10 ms·

I completely agree with the message that people-helping people is super effective. But I'd like to point out that one of the core tenants of AA is to surrender

I completely agree with the message that people-helping people is super effective. But I'd like to point out that one of the core tenants of AA is to surrender to a higher power. I'm not advocating in favor of religion. But rather highlighting that maybe people who accept 'surrender' of their own will are more likely to get better. There's something to the concept that seems powerful. Anecdotally, I've known someone who used to be stressed out and controlling. Last time I saw him he was not so stressed. He said his life changed once he surrendered and accepted his destiny. He didn't go religious or anything, just 'accepted' his fate. It reminds me of the old saying: The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable man adapts the world to himself, therefore all progress is due to the unreasonable man.

lotyrin 7y ago
Lord grant me the reasonableness to adapt to the things I cannot change and the unreasonableness to adapt to myself the things I can.
saberience 7y ago
I think there's a major understanding of this part of AA. This DOES NOT mean acknowledging that you believe there is a god. The concept of a "higher power" can mean anything you want it to mean. You can imagine your higher power is Gandalf, Sauron, elves at the bottom of the garden, or even some aspect of your "best self." You could imagine it to be the spirits of your ancestors or even something like the energy of the universe. The point is surrendering to something "bigger" than yourself. Don't get tied up in militant atheist perspectives.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  I suspect that's a YMMV scenario that may differ enormously from AA group to AA group. My son's in Cub Scouts and we take this approach with the "duty to God" requirements (he doesn't have a duty to God, so duty fulfilled!) but some troops require a bit more than that.
- eeZah7Ux 7y ago
  > You can imagine your higher power is Gandalf, Sauron, elves at the bottom of the garden That's quite cheeky. Telling people to believe in a "higher power" simply translates into the gods in the mainstream religion in the society they live in.
  - billjings 7y ago
    I mean, if we're talking about people who actually do imagine that their higher power is Gandalf, then we're talking about some pretty cheeky people here.
  - ragona 7y ago
    Huh? I’ve known plenty of AA members who found the program very helpful and didn’t believe in anything even resembling a mainstream deity.
  - egypturnash 7y ago
    There are people who have gotten “Jedi” on the official lists of religion. I would presume that one of them going through AA would simply surrender to the Force. Seriously or ha-ha-only-seriously, it doesn’t matter. Sure, you can surrender to the top name of whatever religion dominates your surroundings. Or you can surrender to the top name of the one your parents raised you in counter to the surroundings, or the top name of the one you found yourself drawn to as you grown up. Or you could surrender to the Invisible Pink Unicorn, blessed be Her invisible mane. Or the Flying Spaghetti Monster or anything else made up to mock the idea of religion. I wouldn’t recommend surrendering to Cthulhu for healing via the AA but if you think that sounds like a good idea then go for it. Whichever deity works. If all you know is the default for your culture and you’re not down with that one, then it’s time to do some research.
  - komali2 7y ago
    I'm with you - whenever a non-demoninational event goes down, or when someone says "take the higher power of your choice, could be Gandalf, it doesn't matter!" I can't help roll my eyes. It's an ignorant thing to say. Assuming a religion is "invalid" or not a "religion" if it doesn't have a godhead at all. Many don't, named or otherwise. "Higher Power." And lord forbid your chosen godhead is someone else's religion fallman. When I was growing up in SC and we'd do these school classroom prayers (public school, unconstitutional, but who's keeping score?), me being a cringy little 13 year old atheist would say shit like "hail satan" and raise ire of pretty much the entire school. So no, they don't really mean "your higher power of choice," they mean "your given godhead that I can convince myself is actually mine just under a different name."
- simion314 7y ago
  >The point is surrendering to something "bigger" than yourself. Don't get tied up in militant atheist perspectives. There are people that can just say "from tomorrow I will believe in God/afterlife/spirits etc. It would be so easy to live knowing that your loved ones are not gone or that if you are good enough your problems will be solved soon but for some people(like me) it is like trying to convince me that 2+2=5 and giving cancer to children has a higher purpose that we are to stupid to understand but we still should worship that "bigger" thing.
