Can you believe in God without seeing evidence of a God theory of mind autism and spirituality

It’s a pity we cant post pictures because I saw a fantastic cartoon which really goes to the heart of the matter. So I will have to try and describe it.

A little girl is sitting in a chair in the waiting room of the psychiatrist. She is telling the next patient that she has been sent here because she keeps talking to her imaginary friend who always answers back and tells her what to do. Then she asks the next patient, Why are you here? 
The next patient is a Bishop.

Reformed evangelical Christian here.  Level 1, high functioning. 

My early experience of being raised in church by Christian parents (the believing type, not the cultural/nominal), being regularly sent to youth camps and Sunday school and attending an low church/evangelical C of E church was definitely not geared up for my thinking style. Most people there seemed to believe in the faith from what seemed to be me for mostly emotional, and therefore, circular reasons (for example the sense of community, acceptance and love they saw lived out in the church for them was sufficient evidence). When on youth camps, people my age seemed to be intuitively be able to pick up what Christianity was all about from the teaching in the evening sessions - the metaphors, the attitudes of the youth leaders and the atmosphere, and were becoming Christians (the emotional data in other words). Whereas I just wasn't able to internalise any of it. My starting point was always a strict systems analyst, straightforward, reading the Bible as such and therefore not getting anything out of it. How can this possibly be the Word of God, when its just words on a page. How can someone assign such meaning to this when its not demanded? 

Its only when I begun seriously asking questions, and one of the leaders for the first time gave me good solid answers about the reliability of the New Testament (about 3hr session), that I was able to see as objectively true for me.

Churches really ought to learn that God has made some people to thinking types who need a lot more structure and concrete  evidence to come to a point of faith of trusting Christ, that not everyone is wired to naturally see the subtle emotional data and context of Christian living. The church that I'm part of now really values expositional teaching, apologetics and systematic theology over subjective experience

I still struggle massively to conceive, empathise and relate to a God who cannot be seen. My faith often feels like intellectual ascent and find it difficult to break out of a systems analyst mindset and can often feel inefficient rather than a source of joy. 

Daughteroftheking, that was an interesting post. Jesus said that we should not depend on looking for signs and wonders. He also said not to rely on things like visions or messages. However, in the Bible there are 8 spiritual gifts in Corinthians and the believer is given these freely which contains the gift of the Holy Spirit which many get at baptism. Now, you can ask for the Holy Spirit as John 16 states and I never have. I was baptised and was given the gifts freely. I have one of the gifts which allows me to be freely sent visions. I got this at 17. They are truthful. I don't rely on them to get me to eternal life. The same applies to everybody and and they need to keep their heads down and be themselves and do the best you can, but be thankful for whatever the Holy Spirit sends you in truth. I have a moderate to severe sensory needs and they have supported me with this when I became overwhelmed and it was not my fault and it was clear it was them. Also, I have felt their prescence in church when struggling they came by to support me. That was down to a genuine need and not me looking. Other people have gifts to and there is somebody  who is a young man who is a non verbal autistic. It seems like he has a gift and writes words of inspiration and he set up a facebook page sharing this with others. Jesus asked us to use our spiritual gifts and not to put the light under the table and having them more enriched if sensory is a good thing. Mine are active when not in use and it is comforting just to see it and Jesus said he will send us a comforter and we can be comforted in different ways. I find mine comforting. I didn't stress this in my first post to see if anyone had any thoughts themselves and then to follow my thoughts. If they send me something they do it freely and  I rely on faith as well, but the spiritual gifts can be helpful to show you that God exists. Also, Jesus asked people to look for him and people have said there is a moment he will  confirm your faith for you and you don't need to be sensory to see this I imagine.

A common fallacy in an argument for the existence of God is known as ‘The Appeal to Ignorance’. It uses lack of evidence as proof of an argument’s validity.

Faith in a God is not dependent on claims of evidence (or lack of evidence) where there is none.

I have no research to show you but I could point you to a priest who speaks about his concrete relationship with God. 

