In my Aspie Split post, I wrote, “The non-conformist cares as much about having his own feelings hurt by NTs as he does about possibly hurting the NT’s.” When I followed that statement with, “However, the conforming aspie is too busy being concerned about offending NTs to fully know what outcome his behavior will cause,” I did not mean to imply that conforming aspies are not vulnerable to having their feelings hurt also. After all, an aspergers person is as much of a human being as a neurotypical is.
As I divided aspies into two categories, I now shall divide all of mankind into two categories. This split isn’t between neurotypicals and neuro-A-typicals. Instead, it is a spiritual one determined by faith in what a person believes to be true. To ignore this is to ignore the most important aspect that affects human behavior. The challenge with explaining this though is that most people today have gross misconceptions about who the true believers are of God’s word. This might explain some of the hatred that exists towards Christians.
Even among confessing believers of God’s word there is a two-way split as evidenced in James 2:19, “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.”
Simon, the sorcerer, (in Acts 8:9–25) is an example of how anyone by an act of his will can go through the outward motions that resemble true believers but yet remain as unsaved as those who don’t. Simon sincerely believed in miracles, was interested in signs of the supernatural, made an emotional decision to be baptized, and wanted (because of envy) the same powers he saw Philip display. What Simon didn’t do though was to come humbly before the Lord to beg for His mercy. He thought he could buy the Holy Spirit. That’s not unlike those who ‘accept’ Jesus by an act of their will and then think that because they did so, they’re now saved. It’s true one must accept Christ as Lord in order for God’s Spirit to abide in them, but what’s usually not mentioned is that there are two steps involved:
1. God first elects those who He will save (there are too many verses backing this up for me to want to include here; however, I’ll give this as an example for now: Colossians 2:23, “Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship,¹ and humility, and neglecting of the body: not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.”).
2. Then God breaks their heart and spirit to make them contrite (Psalms 34:18 and 51:17—KJV). A person must first become ‘broken’ before he can really know what grace and mercy means.
The heart symbolizes the will, thoughts, and intellect of our mind. It’s the belly (or womb, matrix; place of conception/fertilization) that represents the fountain of our emotions. Feelings are the symptoms of the mind. Because it’s the mind that’s able to be deceived, emotions cannot always be trusted.
Before a person is saved by God, he cannot ‘keep’ his heart (mind) with all diligence as described in Proverbs 4:23, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” His emotions (that stem from the ‘belly’) remain vulnerable to being offended by others. That’s why God says in Colossians 3:2, “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.”
When someone lives as said in Galatians 5:24, “And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts,” no one can continue to hurt his ‘feelings’.
I mentioned in my previous post that non-conforming aspies are concerned about not getting hurt, but I didn’t clarify deeper about a split in what these feelings are. For example, it is right to feel angry when you cannot get hired for a job you’re more qualified for than someone else who gets hired because he ‘played the interview game’ correctly. It is not right to feel angry when someone may have offended you because his faith and/or politics differ from yours. It’s not right to feel offended because someone isn’t looking at you in the eyes and/or smiling how you’d like. To demand such things from someone who is merely neurologically different is selfish. To not accept that some people have prosopagnosia (facial blindness) and, therefore, might not remember (to your satisfaction) who you are, is another example of what’s not right.
Unfortunately, there is one last thing I must emphasize now that I’ve said what I have. There will be people who will be offended by some of the things I’ve written here and they will probably desire to express opposing views. There is nothing wrong with that, providing that they do so without linking my blog to theirs. When people choose to do such things, that simply reveals hatred on their end.
¹Will worship is another way of saying people do what they want to do. To be willing is choosing to go along with something. To worship is simply to devote your service (time, energy, money, assets, etc.) towards the object of your desire above all else.
