We Aspies are usually brutally honest and speak our mind. Our allegiance is to the truth, not people’s feelings. Most people learn not to tell the truth all the time. Sometimes white lies need to be said so as not to hurt friends’ feelings. But white lies just seem immoral or at least illogical to many of us Aspies.
Of course, being brutally honest is not the way to make friends at least at a casual level so many of us lack those kinds of friendship growing up. I realize that I sometimes hurt people’s feeling here on RJsCorner by what I post. But usually, that is a secondary thought that only comes until after the post is written. Honesty to me is almost everything. I have come to realize that is one of the things that is making our current times, especially inside the Beltway Loony Bin almost intolerable to me. I just can’t fathom someone being celebrated for telling “alternative facts” that they know are untruthful.
One of those areas where being honest is lacking is in today’s religious establishments. I was asked to leave a Missouri Lutheran congregation because I openly said that I couldn’t accept that the earth is only 6,000 years old just because an old Jewish document written by hundreds, if not thousands of different people dated it with their counting the generations after the Adam and Eve story. That got me in trouble, but perhaps even more so that I just couldn’t make any sense of how current Christian practices changed so drastically from the words of their founder. It makes absolutely no sense to me.
Being honest is considered an asset by most in our society, but not in every circumstance. That is the part we Aspies can’t understand…
RJ's Corner 
The Lutherans are Literalists? I had no idea.
I understand what you are saying. Very perceptive. Maybe the idea of debate was created for the millions of aspies who founded courts systems? 🙂
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Lutherans like most religious organizations around today are “selective” Literalists. They pick and choose what to believe. I myself don’t put much credibility in Old Testament text, it just seems the opposite of Jesus..
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I am curious, R.J., you seem to have really embraced the label of “Aspie”. Is this the result of a diagnosis by a professional or is this a self-diagnosis from your own reflection on your life and behaviors? Not criticizing, just wondering how this description came about. You may have told us earlier but I don’t remember.
Yeah, honesty or bluntness is often offensive even when it’s true…it’s all in the delivery I guess. Not sure if this trait is exclusive to Aspies tho. I’ve known a few people who could be blunt or brutally honest but don’t have any other traits of Aspergers.
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Hi Jane, thanks for the question. It is a self-diagnosis, but comes from recognizing perhaps 50 different symptoms and taking a couple of Aspie tests. I have considered getting a professional diagnosis but then thought what is the point of doing that now. If I had done it earlier, maybe it would have helped me cope, but now it is what it is.
See the reference at the top of the home page here for the ten part series of posts that made me come to this conclusion. I have lined up about 50 traits that I will put out in weekly snippets going forward and you are right a person can have one or several of them and they are for the most part not exclusive to being an Aspie. But when taken as a whole show that diagnosis and it just fits me to a tee.
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I just visited Wash DC and in particular the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. How anyone could believe the earth and universe are only 6000 years old is just ludicrous. Why would someone want to look like a complete idiot in today’s modern advanced world!
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