Aspies For Freedom

Maybe some guys like bitches.

Popular poster on professors' doors at Marshall U: 51% sweetie, 49% bitch, don't push it.

I think the parents are often afraid of what often happens to us.  
1.  Let's not even bring up the fact that my college degree didn't get me out of the house (it did after my Master's for Federal work).  With a Master's, some experience, and a decided advantage over recent college grads, I never worked in applied research again after Marshall University.  

At least the state of Maryland intervened, sending me to its VR facility to learn computer programming under Community College of Baltimore County faculty.

2.  I am still single at age 37.
3.  I did get bullied in high school, college, and graduate school.
4.  I was molested, age 8.
5.  I was not old enough to live on my own before age 28 (at all), and not permanently until the following year.
6.  No grandchildren in the lifetime of my parents.

Parents paint a nicer picture of their kids growing up and the reality we frequently have scares the ____ out of them.

The fact is that our culture, in general, is not yet ready to utilize our mental gifts.  The best you can hope for is the occasional employer, the occasional lover, the occasional school system and so on.

Granted, Timelord.  Also social motor oil is good for persuading people (NTs mostly) to buy stuff, make a deal, etc.  We don't have much of that interpersonal Quaker State.  So never mind the technical skills that generally come with the Asperger.  

In my extended family, except for my technophobe late dad, Asperger was the same thing as computer expertise (my brother and I), science (uncle, retired chemist) and math (other uncle, retired educator)

An R.A. is either a Resident or Residence Advisor or Assistant.  Shepherd called them residence assistants.

The people who try to keep order in the dorms, the noise down, keep harmony.  In Shepherd's case very emotionally and socially mature and often high awards (Rachael had McMurran Scholar, or the Shepherd equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor)
It probably does not surprise anyone she is employed there 15 years later.

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I don't feel like a monster but I am concerned that I was treated as one, even worried I might actually be one.

Did the other ogres think Shrek was a monster too?  I misunderstood my own dad.  He seemed so lacking in graces he could be mistaken for one, heartless.

CJ, about knowing you are saved, Christianity says you are, and you have to believe that you are saved.  It is also necessary to let believing you are saved change your life for the better (and love other people).  

I have opposed legal efforts to take people's rights away.  That is not my idea of civilization.

Pompous, I think you're right.  But I am aware of no malice.  Condescending means to "assume an air of superiority".  Yes that is wrong.  One is supposed to have humility and love.

I wonder why people might sound hateful when they think they are not.  Two possibilities:
1.  They might say the party line but not really agree with it.  I don't like that certain part of Christianity nor did I relish ignoring Julie (from the Rebecca group) after she flirted with me en route to Rachael's wedding.  Julie either didn't believe in Jesus or kept it a hell of a secret (which is not good either).  Recently I figured out I did that for Jesus.  I don't want Him to be a failure in my personal life.  It is a motivation to keep waiting just in case He does, because if I admit defeat, surrender, and end up with some nice other Julie or Martha, it would make me very sad to think He failed me.  It is the difference between A. Jesus really came through for me again and B. Darn it Jesus didn't care, and it is going to leave a terrible taste in my mouth for the rest of my life.
2.  It is like alcoholism. Unconscious.

2.  

Actually I am from Maryland.  The WV years were when Dad stopped working for a living.

Why would a homophobe vote against a Virginia amendment referendum intended to disparage the rights of unmarried Virginians living together?

Just because I was pompous, maybe a little arrogant, offended one GS-13 in 1998 does not make me a racist card carrying member of the KKK.  Thank about it for a minute.

Any religion is good enough to get you through life.  But I am concerned about my afterlife.

Let's not debate the subject any more.  Just realize I don't agree with some parts of the Party Line, OK?  I am entitled to an opinion even if it isn't God's opinion.  As if it matters, it doesn't, but I hope you feel better.

I hope you know we're a bunch of Yankees.  Dad, Wisconsin, Mom, Michigan.  My job brought me into the former Confederate States of America for the first time in my life.  Call me a carpetbagger.

Call me a Democrat.  I did adopt the Jimmy Carter politics of Mom and Dad.    

Pomp and arrogance are a crime but they don't make me guilty of hatred that I am aware of.  If I was a hater and aware of hatred I would have voted my prejudice, not my conscience.

Exactly which Christians do you refer to in your rebuttals?
1.  50 specific individuals at a church in Arlington VA
2.  The vast majority of self-identified Christians in the USA (maybe 85-90% of 300 million)?

You've been eating half truths fed to you by a bunch of malicious hypocrites for decades.
  
My motivation to engage you in debate was primarily to defend my reputation, not to hurt anyone.  I don't want to hurt anyone else and I am dropping the debate, trying to stick to the issue that matters: who I am, what I really think, what I really do, and in what context I said what I wrote.

