Today I am going to write about the spiritual side of autism and the spectrum. Now you might say, hey, Spinning Compass, you have repeatedly stated you are an agnostic so what are you doing writing about the spiritual side of autism?
That is a valid question. I don't know if there really is a supernatural/spiritual dimension, or whether there is such a thing as a soul or if it all boils down to a matter of electro-chemical reactions, as some scientists seem to think. But I like what Vincent Bugliosi says in his "Divinity of Doubt" about the reason he is an agnostic as opposed to an atheist is because of the difference between the human brain and all other brains. He says blind random chance can't possibly explain it all. He may be onto something with this, and it may also be true that God (if such a being exists) is not the kind of God that can be confined to test tubes and measuring sticks. He may be like the ghosts in the play I was in, Sight Unseen, who didn't want to reveal themselves to just anyone and certainly not to the psychic where they would be at her beck and call. We really don't know and I don't think there is any way we really can know, not in this life at any rate. I know there's lots of people who would disagree with me, but that is where I am coming from.
But even if the soul/spirit is an illusion and just a product of electro-chemical reactions, it is all we have to work with. At this point, we don't know any other way of talking about the vast difference between humans and all other life forms on earth. And there is a vast difference. It's only until fairly recently that this difference has been blurred. There was a song a few years back that had the refrain, "You and me, baby, we're nothing but mammals, let's do what they do on the Discovery Channel." Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Classical Darwinism (and I am a Darwinist) says that we are mammals, descended from mammals. That is true. But classical religion says we are so much MORE. The tradition I am most familiar with is Christianity, but many other religions have their own ways of expressing this.
What classical Christianity says is this: we are not all right just the way we are. We are meant to be so much better than the way we are. Islam talks about the inner Jihad. Buddhism talks about self being an illusion and that attachment to self being one of the chief causes of suffering. The world is messed up. Maybe not totally depraved in the Calvinist sense but it's pretty well messed up. There's a thread going on right now in the forum about racism. Boy, you can't get more messed up than that. Something is wrong. What the different religions disagree on is the cure for this messed-up business. And I can't tell you who's right because I honestly don't know.
So what does this have to do with autism? Well, the root of the word autism is autos, Greek for self. Think automaton, automated, automobile. Self. And the classic religions, at least the ones I am most familiar with, all point to self as the problem. The self is to be overcome. It is to be transcended. It needs to die. We need to get rid of our attachment to self.
That is what religion says, and I don't think it is terribly off the rails when it says that. In fact, I think there's a great deal of truth in that, even if one doesn't believe in a god or gods.
To be autistic means to be wrapped up in self. Now I want to make very clear that we do not choose this condition, it is thrust upon us. There is a big debate going on in the scientific/philosophical community whether there is or is not such a thing as free will. I think we do have free will, but it is limited. Not everyone has the same capabilities as others. Not everyone has the same temptations and the same weaknesses. St. Augustine of Hippo who wrote the magnificent "Confessions" said that it's no virtue if you refrain from committing a sin that you aren't tempted to do in the first place. The true struggle, or what Muslims would call inner Jihad, is against that part of your nature that you know is holding you back from being what you are truly meant to be. We as autistic people need to be aware of that tendency to be wrapped up in self. We need to be involved in inner Jihad, to not be attached as Buddha said, to die to self as the New Testament writers said. Any way you want to put it, we need to struggle against our condition and not let ourselves be defined by it. That is the spiritual side of autism.
That is a valid question. I don't know if there really is a supernatural/spiritual dimension, or whether there is such a thing as a soul or if it all boils down to a matter of electro-chemical reactions, as some scientists seem to think. But I like what Vincent Bugliosi says in his "Divinity of Doubt" about the reason he is an agnostic as opposed to an atheist is because of the difference between the human brain and all other brains. He says blind random chance can't possibly explain it all. He may be onto something with this, and it may also be true that God (if such a being exists) is not the kind of God that can be confined to test tubes and measuring sticks. He may be like the ghosts in the play I was in, Sight Unseen, who didn't want to reveal themselves to just anyone and certainly not to the psychic where they would be at her beck and call. We really don't know and I don't think there is any way we really can know, not in this life at any rate. I know there's lots of people who would disagree with me, but that is where I am coming from.
But even if the soul/spirit is an illusion and just a product of electro-chemical reactions, it is all we have to work with. At this point, we don't know any other way of talking about the vast difference between humans and all other life forms on earth. And there is a vast difference. It's only until fairly recently that this difference has been blurred. There was a song a few years back that had the refrain, "You and me, baby, we're nothing but mammals, let's do what they do on the Discovery Channel." Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Classical Darwinism (and I am a Darwinist) says that we are mammals, descended from mammals. That is true. But classical religion says we are so much MORE. The tradition I am most familiar with is Christianity, but many other religions have their own ways of expressing this.
What classical Christianity says is this: we are not all right just the way we are. We are meant to be so much better than the way we are. Islam talks about the inner Jihad. Buddhism talks about self being an illusion and that attachment to self being one of the chief causes of suffering. The world is messed up. Maybe not totally depraved in the Calvinist sense but it's pretty well messed up. There's a thread going on right now in the forum about racism. Boy, you can't get more messed up than that. Something is wrong. What the different religions disagree on is the cure for this messed-up business. And I can't tell you who's right because I honestly don't know.
So what does this have to do with autism? Well, the root of the word autism is autos, Greek for self. Think automaton, automated, automobile. Self. And the classic religions, at least the ones I am most familiar with, all point to self as the problem. The self is to be overcome. It is to be transcended. It needs to die. We need to get rid of our attachment to self.
That is what religion says, and I don't think it is terribly off the rails when it says that. In fact, I think there's a great deal of truth in that, even if one doesn't believe in a god or gods.
To be autistic means to be wrapped up in self. Now I want to make very clear that we do not choose this condition, it is thrust upon us. There is a big debate going on in the scientific/philosophical community whether there is or is not such a thing as free will. I think we do have free will, but it is limited. Not everyone has the same capabilities as others. Not everyone has the same temptations and the same weaknesses. St. Augustine of Hippo who wrote the magnificent "Confessions" said that it's no virtue if you refrain from committing a sin that you aren't tempted to do in the first place. The true struggle, or what Muslims would call inner Jihad, is against that part of your nature that you know is holding you back from being what you are truly meant to be. We as autistic people need to be aware of that tendency to be wrapped up in self. We need to be involved in inner Jihad, to not be attached as Buddha said, to die to self as the New Testament writers said. Any way you want to put it, we need to struggle against our condition and not let ourselves be defined by it. That is the spiritual side of autism.
