Thursday, May 31, 2012

My Response to a Study that Claims Autistic People Lack the Ability to Believe in God


It is pointless to get angry at an article like this which so inaccurately characterizes my life. My ability to “mentalize” is intact. More than that, my relationship with God is profound and fulfilling. In my life, I talk to God throughout the day. He hears my silent prayers and gives me a place to hope.

I think this study is biased. How many non-verbal autistic people did they interview? My guess is none. I think our answers may be totally different than those of the people they interviewed.

It is my theory that researchers of autism from the University of British Columbia have difficulty “mentalizing” how life is for a non-verbal autistic person, so they make a statement that minimizes our deep and rich inner world and call it a study. The majority of people with non-verbal autism can’t communicate well enough to refute these claims, but their inability to communicate isn’t proof of a lack of “mentalizing”. I know that this is an uphill battle; still we have to keep fighting to tell the truth.

Here is one of my past essays on theological themes.

2 comments:

  1. That is just awful. Don't take the Daily Mail too seriously, though. That was way over-generalizing a real study that was done and the conclusion was not at all that ASD people couldn't believe, it was that we often didn't, but not that we couldn't. I'm an atheist, and I think that article was stigmatizing, stereotyping, pigeon holing, and just plain upsetting.

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  2. Yes, keep fighting to tell the truth IDO. And don't take this article too seriously. How could they possibly know. These studies are hardly accurate and have no way to determine that which is unspoken.

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