Spirituality vs the "God" idea.

[progree]

9. All the groups I've been to ... (2) Why I brought all this up

Thanks much Rhiannon12866 and Stuart and NMDemDist2 for your thoughtful and well-tempered responses.

Progree> and having a prayer-answering favor-dispensing deity called God crammed down their throat

Stuart> At the meetings I go to, we don't do that. Please.. go to meetings you are comfortable at.. ...there are many meetings that will work for you... good luck..

At every meeting I've attended (Minneapolis and western suburbs) -- and I've attended several hundred and at least 20 A.A. groups (not to mention almost as many Al-Anon groups) -- we read the 12 Steps and usually the Traditions. As I said before, though they might not require belief in God; the whole program, Steps, and literature is proselytization about a prayer-answering favor-dispensing deity, one who will restore us to sanity, remove our shortcomings, yada [I've posted the whole list twice already] and who in Step 11 you pray to for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out ... [the rest is new material ]

"God" is in 5 of the Steps -- 4 explicitely and once implicitely (the "Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings" of Step 7).

A Step is the topic at least some times in all of the groups I've ever been to, and I have to explain why some of them don't apply to me as a non-believer in deities. For example Step 11 (see above) for obvious reasons.

Or Step 3 - "Made a decision to turn our will and lives over to the care of God as we understood him". On Step 3, if I'm to do an honest share, I have to say I don't believe in anything that I would turn my will and life over to. I don't believe in a deity. Turning my will and life over to a light bulb or a tree is just plain silly to me and everyone else I know. That leave some kind of human or group of humans or a human institution or program -- and I'll never, ever turn my will and life over to any human institution or group, as they are all seriously flawed. Particularly a religious program that claims to be not religious while exhorting "rigorous honesty".

I have to endure endless shares about a deity version of "God" doing things for them, like making traffic lights green or giving oomph to their car batteries (meanwhile millions starve but who cares -- apparently it only happens to subhumans in far-away lands.).

To me that is getting religion crammed down my throat. It is a personal thing. If it is not religious cramming to you, then good for you.

I won't get into the Lord's Prayer, since its true that in my area anyway, a fair number of groups don't use it (at least in A.A.). In Al-Anon, they virtually all do, and that is causing me great difficulty (I'll save that for another post)

In your original post you said "Most of us don't think it is God."

I've never been to a meeting where less than 90% or so didn't believe in some kind of deity that was involved in human affairs.

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NMDemDist2 > i wonder what this has to do with Stuart's post? the constitutionality of AA/NA isn't addressed in the OP and I'm wondering why you felt you needed to bring that controversy into this thread <

My post was titled: "Kind of hard to endure the religious proselytization about a prayer-answering favor dispensing deity". It was in reaction to his post saying "AA, OA, EA and CODA that I am a member of, allow an individual to seek his/her own higher power." and "The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking".

I was just pointing out that, though a belief in a deity is not required, the steps, Tradition 2, and the literature proselytize about a specific kind of God - a prayer-answering favor-dispensing deity (called Creator and Maker in the BB). As for "the only requirement", I was pointing out that there is a second requirement -- the willingless to put up with the proselytization and hypocrisy.

The only reason I brought in the court cases was to point out that I wasn't alone in feeling this way.

-Progree