  - shoes_for_thee 7y ago
    Sometimes I think that spirituality is something people either "get" or they don't. For me, to consider the very fact of existence rather than non-existence, the beauty and order of it, the people around me who have somehow manifested as conscious beings from chaos... (and on and on)... none of those things require a supreme being or intelligent creator, but the sense of awe after giving sufficient consideration is difficult to differentiate from feeling god.
    - adamisom 7y ago
      Carl Sagan and his fans (me among them) understand your sense of awe. I do think it's important not to forget that when you lose religion. I also think it's important, as Sagan probably did, for the secular world--for humanity--to reclaim it as part of being human (whether you call it spiritual or not).
    - simion314 7y ago
      I agree the fact we exist and we can consider our existence is something special but still it won't help me with believing that things will be better tomorrow or that there is an afterlife. when I was a child I wanted to become a priest, I read all the books and I was a believer, the giant mistake the priests and religion teacher made is to be dogmatic, like to still consider that "creation happened as it is said in Bible, that the world is 5000 years old and avoiding though questions with a story where X did Y and then God done Z. I seen on YT interview with smarter clerics that are not as dogmatic and acknowledged some issues and if my teachers were like that maybe I would have kept my faith. At least the priest/teachers are paid from taxes to tell our children stories and contradict science /s (this is in Romania btw)
- beefok 7y ago
  Please describe a 'militant' atheist perspective unironically. :) When you contrast it to any other type of 'militant', there is typically violence involved.. However, personally, I think the closest thing I could believe in is a "best self". Not that anyone chooses their beliefs, but the rest would be pretty hard to digest for any good reasons. Honestly, I just think giving up on the idea that you can do this by yourself (in the long term) is counter-productive. Especially if you have an existential crisis later in life and that 'higher power' was the only thing that kept you moving forward. Learning how to embrace self-respect/love/understanding/esteem would go so much further in the long run and would help in all aspects of your life. With each success, and learning to accept each failure -- you will be strengthening productive habits.
  - reggieband 7y ago
    > Please describe a 'militant' atheist perspective unironically. :) I think of militant as unyielding and confrontational. This isn't some pejorative assigned to others, it is a term forwarded and embraced by proponents of that ideology. For an unironic perspective I suggest this New Yorker article "All Scientists Should be Militant Atheists" by Lawrence Krauss [1]. 1. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/all-scientists-should-be-militant-atheists https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/all-scientists-shou...
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - thawaway1837 7y ago
      The first usage of militant atheist out there is in quotes. Which clearly indicates that the author doesn’t actually believe that’s an appropriate term, but is rather saying that if what is described by some as militant atheism (an adjective the author doesn’t agree with, hence the quotes) then all scientists should be atheistic enough to be described as militant by those people.
  - speeder 7y ago
    Well... I did met violent militant atheists, so they DO exist. Thankfully that was many, many years ago, but stuff that happened to me: 1. Atheist stealing my bible then proceeding to play "soccer" using it as ball. 2. And Atheist + Vegan being physically threatening because I was eating meat and was christian. 3. I got hit on the back of my head with a chain, in middle of a university class, completely out of the blue, some time after an atheist classmate found out I was christian (he waited until I was busy reading something to attack me). 4. Had a group of atheists constantly bully me (for example stealing stuff, damaging my property, graffiti, etc...) All of that happened near "highly educated" people, for example inside school, academia, white-collar workplaces... After I started to interact with "normal" people (the average person of my country, that doesn't have college education, have blue collar work, or work in service industry directly in contact with people, etc...) this all stopped.
- thawaway1837 7y ago
  I think this depends on your specific AA. In bigger cities this is largely indeed the case. However, in smaller towns it’s not as true. That being said, these smaller towns already pressure people to believe in a higher power in most social settings, so it’s less a case of AA imposing it and more society, which is kind of to be expected in a people driven effort.