I don't think Mom and Pop raised a hater.  Really.  Dad tried to talk me out of Jesus.  He thought the likes of Ralph Reed smelt too much like Hitler.  Well, I agree with Dad on that one.

I have no interest in the Hate in the Name of Jesus Web site and I take offense to your suggestion that I would.

You know as well as I that it is easy for any blasted jerk to call himself or herself any religion he or she wants and tell you only the religion he or she wants you to hear.

Forgive me, I am trying to phrase this without generating offense, but I think what the hate mongers say about what God thinks about some behavior is no darn secret.

If they were honest they would tell you that they are no better because they wish you psychological harm, and wishing psychological harm on your brother is hate, and hate is suicide for a true Christian.

HATE IS SUICIDE.

Got that?

And they would also have to tell you that coercing everybody not to do (some things) is of NO VALUE because what difference does it make if unforgiven people are a little naughty or a lot naughty?  There is no valid point in simply scaring everyone into obedience on something like gay rights.  It would be like winning a battle and losing the damn war.

They would also have to tell you that the name of the game is saving people from Satan, not making them keep zippers zipped.
They would also have to tell you that everybody messes up and nobody can earn Heaven anyway.
They would also have to tell you that (forgive me again) by seeking forgiveness in Jesus is the only way to go to Heaven (forgive me, i.e., avoid hell)

But nooooooo.  They don't really care about you.  They hate you.  They would actually have to LOVE you to tell you the rest of the story.

A half truth is very dangerous.  A LITTLE knowledge is a DANGEROUS thing.

Case in point.  I used to worry about ze draft, never mind we never had one since 1973.  A year ago I read military enlistment standards on about.com.  I am disqualified because of sleep apnea.  I cannot enlist.  Ergo, I cannot be drafted (at least not until all the eligible dudes are dead)

The truth sets a person free.  

Next time you run into some foul mouth hate monger pseudo-Christian, remember what I said, maybe tell him that real Christians who actually read the Bible once or twice or three times say he is wrong, and in danger of forfeiting his eternal life.  Maybe offer to help him learn to read.

And please try to remember that I want no part of his problem.  I have peace and he doesn't.  Peaceful people just want to get along and maybe once in a while step on a few half truths.  

That is the other reason I wanted you to know this.  I don't think you really know those "Christians" are wrong.  Their own co-religionists ask them to repent.

I ALSO didn't want you to live the rest of your life thinking the half truth was the whole story.

Taken out of context, when Samson broke his ropes off and took the jaw bone of a donkey and killed the Philistines who were expecting to kill him, I suddenly thought of that email and being the attention getter I am, I said, "that is a weapon of ass destruction".... heckles, chuckles.... back to Samson in I Samuel.

Samson is not a very Godly guy.  He gets honey out of the belly of a lion and eats it when Nazarenes are supposed to avoid unclean stuff.  He loses a bet and kills 30 men for their clothes to pay the debt.  He burns up a wheat harvest with torches tied to foxes tails (11th Century BCE Fox).  and also, Mom and Dad, get me that Philistine woman.... and later, Delilah.  (Kind of vulnerable in his manly part, like I am vulnerable because I am lonely, like a few of us)

He finds God as an afterthought, but he knows God exists.  "God, give me water so I do not die...." there is a spring of water, and in next week's study, Samson knocks down the temple with another prayer.

CJ, that was Samson, not Jesus.  The early Old Testament was characterized by killing, the late Old Testament was characterized by prophecy, and the New Testament was characterized by preaching.

Radical concept.  Shut up and listen, treat someone like a human being.

And don't take credit for their work.  I never would.  I learned in college always give proper credit for work done (don't plagarize- it is as bad as cheating on a test, or telling a whopper, in this case to your boss).

The nonconformity part fits nicely with Emile Durkheim's theories of social cohesion.  Society is not a living thing we know that, but other people do tend to react fiercely to nonconformity, and in varying degrees.  The Rules of Sociological Method is good reading, a good description of this process.  There will always be deviance, and a death penalty, because death will be saved for whatever offends the masses the most.  If there were no murder or felonies, there would be a death penalty for shoplifting.

Violating the law is not the crime.  Nonconformity is the crime.  Driving 55 when no one else is is a crime

Watch that NOVA episode on the Intelligent Design court case in Delaware.  The Christians, I am ashamed to say, were not acting like the Holy Spirit filled people they ought to be, they were acting like violence-filled murderous raging chimpanzees or baboons against the winning side.

Well, Christianity is unique in that God sacrifices His Son for the sins of the people who will follow Him.

Islam is submission to the will of Allah, a monotheistic God (was nor begotton, nor begat), and in that, has plenty in common with Judaism.

Christianity varies in that Jesus is held to be the son of God, and called God His Father.  Then you throw in the Holy Spirit as a kind of baby sitter (Jesus says   I am leaving, but I will leave you a comforter....   ) until Jesus comes back.