Frequently, I mention how the Left uses anecdotes to try to dispel objective truths. For example, because some women are raped and conceive a child as a result, this means it should be legal to kill that child….they say. Well, now I am myself an anecdote disproving a falsehood. Funny how that works, huh?

Stuart writes about a research study which seems to indicate some correlation between autism and atheism:

Folk who are skilled in “mentalizing” – or as I would term it “Empathy” – are more likely to believe in God according to research reported in the National Post.

He writes:

There’s also the inference that as men are less empathetic than women this may explain why fewer men believe.

All of this brings up the rather fraught issue of being hard-wired to believe or disbelieve.

Could we posit that atheists are less empathetic? I ask this tongue-in-cheek.

Well, I have Asperger. I am not hard-wired for empathy. I don’t consider myself to be anything like a mind reader.  But the Holy Trinity is not in any way limited to subjective assumptions about things, and so, I am drawn to the Trinity more so than to people precisely because of my Asperger, in my opinion. The Holy Trinity is the One I can depend on ultimately and completely.

Origen wrote:

There is therefore nothing created, nothing subject to another in the Trinity: nor is there anything that has been added as though it once had not existed, but had entered afterwards: therefore the Father has never been without the Son, nor the Son without the Spirit: and this same Trinity is immutable and unalterable forever (P.G., X, 986).

Immutable and unalterable forever. We are talking here about something that requires no guess work. Empathy, to me, is all guess work. (((shudder))) I hate guess work. Give me “immutable and unalterable forever” and I am ecstatic.

God is very real. The Father is real. The Son is real. The Holy Spirit is real. I have experienced the Trinity in a very real way, and that is where I long to be. The way I treat people is a reaction to what I know about the Trinity. I am rather backward. We know, for example, that marriage was created by God so that mankind might come to know Him better. Marriage is a reflection of God’s love for humanity, and so, people learn about God through marriage. Me, I’m backwards. I learn about people through God. Cardinal Barragan is right that God’s image is in the mentally ill person. We are backwards people. Completely backwards. We are in God and we learn about people through God. Others learn about God through their relationships with people.

And so, no, it is not that people with Asperger are hard-wired to be atheists. People with mental disorder are hard-wired to be in the image of God and we have to learn to live in this world and relate to people as God expects us to do…because we love Him. Otherwise, we’re going to be in a horrible mess.

As Cardinal Barragan said, this is not a simple thing for folks to understand, particularly those who are not people of faith at all but see things through a secular lens.

It is true that the objective disorder of sin and its consequences are manifest in the mentally ill patient; however, at the same time, there is in him the historical equilibrium of the only possible order, the order and equilibrium of the Redemption.

This is not comprehensible to a secularized mentality; it is only understood within the context of Christian optimism, which stems from a reasoned faith that tells us how in such circumstances our obligations towards a mentally ill person, on one hand, satisfy our duty to see the suffering Christ in the poor and less protected; and on the other hand the idea of seeing in the patient the love of God who has indicated him as his chosen one, in the sense that he shall not be separated from Him.

He is therefore a proof of the crucified love of God. Hence, the best thing we can do is to give them a treatment of love. Since the mentally ill patient is also the image of the resurrected Christ, we have the obligation of being the “Good Samaritan,” that is, providing all that is necessary for his care.

I think that’s a fancy way of saying we’re backwards in a good way, don’t you?