- taurath 7y ago
  > Don't get tied up in militant atheist perspectives. Not that you're saying its not, but I'd grasp onto this to add a point that its valid and useful to debate whether that surrendering is the best path. In my mind, what you're being asked to do is abstract and make a virtual externalization of your ego. The benefit is you can get some of the benefits of ego-depletion or ego-loss, but the side effect is that it risks further use of that mechanism to explain or stop caring about things that are more easily under one's control. This can lead to a cycle of ignorance - if every event that happens is "God's Plan", then why not give into nihilism? Its ends up being the answer to every question - if you don't understand something, then its not due to lack of effort, it must be ungodly. Note that plenty of religious people don't fall into this trap. They don't have a problem expanding their knowledge, and they leave the dieties in the periphery of understanding. Growing up amongst some extreme fundamentalist people though and seeing the downsides of dealing with all problems through faith alone, I am really lax to recommend the surrendering that AA espouses as a universal/sole truth.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - daseiner1 7y ago
    all that and you entirely missed the point. surrender as a broad concept is necessary because alcoholism is an illogical, slippery disease. to get sober, you have to accept that you cannot do something that it seems like everyone else can
    - taurath 7y ago
      Or.... get some distance from the problem, then work on addressing the underlying reasons you go to it, while practicing not doing it. There are many paths.
- fmakunbound 7y ago
  If it can be anything, including imaginary things, then what's the point?
- fat_cam 7y ago
  As a current and active member of AA, let me re-affirm that this battle over a "higher power" exists inside the rooms of AA just as everyone is arguing about it here. A great many alcoholics let them selves get hung up on the concept of a higher power, or more specifically, the word "God". The word God appears 134 times in the first 164 pages of the Big Book. For many non religious people as well as non Christian people this presents a huge problem; how can we alleviate the burden of alcoholism without believing in God? Within the 12 steps of AA, Bill W clearly laid out the answer to this very question. Below I've copied over the first 3 steps of AA. 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. The gist of step 1 is acceptance. Acceptance that our lives are controlled by alcohol. This one is pretty easy for any true alcoholic to admit. The gist of step 2 is surrender. Step 2 states, "Came to believe a power greater than our selves could restore us to sanity." Coming to believe in something is not the same as flipping a light switch and a light coming on. Surrender here in step 2 deals with admitting that we need the help of something greater then ourselves to restore us to sanity. That power could be the love of your family, wife/husband, kids, the energy that moves the cosmos, or a fucking Zagnut bar. As long as it is a power greater then self, you're good. The gist of step 3 is faith. The key to not getting hung up here is the statement "God as we understood him". This ties directly back to "a power greater than ourselves". Seeing how the Big Book was initially written in the 1930's, and Bill W himself was a Christian, the word God appears a lot. Before the first edition was published, there was an internal fight between the founding members and contributors to the Big Book on the wording of step 3 in particular. They made a deliberate decision to say "God as we understood him" to include as many people as possible. I share this with you all because I have been and always will consider myself a non religious person. I have needed to work on the concept of a higher power time and time again. When I first started attending AA meetings I let the God/higher power thing get in the way of my recovery and relapsed many times. Only once I surrendered to the idea that a power greater than myself could alleviate my suffering, was I able to start the road to content sobriety. I hope this helps clear the air for some of you, and if there is anyone out there suffering from alcohol or drugs please find a local AA or NA meeting raise your hand and ask for help.
agumonkey 7y ago
> Anecdotally, I've known someone who used to be stressed out and controlling. Last time I saw him he was not so stressed. He said his life changed once he surrendered and accepted his destiny. He didn't go religious or anything, just 'accepted' his fate. That's something I think about slightly. A lot of adult life is anxiety based on seeking optimal something. After years it feels like fear of death causing over analysis and cramping. Then you just go back into average life and maybe (at least my belief) realize it's ~peak. The anxiety is maybe even a nature trick to make us learn adult life complexity and maybe improve the status quo a bit.
- crdrost 7y ago
  Yeah, I mean, this is a core Christian belief. Hitchens even described it as objectively immoral. :) Jesus tells us that we don't really know the future so it's kind of pointless to be planning to hard, speculating and being anxious over it. You might just have a heart attack tomorrow: so much for your plans. Jesus says instead to trust that God takes care of the birds so surely he will take care of you too, his Beloved children—to just trust that if you try to bring Order to this world’s Chaos and be authentically There, then everything will turn out OK. My uncle Guus plays viola in an orchestra and once noted to me that there is something similar that happens in attitudes towards other people who are dissatisfied with us. When we are young we ask “what is wrong with me, how can I change myself?” and as we grow older we start to ask instead “What's wrong with them?” but without trying to change anybody. They will find their way—or not; and we may be able to help them—or not.
bbunix 7y ago
There aren't any rules, there are just suggestions... that being said, a higher-power is something that's "not you", could be the group, yoda, the universe, a light bulb. Seriously...
