Religion

[Brandy]

What religion are you guys/gals? Does your Autism affect your relgious life? I'm a born again baptist Christian. Autism does affect it. I take things more literally than other "NT" people. So when they first talked about "consuming the body of Christ" you can understand my horror! I actually left the first church I was part of because they said Autism was punishment for sin. My new church is very kind and I have a lot of friends there. Actually, all my current real life friends are from church. It's small and we have contempory rock style music as well as a very short service. (1 hour) So that helps with my ADDness traits of attention, versus my old church we were expected to be there 4 hours every Sunday morning and it was not at all easy to understand the pastor. Pretty much everybody at my new church knows I'm Autistic, but all that means is they try to help me understand things about social stuff and literal versus figuritive. My life group (a group of people who meet to study different Christian things and hang out) is nice and doesn't mind my age. (my best friend from there is 30, I'm 19) Religion in itself is comforting to me and helps me figure out what "rules" I have.

[Lori]

I am Jewish and autism affects my religious life. I need things to be logical. I feel like I can not know if there is a god because I do not have all the facts. There are conflicting views all over the world. One god? many gods? empty void of nothing? old white guy with a beard living on a cloud? energy of all things? How can anyone know?

I lean towards the energy of all things theory, but found that when I was very sick last year, I really wanted and needed to believe in god. One god who I could talk to and ask for answers. and beg. But maybe god is a focus point for the energy of all things. Hard to think about such things without rambling.

As far as taking things literally goes, I have found a large part of Judaism to be extremely literal. From a young age, we were taught about our history as slaves in Egypt and shown excruciatingly disturbing footage of Jews during world war II in concentration camps. It is our job to ensure that it never happens again - to work for a peaceful and fair world. No pressure.

The first time I heard that body of Christ thing (at a friend's easter dinner), I was totally freaked too. Ended up hiding my cracker under a napkin.

I strongly identify with Jewish culture and know that growing up Jewish has probably affected me as much as growing up with asperger's. I would really like to have a community of Jewish people to hang out with. Me and my partner K have been thinking of joining a local synagogue with really nice, extremely tolerant people. It has been a year or 2 and we still haven't joined. Not sure why.

I never heard that autism is a punishment for sin. That is a horrible thing to be teaching to people! Glad that you found a church where you can be comfortable and explore things in a safe environment with caring people :)

[Aaryk Noctivagus]

Good for you, Brandy.

[Routinedelirium]

I'm not religious, and I don't think being autistic has influenced it in any way. I was raised Muslim but left it when I was 17 on intellectual grounds, and have been an atheist since.

[Kevin Hussey]

I would say I am not religious, but it is more complicated than that. Whilst I have difficulty comprehending the possibility of an infinite body and source of knowledge, and the way in which religion seems to be founded and based, I still admire and understand religion, and live my life by the fundamental teachings of the main ones - that is respecting others and causing no harm and so on. That said I do own a copy of the Bible, which I do read parts of occasionally.

If religion was more focused on the teachings of how to live and support one another than an almost fanatical devotion to trying to read too deeply into its literature I may be more likely to be part of it, but it seems too full of cliques and looking in the wrong direction

[Grieg Pedersen]

I'm very spiritual, but I can't stand any kind of religion. The loopholes, double-think, contradictions and just plain lunacy of the mythos very quickly crumble under their own weight. I figure out the rules form the structure of the universe. I only wish I could get my book (Ethics In Our Universe) published.

[Michael C.]

Due to my AD/HD I am unable to sit through an hour long service. I've tried, but unless I can fully understand and relate to what the sermon is about, my attention lasts for about 25 seconds.

However, spirituality is important to me, so I have had to research various information from a vast number of religions, to find a belief system that works for me.

[Brandy]

You would love my church then. We're singing, walking, writing, and watching videos/skits and stuff all throught the service. Lately we've had parodies of the Mac and PC commercials to explain the lessons. Also, it helps me that we are given out message outlines, but the pastor doesn't mind if we draw on them while he's talking,

[Jerod Weimer]

Hello Brandy,

There was an attempt for a few years to see if Catholicism would stick while I was growing up but that ended with my parents being requested to make other school arrangements for me. Part of my family attends the church haphazardly and a few do so with fervor.

I have read most of the mainstream religious texts albeit via translations and found them to be quite wonderful on the whole with problems here and there for me. I do believe in a greater power though (defined as an as yet unexplainable force in the universe as I just cannot buy into the whole chance theory) but I do not think that is what you are asking.

I support my friends and family in their religious endeavors though and see the benefit for some people in the organizations. More power to them if it works for them! I just do not support the active recruitment that some do but honestly it is not offensive or even irritating unless they wake me up on some morning if by some miracle I was able to get to sleep! I do wish that there was some way to remove the violent nature of religious differences though, that is really my only beef with the institution. Not that folks would not find some other reason to blow themselves to kingdom come though.

As far as life directions go; I look to my own compass and Taoist concepts of the world and that works for me fairly well. =)

[Gregory]

I am Catholic . It is no problem for me.

[Perhin]

I'm spiritual, so I basically believe in a bit of this, a bit of that, so no, nothing really hinders me. Though, I do try to look at everything logically. ;)

[shojomom]

i'm catholic but i don't agree with all of the Church's teachings. religion is one of my son's early obsessions. he's been wanting to be a priest since he was 3. he tried being an alter server, but coudn't focus. i was more active inthe church when i was younger. now i just go on sundays and hloidays.