Although an atheist myself, it gives me some pause for thought when considering that evidence of an advanced sense of the divine, the supernatural, the spiritual, exists only among even the earliest settlements of the species Homo Sapiens. No such evidence of this advanced sense is found at any settlement of our species’ closest (and once coexisting) relatives within the human genus group.

It seems that this advanced sense of the divine (or the numinous) is the clearest and earliest manifestation of Homo Sapiens’ unique nature and ultimately superior intellect over its, now all extinct, closest relatives.

Probably it is this religious instinct, innate in our species, which causes us to reach out beyond the self and beyond the mundane and sensibly evident, which now manifests itself in our worship of reason.

Our genetic need to worship, therefore, has not been denied, only its object, for many, has morphed.

Intriguing that the acts of intense worship (both religious and secular) imitate the affectations of the autistic...

Or is it that the way out of the self (essential for the act of worship) manifests as apparent autistic absorption into the self?

Is a degree of autism a prerequisite for intense worship?

Sir Spot of Borg wrote on Apr 29^th, 2012 at 9:37am:

The act of inquiring into the manifestation of religiosity and its possible relationship to secular pursuits, is beyond the necessarily specific acts of theism or atheism, it is the specific act of one who inquires without prejudice.

Consider the scientist who gives up all in pursuit of his discipline and the priest or pilgrim who does the same. The genesis of both, I believe, is one, and deeply innate in our species alone.

Annie Anthrax wrote on Apr 29^th, 2012 at 9:46am:

Compare the affectations of religious pilgrims or the eccentricities of many secular intellectuals with the ritualistic and highly focussed acts of the autistic.

It is now generally accepted that Einstein had a form of high functioning autism - Asperger's syndrome.

Sir Spot of Borg wrote on Apr 29^th, 2012 at 10:04am:

I am using the term 'worship' in a generic sense beyond the specific reference to adoration of a deity.

Even antitheists such as the late Hitchens admitted to having a sense of 'the numinous' and a love for it.

It is true that not everyone necessarily manifests a sense of wonder or overtly worships anything (some of us are dull of mind but who may yet betray a need to worship through non-intellectual or non-religious pursuits)... I'm referring to those who do either through secular pursuits or driven by a sense of the religious and I'm suggesting that the need which drives both may be the same.

Annie Anthrax wrote on Apr 29^th, 2012 at 10:12am:

I wonder how pilgrims crawl on all fours for years to a religious site or the scientist who pursues a theory over decades manages to maintain such extreme focus... The only other personality types capable of this kind of intense focus are those with some degree of autism.

Annie Anthrax wrote on Apr 29^th, 2012 at 10:12am:

Into where else would they be withdrawing?

How do you explain sudden religious conversion? I can't think of a case of autism that has suddenly developed in an otherwise typical adult as a result of stimuli.

Some of the most intensely religious devotees are converts. In these cases, does the degree of autism associated with intense worship lie dormant until there is some kind of trigger?


Quote:


I don't think people with Autism are necessarily withdrawing into anything.

Annie Anthrax wrote on Apr 29^th, 2012 at 10:27am:

I don't know, but I'm intrigued that the phenomenological manifestations of autism and intense devotion to either religious or secular pursuits are the same. Does autism stimulate parts of the brain that are in tact and are those parts of the brain so stimulated the same as deployed within the mind of the non-autistic intensely focussed?

Annie Anthrax wrote on Apr 29^th, 2012 at 10:27am:

And yet it is separation from the world and from the other that they intensely desire, which is the exact same desire of those who pursue a subject (religious or secular) with intense focus.