Nuzzerino 7y ago
I'm not saying whether this is a good or a bad thing, but religion has done a lot over the millenia to teach people how to be productive in society. Religion is first and foremost a tool to keep people in line. The fact that part of it happens to incorporate a belief in the afterlife is an implementation detail. Sure, it might be obsolete now, but if someone is in bad enough shape (such as an alcoholic), even an obsolete religion may still be a better tool for the job than something like psychotherapy. Psychotherapy doesn't directly add any sort of community to a person's life. I had a drinking problem for some time and a big reason for that is I hated the people I was surrounded by (who were often not much different from myself at the time) and needed to tune out somehow.
- Nuzzerino 7y ago
  Feel free to downvote, but the results of this meta-analysis of 145 scientists and 10,080 participants speaks for itself. Sometimes the outcome doesn't match your worldview and that should be okay.
jlangemeier 7y ago
The problem with invoking that part of the solution that helps is the surrender to a higher power, is that there isn't a lot of group therapy solutions that don't have that involved. We can't effectively say for certain whether there's a correlation with throwing in a higher power or just group therapy on its own in this circumstance, and I know for a fact there are many that will not join an "* Anonymous" group because of the more religious overtones. This creates a dichotomy that is hard to separate when talking about groups like AA, as it reinforces the thought that their process is important over the comradarie and support of a shared experience.
- peatfreak 7y ago
  > We can't effectively say for certain whether there's a correlation with throwing in a higher power or just group therapy on its own in this circumstance The higher power is not "thrown in" to AA, it is the critical foundation. Also the people who are most critical of this concept or most aggressively reject AA based on a perceived religious foundation also tend to be the ones who have the poorest understanding of what the higher power means. I'll admit it's not an easy concept to grasp. For many/most fellows AA the principles of AA take a good amount of time to begin to understand, and alcoholics sometimes bumble their way in and out for years before this happens. It's a learning process. Pushing back on these principles, especially the existence of one's higher power, correlates highly with continued active drinking. Acceptance of this is the whole point of the program.
  - jlangemeier 7y ago
    If it helps people, I'm glad; but to say that the people that it doesn't help "just don't get it" is pretty disingenuous. And since this was in response to my interest in correlation between the higher power and improved outcomes, I'm sure you've got a study lying around that I could take a look at; anecdata is nice, but group therapy on its own has also been shown to be helpful, and none of the studies that I've seen so far use general group therapy as a control group over an Anonymous group (Gaming, Marijuana, Alcoholics, Gamblers, etc).
gadders 7y ago
>> Anecdotally, I've known someone who used to be stressed out and controlling. Last time I saw him he was not so stressed. He said his life changed once he surrendered and accepted his destiny. He didn't go religious or anything, just 'accepted' his fate. The stoics called this "Amor Fati" - Love of Fate (which admittedly is a maybe a step beyond your friend): https://dailystoic.com/amor-fati-love-of-fate/ https://dailystoic.com/amor-fati-love-of-fate/
AndrewKemendo 7y ago
Explaining away the majority of life's existential questions (surrender to higher power) and then surrounding yourself with a community that supports you (weekly groups), is a pretty tried and true method for happiness. That assumes happiness/contentment/stability is the goal.
blablabla123 7y ago
Societies have been driven by religion and spirituality for ages. Of course we have now been enlightened by science buts it's probably one of the challenges of culture to come up with an effective replacement. One that not only not contradicts scientific commonsense but that is also not considered as mumbo jumbo. There's definitely a void left by the demise of religion. Also this leaves the question open whether that is not the reason have actually turned alcoholics ;)
- alharith 7y ago
  The fallacy I can't help but point out here is that thinking because of our science we are better off and have somehow been "enlightened" when all evidence points to the contrary, at least not to the things that truly matter: the human condition, life, love, family, relationships: can't say our science and techology has made these things better on a whole, but at least we can binge watch Netflix and play Minecraft together I guess. Sure, we can crunch numbers and test hypotheses faster, but they were doing that with far more primitive instruments, in most cases even without writing and simply using their minds, for centuries well before the so called Enlightenment period. It seems the more "enlightened" we become the worse off the condition of the human soul becomes, and the more we favor vices and all the things our fathers and mothers tried to warn us against for centuries. Our Science, which in of itself has become a religion, in my view has lead us all to cultures of indulgence, where utilitarianism is the only value to be regarded. I wish you could say at least we aren't slaughtering ourselves anymore in the name of Religion, but sure enough, human slaughtering has increased by entire factors these past two centuries, than the previous 100 combined, "Enlightenment" or not. The notion of man gaining reason and "growing out of" religion during this period is in of itself such a hilariously cliche, Western-centric viewpoint of history but this is another issue of itself.
