Thank you for the responses. I want to begin by saying what I am going to post is heretical and contains graphic imagery and any one who does not wish to read objectionable content should not.
I very well could be on the Autism Spectrum, but I stopped believing in the DSM when I learned it used to classify Same Sex Attraction as a mental disorder. I could go into an entire debate about how psychiatric classifications, while they have much good, lead to great stigma and harm.
I understand the decorum of normal human interaction. I have used Aristotelian-Thomistic Virtue Ethics, similar to Cognitive Behavior Therapy, in order to try to force myself to act more like a normal person. I always wondered if it was virtuous not to discuss the truth simply because it was too hard to handle. If it was virtuous to not talk about Theological issues because people either weren’t interested or were inimical towards my viewpoints. Are we not to evangelize even if it fosters discomfort?
I was 18 years old and newly interested in Catholicism. I tried to convince my parents that it was what God wanted for them. My dad said he would not believe in a God that damned portions of their humanity because of the circumstances of their birth and upbringing. I tried to tell him that St. Paul said that all men are responsible for knowing about God because the natural world affirms it. Does the natural world really affirm in a sufficient to manner to show the destitute Untouchable Caste in India that God is Jesus, or was it the Charity that Christians provided that does this? My mom asked me whether I would be content letting her and my Father to burn in hell. I convinced myself that there was the Beatific Vision of God to provide me solace. It was the most heartless thought that ever entered my mind.
I do not have the heart to blame the man raised in Saudi Arabia, fed anti-Semitic and anti-Western lies by the state controlled government. He follows Islam, but is there any other choice.
From Wikipedia: The Saudi Arabian Mutaween (Arabic: مطوعين), or Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (i.e., the religious police) prohibits the practice of any religion other than Islam.
In Chaim Potok’s masterpiece, there is a boy struggling to reconcile the truth of his family’s Hasidic Judaism to himself. He sits at the library for hours trying to see if there is truth in the words of his father, who is a Hasidic Rabbi. This Rabbi is said to acutely feel the suffering of his entire congregation, whether in their New York community or trapped in the Holocaust Centers. Ultimately, that boy leaves the faith. That boy is who I am now and the father is who I want to be, regardless of faith.
I am at a crossroads. I can either accept Father Robert Barron’s “Reasonable hope that all men will be saved.” This is completely counter to any mainstream Christian Tradition however. The other option for me is Secular Humanism.
