Stop marginalizing atheists. We're more honest than you.
DISCRIMINATION AND SLURS AGAINST AGNOSTICS
Madeline, a new AA trustee and speaker at PRAASA in Portland, just said that she was raised religiously and spoke like someone who believed, but if you followed her around, she behaved "like an agnostic."
What do you think would have happened if she had compared her alcoholic behavior with black people or Spanish speaking persons? What sort of outcry would arise? Madeline, how do agnostics behave? How about atheists? What are we to do with the fact that most of the most horrible atrocities are carried out by religionists?
I am so fucking tired of AA's stupidity. Why must we perpetuate this fabric of lies, quasi-religion, and bad (if any) science? Why can't we look at what really works? Why can't we introduce some education, some sophistication, and some book learning in with our bullshit steps and "program"? Alongside the bullshit, why can't we teach observation, hypothesis, prediction, and testing? Why can't we explain Ockham's razor when telling the newcomer about choosing a higher power and "to keep it simple"? Why can't we talk about double blind studies and the logical fallacies of begging the question, fat ox fallacy, ad hominum, improper appeal to authority, and biased samples? Would it be so hard to teach people how to think as we teach them how not to drink?
TEACHING NEWCOMERS (AND OLDTIMERS) TO THINK
Why must people who think for themselves and choose no-god continue to be marginalized by AA? I think it has a lot to do with substitution of addictions, probably arising from the same motivators as does AA's de facto eucharist of coffee and cigarettes. These enter into "recovery" as lesser demons useful to our salvation from John Barleycorn, the ONLY demon AA is supposed to have an opinion about.
The fear of such purposeful stuck-on-stupid ignorance was probably the reason that the Fifth Tradition left some wiggle room by stating that an AA group's PRIMARY (not "single") purpose is to help alcoholics. Often noted and ignored is the original draft of the Twelfth Step which encouraged AAs to carry this message to OTHERS, especially alcoholics.
AA's history Pass It On suggests that some of Bill Wilson's dissatisfaction with AA in late 1950s and 1960s resulted from his desire to take the group therapy and moral suasion insights gleaned from AA's experience to help victims of other "neuroses". But he was hamstrung by the lowest common denominator of the exclusionist alcoholics who felt they could not (read: “would not”) help addicts of illegal drugs, feeling they would be stained by association with "criminals".
Stay tuned for upcoming topics:
Madeline, a new AA trustee and speaker at PRAASA in Portland, just said that she was raised religiously and spoke like someone who believed, but if you followed her around, she behaved "like an agnostic."
What do you think would have happened if she had compared her alcoholic behavior with black people or Spanish speaking persons? What sort of outcry would arise? Madeline, how do agnostics behave? How about atheists? What are we to do with the fact that most of the most horrible atrocities are carried out by religionists?
I am so fucking tired of AA's stupidity. Why must we perpetuate this fabric of lies, quasi-religion, and bad (if any) science? Why can't we look at what really works? Why can't we introduce some education, some sophistication, and some book learning in with our bullshit steps and "program"? Alongside the bullshit, why can't we teach observation, hypothesis, prediction, and testing? Why can't we explain Ockham's razor when telling the newcomer about choosing a higher power and "to keep it simple"? Why can't we talk about double blind studies and the logical fallacies of begging the question, fat ox fallacy, ad hominum, improper appeal to authority, and biased samples? Would it be so hard to teach people how to think as we teach them how not to drink?
TEACHING NEWCOMERS (AND OLDTIMERS) TO THINK
Why must people who think for themselves and choose no-god continue to be marginalized by AA? I think it has a lot to do with substitution of addictions, probably arising from the same motivators as does AA's de facto eucharist of coffee and cigarettes. These enter into "recovery" as lesser demons useful to our salvation from John Barleycorn, the ONLY demon AA is supposed to have an opinion about.
The fear of such purposeful stuck-on-stupid ignorance was probably the reason that the Fifth Tradition left some wiggle room by stating that an AA group's PRIMARY (not "single") purpose is to help alcoholics. Often noted and ignored is the original draft of the Twelfth Step which encouraged AAs to carry this message to OTHERS, especially alcoholics.
AA's history Pass It On suggests that some of Bill Wilson's dissatisfaction with AA in late 1950s and 1960s resulted from his desire to take the group therapy and moral suasion insights gleaned from AA's experience to help victims of other "neuroses". But he was hamstrung by the lowest common denominator of the exclusionist alcoholics who felt they could not (read: “would not”) help addicts of illegal drugs, feeling they would be stained by association with "criminals".
Stay tuned for upcoming topics:
- RELIGION AS A DANGEROUS ADDICTIVE NEUROSIS
- THE INEVITABLE ACCRETION OF BULLSHIT IN RECOVERY SOCIETIES BASED ON REGULAR SHARING AT MEETINGS
- WHY REINCARNATION IS BULLSHIT
- WHY CHRISTIANITY IS BULLSHIT
posted by Troy Spears at 9:12 AM
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