  - throwaway47699 7y ago
    Sorry if it's a little glib, but the first thing that came to my mind after reading this post was: "But apart from medicine, effective sanitation, drastically higher chances of living a long life, material welfare, peace and declining violence, and a near end to famines and legal slavery, what has the Enlightenment ever done for us?" Sure, WWII claimed 3% of the world population, but Tamerlane got 5% and Genghis Khan 10%.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
beepboopbeep 7y ago
I wonder if maybe the externalization of will helps to ...reset? the perception of ones self. I'm not sure if I'm wording that the best way. Example: Sometimes I'll tell people "I'll have this done by X time" in order to externalize the goal. Now, it's not on my own willpower to finish this, it's now an externalized obligation that I need to do or <insert negative consequences here>. That externalization makes me push harder to complete things. Interesting thought
keiferski 7y ago
People often get hung up on the contemporary Western conception of a higher power, not realizing that the personal, anthropomorphic God is but one flavor of the concept. Scientific laws or forces are in some sense, a "higher power" - clearly we all surrender to the power of gravity every day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_god https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_god
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- sgift 7y ago
  The various results for "atheists removed from AA" or "atheists kicked out of AA" on Google tell me AA works with the personal god version, not the others ones.
  - keiferski 7y ago
    A study found an association between an increase in attendance to AA meetings with increased spirituality and a decrease in the frequency and intensity of alcohol use. The research also found that AA was effective at helping agnostics and atheists become sober. The authors concluded that though spirituality was an important mechanism of behavioral change for some alcoholics, it was not the only effective mechanism.[54] Since the mid-1970s, a number of 'agnostic' or 'no-prayer' AA groups have begun across the U.S., Canada, and other parts of the world, which hold meetings that adhere to a tradition allowing alcoholics to freely express their doubts or disbelief that spirituality will help their recovery, and these meetings forgo use of opening or closing prayers.[55][56] There are online resources listing AA meetings for atheists and agnostics. That doesn’t seem to be the case.
  - par 7y ago
    Google results can drum up anything you like. I've never personally or through second hand seen or heard of any AA group that would kick out an atheist.
  - 7y ago
matwood 7y ago
> The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable man adapts the world to himself, therefore all progress is due to the unreasonable man. Yes and no. There is value in recognizing the things that can't be changed (at least at the time). From Musashi: "What a fool I’ve been,” he exclaimed aloud. “I tried to make the water flow where I thought it should and force the dirt to stay where I thought it ought to be. But it didn’t work. How could it? Water’s water, dirt’s dirt. I can’t change their nature. What I’ve got to do is learn to be a servant to the water and a protector of the land."
- ArnoVW 7y ago
  The Dutch would like to have a word with him.
thrownaway954 7y ago
if all the God and higher power stuff bothers you can always go to a secular meeting. the best thing about aa is that there is a group that fits you :) https://secularaa.org/ https://secularaa.org/
ajross 7y ago
> But rather highlighting that maybe people who accept 'surrender' of their own will are more likely to get better. There's a correlation/causation trap here. It can be very reasonably hypothesized in the opposite direction: people comfortable with surrender to higher power are more likely to respond to AA as a treatment.
golover721 7y ago
I have been going to AA for a while now, mostly because it is the only type of group meeting regularly available. The part that I cannot come to grips with is not so much the recognition of a higher power, but the fact that you have to believe that you are "powerless" to your addiction. This whole notion of pushing off fault and that you cannot change your behavior without the higher powers intervention is not something I will ever agree with. But group meetings are awesome and effective, and in most areas AA is the only choice, so no wonder AA works.
