Off That by Baba Brinkman - it's worth a look!

This music clip is great. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAYVY2eLMck
The music is rap style, and the message is of an atheist, rationalist, evidence-based philosophy that I have been involuntarily a part of since my late childhood, thirty-odd years ago.

When I was around 12 years old I politely told my Mum that I didn't want to join the girls' club that was attached to the church that she had been taking us to for years, because I did not believe in God. I knew I had been invited to join the club, but in all conscience, I could not join. In hindsight I had probably thrown a spanner into the works of my mother's rather forlorn social life, which was centred around the church, but I couldn't had done otherwise, even if I had realised the social implications back then. In spite of all the Sundays spent at church and all the Sunday School lessons, I was simply unable to buy the stuff I had been taught. I had no intention of trying to live a lie as a member of some church-based girl's club, regardless of the possible benefits, but to be honest, the prospect of joining a social club wasn't that exciting to me.

I wasn't trying to be mean to my Mum or rebellious, I had just thought through all of the logical implications of what we were taught about the world by our faith, and none of it made logical sense, none of it seemed even remotely possible, and it was pretty obvious that this religion thing was just the product of a shitload of wishful thinking. I was mature enough back then to understand that wanting to believe in something is not a logical reason to believe something, and to my way of thinking, logic must always take precedence. I case you've ever wondered how logical and bright autistic younsters come to be social outsiders, I think this story contains more than a few clues. How badly do you want to be a part of the club? You simply can't be a member of many clubs if you think too much.

A few years later a sister of mine, who I would categorize as predominantly neurotypical, joined a youth club that required members to swear an oath to God and Her Majesty the Queen. I was profoundly shocked. I asked "You don't really believe in all of that nonsense, do you?" I don't remember what the reply was. Did my sister believe in that stuff, or did she just go along with everything just to join the club? I knew I could never be sure of the answer to that question, because people lie all the time, and I just had to respect my sister's choices. I think this was probably one of the moments in my childhood that made me see that there are some fundamental and important differences between my sibling's type and my type. And the sad thing was that my sibling could meet others of her type anywhere, anytime, but I couldn't be sure that I had ever met anyone of my type, or ever would in the future. Perhaps Dad's engineer friend was my type? He wasn't much use as a friend though, as he was old enough to be my father. At the time I did not understand that cognitively and emotionally I had more in common with boys than I had with other females, even though the vast majority of my friends till then had been boys or old men. I wouldn't discover this "male brain" stuff till after I was forty years old and married.

In time you come to accept being an unusual person who is isolated for reasons that are not understood, and you also come to accept a small collection of freaky or misfit people as friends, even though you know you couldn't ever really have much in common with any of them, except outsider status. That's how life is, when you are young, and no one has even bothered to tell you that you are autistic, and you don't understand why everyone else is so irrational and obsessed with socializing.

Oh, goodness, were did that come from?

Isn't it great that nowdays you can be a member of some group even if you think too much or you are some type of freak? You can meet other atheists or geeks. You can read atheist books. You can read explicitly evidence-based books. You can join an online group for autists. Your kids can go to special classes or schools for the ridiculously bright and studious. You don't need to be a Catholic or an Anglican to be a part of the social scene. That's progress!

Do have a look at this clip at YouTube, but I have to warn people of refined sensibilities that there is some bad language.

Off That (Rationalist Anthem) - Baba Brinkman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAYVY2eLMck