I think if you want to know God - then ask and He will let you know Him. He made all of us whether we believe that or not, or how we see Him or perceive Him it is so.  He knows how to communicate with us. Some of us need concrete sensual encounters to believe and others not. All who need them, will be weaned off them as they are the food of babies - the milk of the spiritual life. We must walk in faith and God can lead us. I was one who needed the sensual touch of God in the start of my spiritual journey though He did give me faith first. He gave me sensual experiences in the start, but as I say and St Paul before me these are the milk of the spiritual life and we should never seek them because they can so very very easily be deceptive and of the enemy or our own creation. We must merely accept what God gives or doesn't give. The higher way is always to walk by faith. 

I think autistics can do this as well as any other. We believe many science experiments and laws we read about but never test or examine personally (it would be impossible to do every experiment and take nothing on faith) - this is faith - natural faith yes, but faith nevertheless. We believe in laws of nature, all the things we learn on our special interests, etc We do not test or measure or examine these things ourselves - is that really the height of an elephant? the speed a cheetah runs? etc. so if we can take these things on natural faith with seeing them for ourselves. I can't see any reason why we could not believe God exists when the same evidence is present. If you look for it, evidence of God is everywhere and you cannot help be see it - hear it - smell it - touch it. But you must let yourself. God is in some sense, like the wind - you cannot see the wind, but it's effects can be seen, heard and even smelt and even though you cannot hold the wind or touch it... you know when it is blowing across your face... You do not believe you know. It can be the same with God.  If you look with the eyes of faith - ask for them and He will give them to you - then you will not be able to unsee it - this is my experience. God is everywhere - our Creator, Our Father

Hi Professor Precise-a-bug  

A tip I'd like to share for the "TLDR" issue.

If I don't have issues with the electricity used and am still interested enough to do so I copy and paste long posts into an ai and ask it to precis them.

Hehe - I also do so with long rambling missives that I create to help work out what the heck it was I was trying to say!

best wishes

 RachelO I am not asking anyone to change their mind. Simply describing my thoughts. 

I am not here to try and get you to change your mind, as you need to determine that yourself. I am sorry that your wife is suffering from vascular dementia. What I write should apply to all faiths is that illness can happen as a part and course of life and it is not the fault of God. Myself, I have had sickness and never blamed it on God.  I have used my faith to try and cope with my situation though. Human life can be frail, but with some faiths they tend to teach that after life, that there will not be anymore illness in a new body.  If your wife has a faith, may be letting them speak to a faith leader if they are able, might help them to come to terms with what they are experiencing.

This thought is reflected in this article to-

“The end of life is the closing earthly chapter, often shared with family members, a chaplain, parish pastor, or another spiritual care provider assisting the dying Christian with compassionate and significant conversations.”

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-29923-0_13

Sorry but TLDR

As to the question, these are my observations in a very ASD way. I cannot "believe" in anything, especially a so called god. My thinking is almost entirely binary, yes/no black/white. This quote from Robert Heinlein expresses it very well.for me.

A religion is sometimes a source of happiness and I would not deprive anyone of happiness. But it is a comfort appropriate for the weak, not for the strong.

The great trouble with religion any religion is that a religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge those propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak uncertainty of reason but one cannot have both,

In terms of personal experience, my wife has been struck down with vascular dementia just when we were about to have our happy ever after. Taking that into account I consider that if there is a god who is all omnipotent then he (ever noticed how god is always a he) is a sadistic psychopath. 

But there is definitely order in the universe. As to life after death, again an oxymoron. Our brains are living electro-biological computers without any permanent data storage like a memory chip that doesn’t loose data when there is no power. Once the chemistry that generates the electricity stops, everything goes just like the light does when you turn off the switch.

Of course I will change my mind is someone can present me with evidence.

I have been reading about this recently this dispute between Young Earth Creationists that  try to argue with science for validity on the creation of the world. I don't think that they really need to use science like this to have a belief. Some church's today accept thestic evolution, and don't dispute science but put God as the creator and do not make statements on when the world was created in age. 

I would like to read about other faith experiences as well, but I found this today research from Andrews university that I had seen before about the indwelling Holy spirit that it can be for neurodiversee people to. They favour this method over older models.

