Yes, yes, yes, and maybe " I believe you're right, but daddy thinks this way..." ?

@Nakedterror which is what? how does daddy explain "specialness" of a sibling?

@jniece I have told her that Caris's (her sister) brain works a little differently than hers, and that's ok, we just need to remember that when we don't understand why she is doing a particular thing.
Since theres no "reason" I don't know what to say beyond that

How adamant is she? Trouble is mothers have a big advantage in courts too, tough situation. Take things slowly as she gets older reason can take over indoctrination

Because his wife encourages the child's belief in things that don't exist, and
is indoctrinating his children with religion.
I'd be damned angry, too.
He had every right to "blow up" at his wife.

@jorj Sometimes, demonstrations of anger get people's attention. Like I said in another response, as long as it's not excessive or physical, anger is a perfectly reasonable response to the religious indoctrination of children.
If he's been feeling like his feelings aren't being taken into consideration, he has a right to put his foot down.

As I've also said in other posts, marriages between believers and non-believers are often doomed to failure. Especially when there are children involved.

@ToolGuy Anger is about LOTS of things.
Personally, I think it's a great motivator.

@ToolGuy That's fine. You do you.

That probably wasnt well explained. After she said it, I looked at my wife and said out loud "uh, no he didnt" This led to a back and forth and got heated. I'm still struggling to learn HOW to parent my kids in a community that is almost exclusively religious, where I know they're going to hear this stuff and believe it. I was raised religious and it took me over 30 years to get out. I just don't want my kids to get stuck in it.

@maturin1919
My best guess on those issues is similar to yours (though I might argue we have no way of knowing for sure) but the brain of a five year old isn't capable of the Formal Operational Stage thinking that would be required to find meaning in those concepts. Personifying the collective natural forces that create autism might be the closest approximation that a 5yo could understand. There'll be plenty of time to introduce greater sophistication in that area and others when she gains the capacity for abstract thought at age eleven or twelve. We all have to face growing up eventually, but that doesn't mean childhood should be skipped.

Interesting take on the post
I enjoy how your brain maneuvered through this

@maturin1919
Literalists can't, but I'm not a literalist, and literalists don't own the language I speak. Since the beginning of human language, depending on which theory you like, between perhaps a hundred thousand years ago to possibly millions of years ago, humans have been mentally, and therefore linguistically, metaphorical thinkers and communicators. Some scientists argue that our capacity for metaphor is the major difference between humans and other species.

It's only been in the last three hundred years or so that human culture at large has taken up such a fascination with literalism in every domain. It's a new tool we have invented, and a damn fine one I think, but not our native language, and not worth abandoning our humanity for.

A culture that cannot tolerate metaphor is a culture that is arguably no longer human.

@Donotbelieve
I appreciate your kind and thoughtful reply.

@maturin1919
I'm not claiming there are no differences. I'm claiming there are similarities, and it is those similarities which make metaphor a viable linguistic shortcut. From the purely experiential perspective, if a stone falls from a mountain and lands on your toe, there is little difference between whether the mountain intended to hurt you or it was just the impersonal forces of the universe. Your toe is still throbbing in either case. "The mountain threw a stone at me" is not a false statement. It is a poetic expression of something that really did happen. Of course there are differences between metaphorical and literal expression, but what happened is not one of those differences. The impersonal forces of the universe (whether you call it God or not) really does condemn certain individuals to a life of autism through no fault of their own. The autism has the same effect on that individual whether the universe did it consciously or not. It did it. The experience is the same. The expression of it, and the explanation of it is what is different. The universe very much does do things. It does everything that gets done. Volcanoes do things. Glaciers do things. It doesn't have to know what it's doing in order to act, but act it does.

It's the baggage that comes with the word

@Nakedterror
It does come with baggage, but it’s other people’s baggage. So I’m not obligated to adopt the baggage, but it does take work to separate the word from its baggage. And I’m under no obligation to do that work, but I choose to, because it is a legitimate antidote to dissonance. Dissonance is our species’ silent killer.

@skado I'm not going to say you don't make a good point. I appreciate it. However, I think it might be like holding back a river with your bare hands. I can try and redefine god in subtle or not so subtle ways, but if the rest of her community isnt on board with that they're not going to help that situation

@Nakedterror
Yes, it’s exactly like holding back a river with your bare hands - a very apt description.

i disagree entirely. blowing up once when taken by surprise doth not anger issues make. everyone has emotional explosions sometimes and it's not a matter of deserving or not deserving; in fact the poster has the maturity to realize that the explosion may have been counterproductive and want some advice about how to handle the dilemma, rather than being accused of having anger issues when the accuser doesn't know him well enough, certainly not from this post, to say whether or not that is so. and by the way, if he does have anger issues and blew up due to them, that isn't how passive aggression works and that is not only a diagnosis made without basis, but it's not based on anything revealed in the post.

g

@genessa Fair enough, you are right there

@genessa thank you. It's been a weird dynamic since I came out to my wife. Theres a lot to navigate and its stressful for both of us