Imagine if you got on a plane and the pilot was on the spectrum.  Then they had to get a new pilot, not because the pilot wasn’t skilled and talented enough to fly the plane, but—because of his autism—the laws of thermodynamics wouldn’t work in such a way that the plane would fly.  That would be ridiculous.  But that describes our relationship with God and religion pretty perfectly.  Because of the way our brains our wired we have a hard to impossible time interacting with the divine.  Which begs the question, if there were a god wouldn’t he be equally accessible to everyone (the same way the law of thermodynamics is), regardless of their brain configuration?

I find science is a safe space for me because it functions uniformly regardless of brain configuration.  A night when I was completely out of my mind (would be heading to the mental hospital the next day) I picked up an old school Game Boy Color and played some Tetris.  I was trying to test whether I had gotten a lot better at it, to match what my delusions of grandeur were telling me.  In that moment in that game it was shown that I wasn’t any better.  I was just as bad as usual.  Tetris was being the scientific objective voice I needed (God, on the other hand, was telling me all kinds of crazy shit).

Religion didn’t always involve the brain being front and center and then it was probably easier for autistics to be involved in it.  But as people have amassed more of a sense of self and the promises of interaction with the divine go grander and grander, the brain has taken center stage.