" The Asymmetrical Model, which holds that due to the transcendence of God no neurological capacities, impairments, delays, or differences can prevent the Holy Spirit from indwelling a Christian believer. However, the means by which that believer experiences God’s presence, knows God as a person, and relates to God will be conditioned or influenced by their neurology."

set.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/.../

I used to work at a major museum to do with natural history. In the basement there was a quarantine area where all of the books and specimen deliveries came in. There were frequent attempts by Yound Earth Creationists (ie Adam and Eve were on the Earth at the same time as dinosaurs) to get their books bibbles into the national museum's library. In some ways it was as disturbing as it was amusing. Probably because if this was one day rediscovered it could be unquestioned and called scientific fact or become part of history. There are lots of people trying to do this right now with various ,media, trying to distort reality and create their own narratives. Reality remains the same. I had to go to church at school, really all I saw it as was a social experience (lots of people singing togaether in a large echoey building) its quite an uplifting even spiritual experience for some people. Some people wish to take this further by sharing their views with the world. 

Thank you

I’m sorry that this happened. Remember there are other church’s who worship  and the faith and your heart and love it is not owned by a church as a Christian, but by God if you have the faith. So if you walk away from your faith and decide it is best for you, do what you feel is best for you. I know some people have been persecuted and they have to give up their faith but nobody knows if their heart has given up, only your heart knows.

Your post was moving and it spoke for itself. I felt to reply today. I have been through a difficult time to some years ago when I holded onto also seeing God in nature and animals, things worked itself out and I was ok again just by myself things clicking together and no change was needed or input by others. The faith should be at heart at peace and you should not be troubled, even though it is not a bed of roses all the time. Whatever you decide to do, take care of yourself.

Having said that I'd stay out of the theology discussion I do feel drawn into the research validity question to help understanding if that's OK RachelO and TheCatWoman 

From what I understand of it (thanks AI ;-) )

(Disclaimer here is that I've been thro' the M level training of meta-analysis of scientific papers hehe and that was one of the units I did pass well! - so I think it's fair to say that I "understand" the AI interpretation of this - albeit I have not fact checked it's findings fully myself - life is short...)

• For 'Lived Experience' (High Accuracy): In research, a group of 17 is actually a decent size for identifying common themes. Usually, after 12–15 interviews, researchers hit 'saturation'—meaning they’ve heard the core of the story. So, as a map of how it feels to navigate sensory supernatural experiences, these 17 voices are likely very insightful.
• For 'Statistical Claims' (Low Accuracy): We should be careful if the study tries to say, 'X% of all autistic people feel this way.' With only 17 people, a couple of individuals with unique experiences can 'skew' the results. It’s hard to claim these findings represent the whole spectrum.
• The Representation Gap: As we know, our community is incredibly diverse. A group of 17 can’t capture every gender, support level, or background. It’s best to view this as a 'pilot study'—a deep dive into a small group that hopefully paves the way for much larger, more inclusive research.

I think that 17 people is never enough, especially as these small sample studies then get used in meta data studies and once the media pick up on a study it suddenly becomes warped out of shape and takes on an importance that totally overblows the findings.

I do understand your point about testing a test or study questions, but I still think it's to low a number

It is not a big sample I agree but it depends what type of research somebody is doing. Also, somebody posted about ESP recently who was diagnosed with Cerebral palsy as well and I think this would come under the umbrella of that also.

I wonder if part of that is because if you're not of an Abrahamic faith a lot of the question asked and the way discussions are framed are not relevant to you and you don't really get the chance to explain what the differences are or why. Being a lone dissenting voice often means being ignored, you become part of a 1 or 2% that disagrees and that's it, too many people asking questions already have an idea of what they want the answers to be and don't really listen.

Not all church's are the same. I attend an Anglican church regularly on a Sunday and we all worship together whatever condition you have. Some people who have been hard of hearing have attended and also I attend and I am diagnosed as autistic. My service is 30 mins long and there is no music and people hardly speak to each other. Not all people like the same things and some autistics may like a service with music and have no issues with taking the Communion in their hands. You also can ask for a blessing instead. Sometimes even with no music I have worn ear defenders and had no problems to.

I also have attended Catholic church's x2 in the last year two different church's and didn't need adaptions and the format was the same as my regular church on a Sunday. May be some people with more profound disabilites may require something additionally.

My church to also host an autistic group once a month to get together. I think more than once a month services should be put on for those who may need it if some church's still do thiis.

I've followed some of your links and I'd question how acurate a sample of 17 young autistic adults can really be? It's not a big enough sample to make such exponential leaps from.