Weekly Roundup (The Best of the Internet).

Occasionally, I like to do link roundups, either of great websites/blog posts I encounter, or sometimes, YouTube channels. I always like to share great material I encounter with my blog audience, especially great post for fellow bloggers. You never truly appreciate how much work goes into a great blog post until you become a blogger, and so it’s always good to lend a hand to a great blogger, and send some people their way.

Here’s my favorites for this week:

Are ministers more depressed than the general population?

A recent post by The Friendly Atheist talks about a recent study of Methodist pastors by Duke Divinity school. They surveyed and interviewed over 1,700 pastors from the United Methodist denomination in the US, and found that of the pastors they contacted, 8.7% had depression to some extent, compared to 5.5 % of the general US population.

I wonder if the same holds true for other denominations, and I have a feeling that it’s probably worse in fundamentalist denominations. My feeling is probably that it’s due to the fact that many congregations have a tendency to run their minister ragged, expect too much from him (or her), and don’t give them a break when they really need it.

Congregations can be very demanding on pastors, people get too emotionally connected to their minister, look to them to provide for their feeling of spiritual and emotional well being, and put them on a pedestal. Then there’s the constant stress, long hours, and middle of the night phone calls telling them about some disaster or another that has come upon a member of the congregation, or a friend/family member of a church member.

The last full time pastor at the church I am undercover in had his share of this. He would often visit members and their relatives in nursing homes and hospitals, many younger ministers today don’t do that (he was the son of a pastor, and his father taught him to do that). Then, on top of being a pastor of a church that averaged about 350 people each Sunday at the time, he was also one of my town’s 3 volunteer police chaplains.

Blogging Fatigue and Some Writers Worth Reading

I haven't written new posts for the blog as often as I would like to. I haven't gotten around to writing, because I simply haven't had anything to say. Blogging is getting kind of tiring, and old.

 I've haven't had new topics to discuss in depth, and even when I do, I haven't had the time to go into them as deeply as I would like to. I'm kind of a perfectionist in that way, I want a post to be the best writing that I can do, and if I don't feel I can do that, then it kills all the motivation to write.

For instance, I've had a guest post that I need to finish for the blog for the site Homeschoolers Anonymous, it's a great site, they have already re published  a post I wrote several months ago for the blog Reason Being, and the creator of the site said that he thought it would be a great idea for me to write an original guest post for them.

I've been working on that post for several weeks now, and I've got writers block. I think in many ways it's important for former fundamentalists like me to share our stories with the world, but it gets tiring. Rehashing the past, bringing up all those old memories again, and then struggling to find a way to keep the writing fresh, and to keep from repeating the same thing over and over. However, at the same time, that's what people want to hear about the most often, my story, my past. Such is the paradox of being a former fundamentalist blogger.

Oh well, I should quit complaining..... Though I haven't been able to write recently, there's a few items of note in the blogging/commentary world that I want to share with everyone in the meantime.

Turkish sociologist thinks there's a link between atheism and autism, and that's not a good thing to him:

From My Secret Atheist Blog, written by my good blogging friend, Godless Poutine. (Read full story here):

A Turkish sociologist, Fehmi Kaya (pictured at left), sincerely believes that that autism and atheism are one and the same, and that autistic children "lack a section for faith in their brains"

A few quotes from the post by Godless Poutine that I really love in response to this, he has a son with autism, and has personally experienced some of the more bizarre beliefs regarding autism and "cures" for it that have been floating around both in the outside culture, and within the autism community in Canada:

This, naturally, caused a great deal of outrage among autism associations around Turkey. Now, I find it outrageous because there appears to be no credible scientific study to back it up.  And if it is true that people with autism are statistically more likely to be atheists, then what's the problem?  In this sense they likely see the world more clearly than many neurotypical people who's brains seem to fall prey to superstitious mumbo jumbo. 

But I suspect many people in Turkey (and pretty much everywhere outside of Sweden) find it downright threatening.  Because being identified as an atheist there is unlikely to help anyone who already has the sufficiently burdensome challenges of being on the spectrum or caring for someone who is autistic.  It's more than likely going to compound any problems you would already have navigating the healthcare system trying to find plausible treatments.

 If people in a highly religious nation like Turkey start thinking of autistics as atheists, that's just going to make discrimination and misunderstanding more prevalent, since atheists  aren't viewed in a highly positive light in predominantly Muslim nation.

A Few Notes on the Atheist Blogging World

I always like to keep with the atheist blogging world, I like to discover blogs I haven't read before, and share great blogs with anyone who might be interested.

Two of my favorite bloggers have come back after a hiatus, and I would like to introduce two blogs to my readers.

The Way Forward: I am so happy to see that Bruce Gerenscer has returned, apparently he started back up again some time ago, but I just recently found out he had started blogging again.

 I always liked Bruce's writing, and he had a unique perspective as a former fundamentalist because he was a pastor in the Independent Fundamental Baptist organization. He is a great guy, he had found my blog when I first started blogging, and would comment on posts sometimes. I enjoyed having him stop by, and I had a lot of respect for him.