AUTISM, and religion

Post Reply New Topic

I don't really care what others believe as long as they don't go sacrificing my family or try to cleanse my kin or something. I believe in the traveling spirit... so I'm just spiritual. I focus on my inner link to this world. I don't deny a creator... I just see no reason to praise it for this world.

Listen to yourselves, belittling each other's beliefs. "Adam, Eve and the big bad snake" or "something from nothing". Dont be mean to each other, I think of this site as an oasis and its depressing to see this

Yeah, this is basically how I am in a way. My beliefs are better explained on the first page.


And Arondight, I totally agree. Thats another reason I dont follow any particular "code" or "system". I take what can help improve myself, mainly the philosophical priciples behind the religions, such as Honesty and Integrity, loyalty to friends and family, stuff like that.

All of this in such a shiort time span. This is why I am pessimistic about the possibility of any kind of serious discussion here about - let's say "belief systems" this time.

If I go to the Art/Music/etc/ section and try to start a thread about Science Fiction I can feel PRETTY sure it will not be swamped by people whose mission is to save the world from SciFi

But put "religion" or "Christ" or "bible" into a post, and the zealous missionaries swoop down.

I wonder, friends - if you start a thread complaining how Christians are threatening Science [as my brother believes], do you hAve to sworry that believers will filibuster till ouy cannot get a word in edgewise?

Vis a vis Odin, you can argue it two ways - either firstly, Jesus was a man (kinda the point of being incarnate) with a man's capacity for immediate suffering, and so didn't suffer as much as Odin, who impaled his godhood (small g godhood, really, but still very much more than a man) on the universe; or secondly, Jesus was a good guy doing the right thing for others and suffered more acutely because of it, whereas Odin was mostly just being a selfish git.

You need to keep it in perspective, though. Almost every religious text, including the Bible, was written by people who didn't understand the size and nature of the universe and Earth's place in it, so when someone says "Odin impaled hisself on the world tree" they're thinking big, but again, small b big for a small g god. When the Bible says Jesus, the Son of God died for mankind, it includes the authors' assumptions that the world is all there is and mankind is the only important thing in it; which is why the known size of the universe ("why did God create so many zillions of worlds?") and the (possible) presence of other intelligent life ("as there are zillions of other worlds, if there is life there, is there an Aslan for each alien race?") are big theological points. To remain a Christian while still acknowledging that the world around you is what it looks like you need to let go of the idea that the Bible is divinely written - because God wouldn't make the sort of ignorant mistakes that some parts of the Bible contain - while still considering it divinely inspired. Christians have that option, and most Christians take it. Christians also have the option of ignoring the more stupid instructions in the OT (Leviticus! get sacrificing those pigeons!) because Jesus said they were rubbish himself. (It's also a great advantage that Christianity has over Islam - Mohammed made it abundantly clear that he was (pretending to be) God's amanuensis and hence totally infallible, so when the Qur'an says stupid things (including that the world is square if I remember right) and proves him a liar, the whole religion of Islam is invalidated, whereas when the Bible says stupid things, Christianity isn't.)

I'm an 'atheist' I suppose, there is obviously no 'higher power' in the anthropomorphic way most religion suggests. I find religion to be far more interesting when you look at it objectively from an anthropological/cultural/historical viewpoint rather than as a way to try and understand the Cosmos. I've read stacks of theology over the years and about buddhism and taoism too. I suppose it's been 'special interest'

If you're really interested check out the Yale religious courses (google "Yale open Religious Studies", I'm not allowed to post links yet) if you've time to spare - there's about 50 hours of lectures there. The ones by Dale Martin will be an eye opener for some but both are fascinating courses if religion floats your boat - whichever side of the river you're coming from.

I was raised Christian and believed it most of my childhood. My logical mind started kicking in around 16 so I started questioning much of the basic beliefs and finding several contradictions and inconsistencies in the Bible. At this point I began delving more into pagan ideals and eventually looking at spirituality from a scientific perspective. Today, I feel more connected to Hermetic philosophy and Theosophy while still very much scientific-minded.

I am Jewish...consider myself a conservative jew....not orthodox...i am open to spirituality and believe people need to interpret things for themselves.

I can't say that I'm religious at all. The human "god" doesn't exist (whatever its form), so I guess that makes me an atheist, who so happens to be right.

I go full Asperger's too.

Interesting. I've read of a lot of people becoming atheists after reading the bible.

No wonder, god seems really cruel, like ordering his people to tear pregnant women open! But then for some reason he decides to be nice and save us from hell even though it was his rules that send people there in the first place n

Im a christian tho my beliefs may differ and may not be deemed acceptable by other christians.

For instance my opinions of many things are quite "liberal" and even though Im almost certain there is a god, I don't deny the possibility that he/it might simply be the product of my own internal thought processes if that makes much sense(?).

For instance after speaking with several christians, they said it is like god calling you on the telephone, and he wants you to pick it up. However it has also occured to me that it may in fact be you who has to "call god".

You might find this book an interesting read - the comments give you an idea of the thesis and you can read the introduction by Bishop whatshisname on the preview thing.

LOL - I know, right? So bizarre. "He sent his only son..." (So what? He couldn't easily have another son?) ...to be tortured to death so that he could forgive us for our sins (What? He couldn't just forgive us w/out torturing his son to death?) Complete nonsense.

I think in a lot cases people came to this conclusion because they had a simplified idea what God is supposed to like and didn't know how else to read the Bible other than from a 21st century POV. I also wouldn't be surprised if they were mostly influenced by common arguments against Christianity they'd previously heard of--which I've always thought is irrelevant since the God in the Old Testament is also the God that the Jews worship and since Christianity (technically) puts more emphasis on WWJD than on what happened in the Old Testament.

I recently read Bill Moyers's Genesis, which I would recommend to anyone with no real background in theology. It was an interesting read. There were a lot of thoughts about God I never would've come up on my own.

I wonder whether there are actually no fewer believers with AS, but that people who don't really believe in God are more likely to claim to belong to some religion if they're NT. If Aspies are no less faithful, but AS atheists are more honest.

It's funny. When I was growing up as a catholic, I was told to always read my bible. I didn't really read much of it. I sort of cherry picked bits that sort of made sense to my infantile brain. I was told by the church and by my family that I needed to read the bible and go to church and that would give me the proper education for my faith. However, I read the bible properly and I simply could not believe any more. When I really started questioning it, I was told that I had a simplified view on chriistianity and needed to look up various theologians. How come the church doesn't expect this much research for believers as it does for skeptics?

At the end of the day, it's a book that was written thousands of years ago when science was just a little embryo. No matter how much you try to read into the bible and make excuses for it, let's be honest - how much more reading material do you need than the bible to understand the bible?