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I was sitting in on an AA meeting Wednesday afternoon, and that is sort of what spawned this. It is pretty disjointed and spat out really quick, so it probably sucks. Anyway...

AA meetings talk a lot about God, which is okay. I don't mind people being religious. But there's a point at which I start getting angry - that point is the point where phrases like, "If you have enough faith, God will give you what you need," and "God always helps those who deserve it," start getting thrown around. A couple of weeks ago, I heard some stuff like this at another meeting, put in a particularly patronizing way, and I got so visibly angry that my friend dragged me out of the meeting to listen to me rant for 5 minutes.

Supposing for a moment that God does exist, God does not give everybody who has faith what they need, and God does not always help those who deserve it. I have a friend who is seriously one of the sweetest, friendliest, most generous people I have ever met, and who has faith. He fell off a train tressel Wednesday night (if anybody here has seen the movie 'Lost Boys' it's the one in that movie) and is now in a coma in the hospital. In these people's worldviews, that shouldn't happen.

If God is what they seem to think - a force that cares about every individual and rewards those who deserve it - then why are plenty of good, faithful people homeless, or dying? If God is willing to take the time to help you quit alcohol, why won't he take the time to help somebody whose people are suffering from genocide? Why are you special? Maybe God just likes white, middle-class people better, I don't know. Not only is that a pretty shitty God, but it's a God I have an even harder time believing in than most.

In the Scars thread, Cramulus brought up schizophrenia and Asperger's as examples of "genetic personality".

In response, P3nT4gR4m said:

Can't help thinking those things are more a result of faulty hardware than actual personality traits.

I've been thinking about that, and I'm not sure I agree. I guess it all depends on how you define personality, but I can't figure out a way to distinguish mental illness from personality.

If somebody has had Asperger's their whole life, what would they be like without it? Would they even be the same person? Does it matter?

I think that a lot of people with mental illnesses get into a trap of thinking about "their real self". In other words, their perfect self without the problems that they have. I've been there myself (I'm bipolar), but I don't think it's a useful way of thinking.

This is relevant to other stuff, too. I don't think you can section off your personality into chunks. If you're raised in a religious family, that affects all other aspects of your personality. There's just no way to know what you would be like if you had had a different childhood. You wouldn't be you.

I might be being a bit defensive here, but I think there's a point buried in there somewhere. I'm not sure if it deserved a new thread or not, though. Oh well.