Spirituality vs the "God" idea.

[progree]

11. Its not Bible thumpers that bother me... its the religious proselytization in the 12 Steps and Lit.

On the Bible thumping thing -- aside from the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6, Luke 11), which is a big issue...

I've never been to a group that let anyone who started doing Jesus this and Jesus that go on and on without a gentle reminder about how we are spiritual but not religious, and that A.A.'s membership has people of many religions and none etc.

What I object to is the religiosity of the 12 Steps, the religiosity of the program itself, the religiosity of the meetings, and the religiosity of the literature. I think I've described that very well and thoroughly enough in my previous post - it is the constant prayer-answering favor-dispensing deity thumping. And the God God God thumping. (Again, from a program that claims to be (a) not religious and (b) extols rigorous honesty). It has nothing to do with Bible thumping (again leaving aside the Lord's Prayer).

And literature that demeans non-believers as:

"Handicapped By Obstinacy" (p. 48), "prejudiced" and "unreasoning prejudice" (p. 48) "Rather Vain" (p. 49), "No Reasonable Conception Whatever" (p. 49), "Biased And Unreasonable" (p. 51), "Prey To Misery And Depression" (p. 52), "Couldn't Make A Living" (p. 52), "Full of Fear" (p. 52), "Our Ideas Did Not Work" (p. 52), "We Couldn't Quite Step Ashore" (p. 53), "Leaning Too Heavily On Reason" (p. 53), "Abjectly Faithful To The God Of Reason" (p. 54), "Whirling On To A Destiny Of Nothingness" (p. 54), "Fooling Ourselves" (p. 55), and on and on.

(in the groups I attended, we are encouraged to read the Big Book, and agnostics are particularly encouraged to read Chapter 4 "We Agnostics", from which the above list was obtained from).

" don't let some bible thumper in the rooms deter you, just smile sweetly and say "And where is that in the Big Book?" and they can't show you because Bill was VERY careful not to put it in there."

Well, Bill sure put a lot of insulting stuff to non-believers in the Big Book, of which the above listing of demeaning phrases is just a tiny sample. And a ton of proselytization about his particular vision of God, Maker and Creator etc.

" be assured I spend quite a bit of time rescuing newcomers from those "the Other big book" thumpers. and i take a lot of lumps in the rooms because of it, but the joke's on them, I'll be celebrating 20 years sober February 28th. "

Sincerely, good for you for the work you do and for the 19 11/12 years.

As for hating A.A., hardly. Luke warm, maybe. I do love the following web site, as I believe A.A. is effective for many, and helped me in early sobriety: http://www.green-papers.org/

-Progree
== Recovery Without Proselytization About A Supernatural Loving Personal Favor-Dispensing Entity Called "God" ==