“All autistic kids are atheists and atheism is a form of autism”

That’s the opinion of Fehmi Kaya, head of the Health and Education Associations for Autistic Children in Adana, Turkey. Autistic children are atheists, he said, “due to a lack of a section for faith in their brains.”

From TimeTurk (English edition) 4/22/13:

“Autistic children do not know believing in God because they do not have a section of faith in their brains,” Kaya said, according to daily Milliyet.

Kaya said the underdevelopment of faith sections in the brain caused autistic children to not believe in God.

“That is why they don’t know how to pray, how to believe in God. It is needed to create awareness in these children through methods of therapy.”

Kaya added that autistic children should undergo treatment to “create areas of faith in their brain.”

Apparently, it’s not the children’s fault. According to Kaya whose degree is in sociology, they are born atheists because of the missing faith section. “Research,” he adds, “says atheism and autistic children are linked. Researchers in the USA and Canada say that atheism is a different form of autism.”

A backlash from individuals and autism associations throughout Turkey has caused Kaya to complain that his remarks were taken out of context by news reports.

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On a personal note, my own background leads me to wonder if there’s some truth to at least one of Fehmi Kaya’s claims; the one involving problems wth the brain's "faith sections."

You see, I was a believer from a very young age and remained one until suffering a tragic injury (involving experience, reading and thinking) to the faith section of my brain. The injury occurred, I suspect, somewhere between the cerebellum, the pons and the I-Like-Fox-News center (another underdeveloped area in many atheist brains).

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For those interested in further information on (and links to) some of the studies mentioned by Fehmi Kaya, there’s an excellent article by Matthew Hutson on what they’re about and how some in the faith community misuse them here.

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