping pong, I remember being so blown away that he was playing ping pong with the youth group, and that he was at my party. It was a wedneday night,I never saw him at church on wednesday nights. I didn't know the party was his idea untill one of the Youth Pastors told me. I asked him why the party, and he said, we'll we were telling Merlin about you, and how we really enjoyed you. He asked your age and when we told him you were soon going to be 15, he said..."Lets give her a party", really make her feel welcomed here. When you aren't liked anywhere, it's nice to find a place to belong. And I belonged there........good memories.

How can young children understand any of it when I don't.

I started going to church to see what it was all about, but found it hard to understand. The story of god, Jesus & the bible seems irrelevant to me.

well its not to hard to figure out if someone tells you if you do a bad thing, or a "sin" you're going to hell dude. even a child can figure that out, when you start setting up things like that for people to think about it f***s with your mind. or atleast it did with me

I am being raised Christian. My family stresses religion, but the problem is, whenever God or prayer is mentioned, i cannot feel the ability to connect with what is being preaced, or prayed. i've always had lack of emotion or concern for religion. its like, i find it hared to 'truly" believe and be sincere with my religion. in church, i find myself wandering off, i cannot connect to spiritual matters. i try really hard to, but i just can't. maybe it just seems unimaginable.

When someone dies, i find it hard to connect emotionally. i find it hard to face reality that they are dead.

I don't tell my parents because i don't want them to accuse me of being selfish, or ignorant of religion

My parents are fairly devout Catholics. They insist upon taking the family to church almost every Sunday and even taught our CCI (Sunday School) classes. Unfortunately, I ended up growing up with a decidedly atheistic approach, shading to anti-monotheism in my personal case--I believe that everyone should be allowed to believe in whatever the heck they want as long as they aren't infringing on the rights of anyone else, but I must admit that the fundemental tenets of monotheism baffle me and I tend to think of them as having intolerance built in from the start. I certainly never 'got' religion, although I am Confirmed in the Catholic Church (I really did not have a choice, especially since I had never bothered to tell my parents that I identified personally as an atheist).

My parents do know now that I classify myself as an atheist (well, they insist on 'agnostic' as a title for me, which I think is stupid but let slide because I don't choose to fight a battle over it), but they continue making me go to church for as long as I live with them. Generally neither of us brings it up whenever possible; it's a touchy subject, especially because my younger sister has a much stronger belief than I do and doesn't 'get' my atheism. Incidentally, I am not usually vocal about my atheism except when someone tries to get me to join a Christian youth organization (for example, this morning a girl at my school told me the time of the next meeting of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and told me to 'be there!' and was somewhat nonplussed when I, bewildered, exclaimed that I was neither a Christian nor an Athlete!). I tend to feel that it's no one's damn buisness what I do or do not choose to worship, and I am quite weary of the blank, horrified/surprised stares I garner whenever the topic comes up in conversation.

i can't seem to grasp religion either. I can't come to terms with the fact that God created the world in six days and rested on then rested on the seventh day. Is not God supposed to be all powerful and mighty? And why is it that the dinosaurs are left out of the bible when the world was created? The dinosaurs did exist did they not? We have actual proof that dinosaurs existed.
i get quite bored at church. I would much prefer to help people than listen to the same thing over and over again that i can't seem to understand. I went to a funeral recently and half way through the funeral i realized that the poor woman was dead. Of course I know what funerals are meant for but it just seemed so strange that she was...dead.

thats what im saying dude. i think the bible is just a story of a older, older story, mainly what im talking about is the flood. most of the old testement books like the flood story are taken from the sumarians. i think if you really want to know who created us you need to go back to the first civilization; the sumarians to find that out. the answer? aliens. yep aliens.

I think it depends on the person, not if they have Asperger's or not. I've been raised a Christian, and I couldn't understand the Bible, and I too hated going to church then. When I reached the age of 12, I was lost; I just kept asking "How do I have faith in God?". I believed that God existed, but it just didn't click all at once. Then I was saved that summer, and it really changed my life around. I love church now that I have the Holy Spirit in me. It's really opened up my mind when I found out that church isn't supposed to be something that you just do ruitinely on Sundays, but rather something you do because of your relationship with God, for growth and time spent with other believers. You can say the same about the Bible; I couldn't understand it quite as much and I couldn't pay attention to it at all before I had the Holy Spirit. Then God opened up my mind and now I can understand what God meant by that parable (for example), instead of being confused as to why he told all these stories about throwing seed around and earning denariuses and such. I've chosen to follow God and try to make Him the center of my life. It really does make a difference if you let God into your life, because He does listen, and it makes you understand church and things of the like much better, because God is supposed to be the center of those things and not the other way around. Anyways, in my opinion it doesn't depend on if someone's an aspie or an NT if they attend church or not; I think it depends more upon the heart of the individual.

Re dinosaurs. We're told creatures were created, living in water, on land and in the air. But said animals aren't specified, so in fact they may well have been dinosaurs!

I have a very strong belief - I'm a Jehovah's Witness, and I love the way everything just makes so much sense. It takes some studying, but it's so rewarding and, well ... it makes sense!

Aspiegirl2 - what you said about it depending on the heart of the individual, I thoroughly agree. We have an expression - we talk about having the right heart condition. By that we mean a person with the right heart condition is receptive of the truth and will act upon it, but if a person doesn't have the right heart condition then no matter how much they are taught, they simply won't believe or act upon it.

Actually, I've read most of the Bible (found Leviticus and the other books of Jewish Law in the Old Testament far too boring). I just never got any more out of it than I got out of any other culture's set of mythology.

Interesting thoughts one and all. It seems that some postings could be from aspies or NT's alike. I am wondering; for me, I think in a linear, logical and literal way. In turn, does that make leaps of faith unattainable?

The priest at my sisters wedding talked forever and we kept standing up for no reason.