Autistic Atheist

I mentioned in my  post about atheism and autism  that it is believed that autistic people lack a theory of mind. I wanted to talk today about why that is a misconception and where the misconception possibly came from. But, of course, the first thing to do is to answer the question "What is Theory of Mind?" Theory of Mind is the ability to infer and understand another person's beliefs, thoughts, intentions, and feelings, and use this information to explain and predict their behavior.  One way that Theory of Mind is tested in children is this simple story problem; Suppose that two children are playing together, we'll call them Mary and Ashley (names are for simplicity's sake and are otherwise unimportant). Mary puts her toy on the table and leaves the room. While Mary is gone, Ashley gets up and moves Mary's toy from the table to the toybox.  When Mary returns where will she look first for her toy? If your answer is the table, congrats. You have a working Theor...

Dungeons and Dragons; A Controversial Game. If you live in the southern part of the United States, then you've probably noticed on Wednesday evenings church parking lots fill with worshippers hoping to get the mid-week refresher of their indoctrination of choice. The godless heathen I am, I prefer a different mid-week activity.  Wednesday evenings, my friends and I prefer to play a wonderful role-playing game known as Dungeons & Dragons. Created in the 1970s, Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) stirred up quite the controversy and added fuel to the "satanic panic" of the 70s and 80s.  Before you read any further, I should inform you, this particular blog entry isn't meant to be scientific or provide proof of anything, it is purely speculation from the perspective of a former Baptist, who is now an atheist. That is all. I decided to do this quick blog because it is a Wednesday evening at the time of writing and posting, and this week's session got canceled. That is ...

"How can you be moral if you don't believe in god?" "Where does your morality come from?" Unfortunately, questions like these are all too common, and while I don't expect to change anyone's mind with this blog (most will probably skip it altogether), I still want to share my thoughts on morality. I can only speak for my own beliefs about morality, and not those of other atheists. I grew up in a Christian home, so admittedly, some of the good stuff from there, I held onto. Stuff like peace, patience, love, kindness. But I honestly believe I would have come to those conclusions without the bible. I say this because I was raised around everything but those traits. I was raised to believe the bad sides of the bible; that we should still own slaves, and that certain people are more deserving of certain rights than others. Despite what I was taught, I still chose peace, patience, love, and kindness for everyone.  I see other people as equal to me, as just as i...

I think it is very important to normalize atheism and I want to share why I feel that way and share some of the misconceptions I heard growing up. I am writing this in hopes that if someone who is reading this is struggling with what they believe in, they don't feel alone like I did.  I grew up in a very religious home, southern baptist to be exact. My parents and people from my church would spew all kinds of negative things about atheists. "They just hate god" "They're angry" "They want to live in sin" "No one actually doesn't believe in god, because they say 'oh my god' or 'goddamn' all the time" "they think the world came from nothing" "if they're on the brink of death, they're going to be praying for god to save them" "they worship themselves" blah blah blah.  Despite moments of skepticism throughout parts of my childhood, I believed in god. I believed he would make my life bet...

 I see people WAY too often claiming that atheism is a religion, and while I know they're probably not the people who are likely to look at this blog, I want to write about it anyway. Partially because I haven't written a blog in a while, but partially because there's a chance that someone who reads this is questioning their beliefs, or only recently stopped believing in god. I want to talk about what atheism is and what it's not.  First of all, what is atheism? The prefix A- means without or not. Theism means a belief in the existence of a god or gods. So A-theism would mean without a belief in or not believing in the existence of a god or gods. That's all atheism is. Atheism is not a monolith (a large and impersonal political, corporate, or social structure regarded as intractably indivisible and uniform), we all have varying thoughts and views. We believe different things. The only thing we do agree on is that we don't believe god exists.  So, lets look at wh...

What does Autism have to do with atheism? Maybe nothing, maybe everything. A quick Google search brings up a correlation based on theory of mind, but that's a little controversial in the autistic community and something I talk about more in this blog .  Instead, I want to start by looking at the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)* to look at the criteria for an autism diagnosis and discuss how each of these criteria might make an individual more likely to be atheist or religious. Please bear in mind that not every autistic person will meet all of these criteria, and not everyone will meet them at the same level as another autistic person. It is a spectrum for a reason, and if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person. If you know someone who is autistic, and you are curious if these apply to them, the best thing to do is just ask. *Quick side note, the DSM is not inerrant, it, like any other form of science is constantly being u...