- daseiner1 7y ago
  Sure, but I’ve always interpreted it in the sense that you have to surrender to the fact that you are powerless under the influence of alcohol, that you are incapable of doing something that it seems everyone else can (drink)
- Mikhail_Edoshin 7y ago
  The idea of admitting you're powerless is to admit that the worldview you've been holding so far doesn't seem to work against addiction. Which means it's not entirely correct. Which means some things you think you know are not so.

lotyrin 7y ago

Lord grant me the reasonableness to adapt to the things I cannot change and the unreasonableness to adapt to myself the things I can.

saberience 7y ago

I think there's a major understanding of this part of AA. This DOES NOT mean acknowledging that you believe there is a god. The concept of a "higher power" can mean anything you want it to mean. You can imagine your higher power is Gandalf, Sauron, elves at the bottom of the garden, or even some aspect of your "best self." You could imagine it to be the spirits of your ancestors or even something like the energy of the universe. The point is surrendering to something "bigger" than yourself. Don't get tied up in militant atheist perspectives.

ceejayoz 7y ago
I suspect that's a YMMV scenario that may differ enormously from AA group to AA group. My son's in Cub Scouts and we take this approach with the "duty to God" requirements (he doesn't have a duty to God, so duty fulfilled!) but some troops require a bit more than that.
eeZah7Ux 7y ago
> You can imagine your higher power is Gandalf, Sauron, elves at the bottom of the garden That's quite cheeky. Telling people to believe in a "higher power" simply translates into the gods in the mainstream religion in the society they live in.
- billjings 7y ago
  I mean, if we're talking about people who actually do imagine that their higher power is Gandalf, then we're talking about some pretty cheeky people here.
- ragona 7y ago
  Huh? I’ve known plenty of AA members who found the program very helpful and didn’t believe in anything even resembling a mainstream deity.
- egypturnash 7y ago
  There are people who have gotten “Jedi” on the official lists of religion. I would presume that one of them going through AA would simply surrender to the Force. Seriously or ha-ha-only-seriously, it doesn’t matter. Sure, you can surrender to the top name of whatever religion dominates your surroundings. Or you can surrender to the top name of the one your parents raised you in counter to the surroundings, or the top name of the one you found yourself drawn to as you grown up. Or you could surrender to the Invisible Pink Unicorn, blessed be Her invisible mane. Or the Flying Spaghetti Monster or anything else made up to mock the idea of religion. I wouldn’t recommend surrendering to Cthulhu for healing via the AA but if you think that sounds like a good idea then go for it. Whichever deity works. If all you know is the default for your culture and you’re not down with that one, then it’s time to do some research.
- komali2 7y ago
  I'm with you - whenever a non-demoninational event goes down, or when someone says "take the higher power of your choice, could be Gandalf, it doesn't matter!" I can't help roll my eyes. It's an ignorant thing to say. Assuming a religion is "invalid" or not a "religion" if it doesn't have a godhead at all. Many don't, named or otherwise. "Higher Power." And lord forbid your chosen godhead is someone else's religion fallman. When I was growing up in SC and we'd do these school classroom prayers (public school, unconstitutional, but who's keeping score?), me being a cringy little 13 year old atheist would say shit like "hail satan" and raise ire of pretty much the entire school. So no, they don't really mean "your higher power of choice," they mean "your given godhead that I can convince myself is actually mine just under a different name."
simion314 7y ago
>The point is surrendering to something "bigger" than yourself. Don't get tied up in militant atheist perspectives. There are people that can just say "from tomorrow I will believe in God/afterlife/spirits etc. It would be so easy to live knowing that your loved ones are not gone or that if you are good enough your problems will be solved soon but for some people(like me) it is like trying to convince me that 2+2=5 and giving cancer to children has a higher purpose that we are to stupid to understand but we still should worship that "bigger" thing.
- shoes_for_thee 7y ago
  Sometimes I think that spirituality is something people either "get" or they don't. For me, to consider the very fact of existence rather than non-existence, the beauty and order of it, the people around me who have somehow manifested as conscious beings from chaos... (and on and on)... none of those things require a supreme being or intelligent creator, but the sense of awe after giving sufficient consideration is difficult to differentiate from feeling god.
