Polytheism,

How do you think you came to be without some super power creating you? how did everything come to be? 

You only need look at the complexities of the human body or the natural world and you see a logic and reason to it. It's possible you've never explored this or thought of it. Might be an idea to think on it. It really is that black and white you think of, actually very simple. A loving higher being made us all in one instant and now we are to return to Him of our own free will. Becuase He loves us He gave us free will, since what kind of love with slaves be? We can choose to deny Him or to accept Him and return to Him. 

Monotheism came first. God (one) created the universe. All the other so called gods are actually fallen angels and I must advise against any contact with them. They are happy to decieve and make you join them in misery. We have free choice though, which God gave us and if we want to we can choose evil. It's worth remembering that that truth that we seek, especially us autistic people, is a person - God. There is only one truth and only one reality. 

Why not give monotheism a chance? Isn't it infinitely more exiciting to know that one loving Father created all of creation. You as an individual were created for a purpose only you can fulfill. You are unique and important in His eyes. He loves you more than you can imagine and is always with you. If you want to know Him, he will let you and you will never regret it as the happiness of knowing Him is better than anything the world can offer. If you spend some time in the quiet and ask Him to let you know His presence He will do.... most often very gently as a feeling of intense well being and love. Aren't we made for truth? why seek the lies of the fallen angels. Lies are boring. 

Plus literal thinking and feeling less inclination to conform.

Eeewww, decaf, the very idea should be expunged from humanity!

Only hot, black, strong serious coffee here.

It seems to be about 50/50 here from looking at replies to this thread and a couple of others.

I supose it could be that very black and white thinking could lead to a lower than average engagement in spiritual activities?

I have seen somewhere, cannot remember where, that autistic people have a lower incidence of belief in God, or engage in religious observance, than the general population.

That’s a good excuse. I can’t tell if you are suffering from caffeine withdrawal or if you have overdosed on the decaf. No matter, all is well.

It's a way of thinking I'm never going to understand but I try very hard to respect others views.

I struggle to believe that we can live in such a difficult world with so much war and conflict, hate and sadness, cruel illnesses (I could go on) and there be this higher being that supposedly loves us all. I don't really understand what God does and why he or she or they would want (or let) people to suffer, especially those that are good people and try to live a good, honest life.

I firmly believe in science and I include psychology within that. 

But it is interesting that it is all very real to you.

It would be interesting. I certainly don't think I'd be alone in my way of thinking. Although I'm sure many people that aren't autistic share my views too.

It's easily done. Sometimes comments appear in a confusing order.

As has been shown above this was caused by a muddle and I don't recall saying I felt autism and spirituality are linked.

Sorry my muddle, my only excuse is decaffienation.

I don’t understand your reply TheCatWoman Your first sentence is a question which I think is for me. I have not made any claims about connections between autism and religion or spirituality. 

I was indeed replying to  Expecto_Patronum , although I did make an earlier response to your OP in which I gave my thoughts on why people gave up polytheism for monotheism.

Was ArchaeC not replying to my statement that I think my autism is connected to my lack of belief? They replied to my comment and didn't mention you at all so I'm a bit confused about your response.

TheCatWoman said:

I link my spiritual experiences with being autistic

Can you expand on how they are connected? Not so much the individual experiences but the different brain wiring and the experience of a supernatural entity.

Do you think this is an inherent facet of autism? I'm genuinely curious.

Did I say that I link my spiritual experiences with being autistic, because I just read back through my posts on this thread and can't find anywhere where I've connected the two? Although I'm not ruling out a link between the two, I'm not sure there is one, do you think everyone who has deep spiritual experiences is autistic? That would sort of imply that people in the past were more autistic than they are today or that all autistic people are mor spiritual, which from reading this thread, they're clearly not.

As I've said before I'm not big on worship in the traditional sense and I dislike ritual and the performance aspect of it, I prefer something more personal, but then maybe that's an autistic thing, not wanting to do groups?

Lack of evidence for the existence of God is one of the key sticking points for people who do not believe in a divine being or beings. Many people of faith would argue that they choose to have faith that God exists and some might say they have had personal religious experiences of some sort. 

Some people who believe in God consider worship to be divinely inspired, yet ways of worshiping God to be human manufactured and influenced by geographical area, history, culture and so on. This idea means that it doesn’t matter whether you are Jewish, Christian, Hindu or whatever. Expressions of faith in these religions are limited by our human condition yet the essence of one God is there in each religion and can be discerned through expressions of love, charity, faithfulness, truthfulness and so on. 

It is intriguing that you think your autism might be playing a part in how you consider religious worship. Now that would make for an interesting study—autistic people and religious experience (or lack of).

I guess that to me the divine isn't invisable, in the sky or any place inaccessable, to me they're everywhere, seen out of the corner of the eye and heard as a wise and often humerous inner voice, but definatley distinct from me and my thoughts. It's hard to explain, but to me the liminal and the numinous are real, almost everyday and normal, if sometimes a little strange. The Gods and Goddesses just are, to me, not accepting thier existance is like saying you don't believe in tree's or skyscrappers, to me they're definatley things I can stub my toes on and get tripped up by, I mean, only a God would come up with me falling down a rabbit hole whilst thinking about Lewis Carroll!

I'll be honest and I hope I don't offend anyone with this statement but I find religion full stop strange. Absolutely each to their own and I respect what other people believe. But I don't understand it. I don't find polytheism any stranger than montheism. I just do not believe that any gods actually exist and I find worshipping an invisible being an odd concept. I think this is part of my autism. I'm very black and white and very logical and I need there to be some sort of evidence for what I believe. And I don't see any evidence for god's existing, if there was, surely we'd only have one religion.

In my opinion, the biggest factor in the decline of polytheism was the influence of political power exerted by those who conquered or in some way took control of an area that contained people who had polytheistic beliefs.

In the Bronze Age, polytheism was practiced in different forms by smaller communities scattered around an area. It was difficult to keep track of multiple gods and goddesses and to give them equal attention. Time constrained the number of ritual practices that could be performed in a day for every god/goddess in the pantheon, so each community would favour their own god/s and goddess/es. With no two communities evolving to have identical beliefs, the individual communities were poorer in terms of faith identity in comparison to the larger monotheistic religions, so they were easily swept into the religion of those who wielded control. 

In the case of Mesopotamia, multiple conquests meant gods and goddesses were assimilated into those of the conquering communities. Over time, elements of these gods/goddesses could be seen in the polytheistic practices of communities scattered across what is now the Levant, ending up in early Judaism. The Hebrew Bible gives numerous examples and hints of what has been before, and the brilliant thing is there is also evidence of its polytheistic ancestry from historical and archaeological sources. 

The polytheistic religion of Ancient Greece inherited elements of Mesopotamian polytheism, eventually being overtaken by Christianity. The conversion of Constantine to Christianity and the expansion of the Roman Empire made Christianity an attractive alternative for many, for others the religion was forced upon them. 

The early Muslim conquests beginning in the 7th century were responsible for the spread of Islam, with the empire expanding rapidly from Arabia into North Africa and southern Europe. As was elsewhere with the rise of Judaism and Christianity, remaining polytheistic communities would have have had difficulty surviving.

I imagine you would find your polytheistic beliefs easier to maintain than it would have been for many pagans and others years ago.