Is This An Autistic Thing?

The following remarks were all contributed by one person to an online discussion about Jesus' historicity, over the course of the past day and a half:

"[...]you have no hope of answering that question with anything but gross speculation[...]With so little evidence you cant make a case for or against his historicity. You can only speculate and give your opinions[...]these were books that were being edited and put together to express a message being fashioned in real time by a panel of church elders. They chose the message they wanted to send and made sure it was reflected in the writings that made it into the bible. In one of those cases the mention of Jesus was out of context with the rest of the text, as if it was added later, or at least, that was the conclusion of the folks who study such nonsense. I stick to science[...]I think speculating is worth less of my time then doing things for which there can be answers. Not that I dont do it, but I don't squander it - i save it for speculation that I care about[...]the point is what does it matter? you will solve nothing, you will accomplish nothing, the conversation has been ongoing for hundreds of years. Do something useful instead. Go feed a hungry dog[...]this is what I mean by a waste of time[...]"

The last remark was made just a few minutes ago, and I have no idea whether or not the end is in sight yet. I fear we're not nearly there yet.

Jumping into the discussion so many times just to say that he doesn't think the discussion is worth having.

I don't understand this guy. And it's not just him. I run into this sort of thing a lot: People interrupting discussions about whether or not Jesus existed to inform the discutants that they don't care whether or not Jesus existed. And when I told him that his behavior mystified me, he got very mad.

What is he mad about? Why is he wasting so much of his time to insist that he won't be wasting any of his time on this? I don't think it ever occurred to him to apologize for wasting MY time, or the time of other people trying to discuss the topic at hand. And implying that discussing whether or not Jesus existed makes dogs starve? Is that any less irrational than insisting that cuss words make Baby Jesus cry?

I don't think people barge into discussions on other topics very often just to express their disinterest in those topics. Clearly, the topic of Jesus makes people go a little nuts.

Still. Behavior like this baffles me. I'm just about at the point where I think that trying to understand this may be a waste of my time. I'm past the point where I've concluded that responding directly to this guy is a waste, or worse. (Seems to fire him up and egg him on.) So this blog post, besides being motivated by the fact that it's been 4 days since I posted anything here, is also me sort of winding the issue up and tying a bow around it.

But besides that, I'm wondering whether this is an instance where someone's behavior baffles me because I'm autistic and the other person is (I'm assuming in this case) neurologically-typical. I also assume that the majority of you, my readers, are neurologically-typical. And so, before I do my utmost to put the subject behind me and return to topics which I find more interesting -- such as, for example, whether or not Jesus existed -- I'm asking whether any of you might possibly find this person's behavior not so bizarre, not so mystifying. If you'd like to comment, if you could possibly explain some of this to me, explain why a person would interrupt a conversation with so many assertions that he doesn't care about the topic of discussion, that would be very helpful. I've got to live among you, the neurologically-typical, and greater understanding eases the co-existence.

Is he motivated by kindness? It doesn't feel at all kind to me, but hey, I misunderstand people very drastically on a routine basis. Is he trying to be helpful by warning me that I'm wasting my life? Is he actually obsessed with Jesus, but in denial about it? Those are just wild guesses on my part, I really don't understand this.

Do you also find his behavior bizarre?

"All I know for sure is there's already more'n a few bad ideas runnin' around loose out there."

-- David Lynch, screenplay for Wild at Heart, based on the novel by Barry Gifford. (Sorry, David, Barry, if that quote isn't exactly accurate to the letter. It was the best I could manage.)

An incorrect assumption is not the same as a bad idea, but it can lead to bad ideas, and just watch or read Wild at Heart for a glimpse at all the scary kinds of shit that bad ideas can lead to.

Several people have urged me to write more in my blog about being autistic. In a sense I think that every post on this blog already is about being autistic in the sense that I've written them all, and that I've tried my best, while writing them, to be just exactly who I am.

I correct people a lot. Maybe one manifestation of my autism is that I haven't noticed how annoying this can be, or I haven't understood how to do it tactfully when it's not best just to STFU. One thing that being autistic means for me is that I've been autistic all my life, but I didn't know I was until I was 46, and for 6 years now I've been making certain adjustments in my behavior based on this new information.

Of course, people are all individuals, and, autistic or neurologically-typical, some are much more receptive to being corrected than others. I try to be receptive to it. (How else would I or anyone else ever learn anything?) What concerns me here today are people who hang on with bitter determination to incorrect assumptions in the face of huge amounts of correction -- stupid people, that is. I blog an awful lot about stupid people, don't I? Is this a typically autistic obsession? I don't know.

I also don't know how many people are determined to hang on to the following incorrect assumptions:

Jesus would've been required to be married -- wrong. Constantine changed the Bible -- wrong. Constantine and the Pope changed the Bible together at the Council of Nicea -- wrong, the Pope wasn't even at the Council of Nicea. There once were hundreds of Gospels -- pure speculation, the ones we've found plus the ones we've only heard of by name all together add up to several dozen. Since I'm saying all this I must be a Christian -- wrong, I'm an atheist and I think Christianity is bad for people, I just think Dan Brown is extremely bad for the study of history. Only Catholics dislike Dan Brown -- wrong. Biblical scholars can't be trusted on factual matters of history or textual criticism because of their religious bias -- usually wrong.

The assumption on the part of some stupid atheist or another that I'm a Christian and a Republican because I disagree with him or her about something is particularly galling. Time and again I go back over these exchanges, and the amount of remarks on my part which could be construed to be religious, again and again, is nada, zero, squat, the null set. The stupid atheist assumes I'm a Christian only because I disagree with him or her on something which has no resemblance whatsoever to an article of religious belief, but is only a factual mistake current in a big circle-jerk of an atheist game of Telephone.

I wonder, are there really as many people running around loose whose worldviews are so stupid, simplistic, binary, zero/one, on/off, black/white, atheist/Christian, correct/incorrect, as it sometimes seems to me? Or am I subconsciously drawn into conflicts with such people, which gives me an inflated idea of their numbers? (Am I subconsciously drawn to them because I'm autistic?) I hope it's the latter, both the sake of the world at large and the amount of effort needed to confront mass stupidity, and also for my own sake, because if this group of stupid people is actually statistically insignificant, and it's only an unproductive subconscious drive on my part which brings me into contact with them, I can become more conscious of this tendency, overcome it and thus find much more rewarding uses for my time. (If my impression of the numbers of such people is not exaggerated, then my Stoic tendencies won't let me ignore them. Someone has to deal with them, and, to paraphrase what Perry said to Jack, Elizabeth Warren is busy.)

You got that? If I've incorrectly assumed that there actually is an entire movement of people who make all of those incorrect assumptions and more, I want to know. I'd be overjoyed to be proven wrong.