I’m no enemy of religion but I’m not an uncritical friend of it either. I do not shut down conversations of God and meaning. Their variety intrigues me. There are far too many questions than there are answers. I generally love life and humanity but struggle with the problem of evil, which scares me, and sometimes get so lost in the incomprehensibility and sensory clarity of consciousness that I have panic attacks and obsess over things to calm down. The Aspergers/autism spectrum individuals have this tendency to obsess over things and people… and that’s where religion gets tricky.
Reality is out of our control, beyond language. Religion grants order and stability, and its rituals are a tempting distraction to the mind and senses.Here’s another thing that makes it trickier: I have bipolar disorder, and therefore extreme emotional and psychological states. If I am obsessive and manic, or obsessive and depressed, that obsession takes on all the darkness or overwhelming passion of these states. Therefore religions can give me a kind of mystical ecstasy, an incomprehensible passion, adrenaline. They can also lead down the path of terrifying delusions when my mind and body go into self-destruct mode, because religious and radically empirical, rather than rationally deductive, explanations have become immediate and appealing. If religion brought me peace and ecstasy, then I will grant it the power and authority to determine the nature and cause of my illness. Am I a sinner? What have I done to deserve this? Are God and the Devil truly fighting for my soul?
So, fixations are one of the most productive and positive aspects of autism spectrum disorders, in that they provide a way to concentrate and calm oneself, but if I obsess over the wrong things, it just makes everything go from bad to worse. That is what happened with me and religion a while ago. I had a mental breakdown and decided to convert to a faith I had been studying for a long time. I was terrified of everything, from trees to broccoli to reading the news. A crisis of absurdity had struck along with a biochemical malfunction. To put things in order I adapted a very strict faith system. I thought it might solve everything. As my bipolar episode grew progressively worse, however, the literal way I was interpreting religion started to make me delusional. My religious friends believe in the end times. They believe my suicidal ideation is the work of Satan. Well, one night when I was in the ER for the fourth time in two months, ranting that there was something inside me trying to kill me and that it was God and the devil fighting for my soul, I had a realization.
It was simply this: I am being irrational. This isn’t me. Fuck this shit, I’m getting off this train. And I did. I threw off religion with fear and revulsion and committed to rational autonomy with an equal belief in its redeeming powers.
I am fascinated by the complex, deconstructive philosophical questions, the rituals, the ecstasy, and the mytho-poetics of faith systems.
On the other hand, I don’t like arbitrary social coding that isn’t clearly in place to prevent greed, murder, incest, etc. Gender is a constructed and imaginary thing that can be bent, stretched, enlarged, circumcised, penetrated and collapsed. When I have made the big step to an intimate relationship, which is not a priority or need, but when I do, I love women as well as men. In *that* way. I really love the gays, homosexuals and homosexuality, bisexuals and bisexuality, and all other forms of sexual conduct involving adult, co-species consent. I am pro-masturbation. I like it a lot. Do I ever! Wow. I can really get off at my own hand. I think I will stay single forever. Who needs kids and a family? Not me. I like co-ed sunbathing and swimming. Coed everything. My body needs to feel the wind and sun, and there is nothing sinful about exposed skin and attractive fashions. I like John Waters, erotic novels, photography, and painting. I find daily life potentially quite erotic, in Europe especially. Bridget Bardot. Albert Camus. Tango, ballet, Sex at noon in a hotel in Paris. I like atheisms, nihilisms, existentialisms, and all their deep pathos because I too fear oblivion, and their irreverent humor, because I like making fun of everything. That is, everything. Even things you think I shouldn’t. I argue with authority and I kind of like causing trouble. This list could go on forever. I hate lying or making believe. I hate small talk.
aspieswimmer 
Great post. I am so glad you were able to throw off the religion when you realised what was happening. I went through a deeply religious period in my teens, due as well to the reassuring structure and promise of acceptance. What turned me off was the hypocrisy and judgementalism – they were fundamentalists who were hurting a lot of basically good kids.
Any hooray for masturbation 🙂
It is so fascinating that many of us have similar experiences like this. “Thank God” for logic… right? 🙂 Way too much complete stupidity being fostered by the religious, as well as paranoia such as the endtimes/God/satan stuff that, in the mentally ill, constitutes psychotic states, while in the so-called mentally healthy, it is a perfectly acceptable way of understanding things. Really creepy and not so clear a distinction, in my opinion.
I meant “And hooray…”.
*sigh*
Thanks hepcat! I forgot about my blog temporarily. Maybe I’ll come back to it…
When I wrote this I kept posting things (about sex and sexuality) on my Facebook to try to offend my religious friends
into defriending me. Talk about immature.So I turned it into a blog.