  - adamisom 7y ago
    Carl Sagan and his fans (me among them) understand your sense of awe. I do think it's important not to forget that when you lose religion. I also think it's important, as Sagan probably did, for the secular world--for humanity--to reclaim it as part of being human (whether you call it spiritual or not).
  - simion314 7y ago
    I agree the fact we exist and we can consider our existence is something special but still it won't help me with believing that things will be better tomorrow or that there is an afterlife. when I was a child I wanted to become a priest, I read all the books and I was a believer, the giant mistake the priests and religion teacher made is to be dogmatic, like to still consider that "creation happened as it is said in Bible, that the world is 5000 years old and avoiding though questions with a story where X did Y and then God done Z. I seen on YT interview with smarter clerics that are not as dogmatic and acknowledged some issues and if my teachers were like that maybe I would have kept my faith. At least the priest/teachers are paid from taxes to tell our children stories and contradict science /s (this is in Romania btw)
beefok 7y ago
Please describe a 'militant' atheist perspective unironically. :) When you contrast it to any other type of 'militant', there is typically violence involved.. However, personally, I think the closest thing I could believe in is a "best self". Not that anyone chooses their beliefs, but the rest would be pretty hard to digest for any good reasons. Honestly, I just think giving up on the idea that you can do this by yourself (in the long term) is counter-productive. Especially if you have an existential crisis later in life and that 'higher power' was the only thing that kept you moving forward. Learning how to embrace self-respect/love/understanding/esteem would go so much further in the long run and would help in all aspects of your life. With each success, and learning to accept each failure -- you will be strengthening productive habits.
- reggieband 7y ago
  > Please describe a 'militant' atheist perspective unironically. :) I think of militant as unyielding and confrontational. This isn't some pejorative assigned to others, it is a term forwarded and embraced by proponents of that ideology. For an unironic perspective I suggest this New Yorker article "All Scientists Should be Militant Atheists" by Lawrence Krauss [1]. 1. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/all-scientists-should-be-militant-atheists https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/all-scientists-shou...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - thawaway1837 7y ago
    The first usage of militant atheist out there is in quotes. Which clearly indicates that the author doesn’t actually believe that’s an appropriate term, but is rather saying that if what is described by some as militant atheism (an adjective the author doesn’t agree with, hence the quotes) then all scientists should be atheistic enough to be described as militant by those people.
- speeder 7y ago
  Well... I did met violent militant atheists, so they DO exist. Thankfully that was many, many years ago, but stuff that happened to me: 1. Atheist stealing my bible then proceeding to play "soccer" using it as ball. 2. And Atheist + Vegan being physically threatening because I was eating meat and was christian. 3. I got hit on the back of my head with a chain, in middle of a university class, completely out of the blue, some time after an atheist classmate found out I was christian (he waited until I was busy reading something to attack me). 4. Had a group of atheists constantly bully me (for example stealing stuff, damaging my property, graffiti, etc...) All of that happened near "highly educated" people, for example inside school, academia, white-collar workplaces... After I started to interact with "normal" people (the average person of my country, that doesn't have college education, have blue collar work, or work in service industry directly in contact with people, etc...) this all stopped.
thawaway1837 7y ago
I think this depends on your specific AA. In bigger cities this is largely indeed the case. However, in smaller towns it’s not as true. That being said, these smaller towns already pressure people to believe in a higher power in most social settings, so it’s less a case of AA imposing it and more society, which is kind of to be expected in a people driven effort.
taurath 7y ago
> Don't get tied up in militant atheist perspectives. Not that you're saying its not, but I'd grasp onto this to add a point that its valid and useful to debate whether that surrendering is the best path. In my mind, what you're being asked to do is abstract and make a virtual externalization of your ego. The benefit is you can get some of the benefits of ego-depletion or ego-loss, but the side effect is that it risks further use of that mechanism to explain or stop caring about things that are more easily under one's control. This can lead to a cycle of ignorance - if every event that happens is "God's Plan", then why not give into nihilism? Its ends up being the answer to every question - if you don't understand something, then its not due to lack of effort, it must be ungodly. Note that plenty of religious people don't fall into this trap. They don't have a problem expanding their knowledge, and they leave the dieties in the periphery of understanding. Growing up amongst some extreme fundamentalist people though and seeing the downsides of dealing with all problems through faith alone, I am really lax to recommend the surrendering that AA espouses as a universal/sole truth.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- daseiner1 7y ago
  all that and you entirely missed the point. surrender as a broad concept is necessary because alcoholism is an illogical, slippery disease. to get sober, you have to accept that you cannot do something that it seems like everyone else can
  - taurath 7y ago
    Or.... get some distance from the problem, then work on addressing the underlying reasons you go to it, while practicing not doing it. There are many paths.
fmakunbound 7y ago
If it can be anything, including imaginary things, then what's the point?
fat_cam 7y ago
As a current and active member of AA, let me re-affirm that this battle over a "higher power" exists inside the rooms of AA just as everyone is arguing about it here. A great many alcoholics let them selves get hung up on the concept of a higher power, or more specifically, the word "God". The word God appears 134 times in the first 164 pages of the Big Book. For many non religious people as well as non Christian people this presents a huge problem; how can we alleviate the burden of alcoholism without believing in God? Within the 12 steps of AA, Bill W clearly laid out the answer to this very question. Below I've copied over the first 3 steps of AA. 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. The gist of step 1 is acceptance. Acceptance that our lives are controlled by alcohol. This one is pretty easy for any true alcoholic to admit. The gist of step 2 is surrender. Step 2 states, "Came to believe a power greater than our selves could restore us to sanity." Coming to believe in something is not the same as flipping a light switch and a light coming on. Surrender here in step 2 deals with admitting that we need the help of something greater then ourselves to restore us to sanity. That power could be the love of your family, wife/husband, kids, the energy that moves the cosmos, or a fucking Zagnut bar. As long as it is a power greater then self, you're good. The gist of step 3 is faith. The key to not getting hung up here is the statement "God as we understood him". This ties directly back to "a power greater than ourselves". Seeing how the Big Book was initially written in the 1930's, and Bill W himself was a Christian, the word God appears a lot. Before the first edition was published, there was an internal fight between the founding members and contributors to the Big Book on the wording of step 3 in particular. They made a deliberate decision to say "God as we understood him" to include as many people as possible. I share this with you all because I have been and always will consider myself a non religious person. I have needed to work on the concept of a higher power time and time again. When I first started attending AA meetings I let the God/higher power thing get in the way of my recovery and relapsed many times. Only once I surrendered to the idea that a power greater than myself could alleviate my suffering, was I able to start the road to content sobriety. I hope this helps clear the air for some of you, and if there is anyone out there suffering from alcohol or drugs please find a local AA or NA meeting raise your hand and ask for help.

agumonkey 7y ago

> Anecdotally, I've known someone who used to be stressed out and controlling. Last time I saw him he was not so stressed. He said his life changed once he surrendered and accepted his destiny. He didn't go religious or anything, just 'accepted' his fate. That's something I think about slightly. A lot of adult life is anxiety based on seeking optimal something. After years it feels like fear of death causing over analysis and cramping. Then you just go back into average life and maybe (at least my belief) realize it's ~peak. The anxiety is maybe even a nature trick to make us learn adult life complexity and maybe improve the status quo a bit.

crdrost 7y ago
Yeah, I mean, this is a core Christian belief. Hitchens even described it as objectively immoral. :) Jesus tells us that we don't really know the future so it's kind of pointless to be planning to hard, speculating and being anxious over it. You might just have a heart attack tomorrow: so much for your plans. Jesus says instead to trust that God takes care of the birds so surely he will take care of you too, his Beloved children—to just trust that if you try to bring Order to this world’s Chaos and be authentically There, then everything will turn out OK. My uncle Guus plays viola in an orchestra and once noted to me that there is something similar that happens in attitudes towards other people who are dissatisfied with us. When we are young we ask “what is wrong with me, how can I change myself?” and as we grow older we start to ask instead “What's wrong with them?” but without trying to change anybody. They will find their way—or not; and we may be able to help them—or not.

bbunix 7y ago

There aren't any rules, there are just suggestions... that being said, a higher-power is something that's "not you", could be the group, yoda, the universe, a light bulb. Seriously...

Nuzzerino 7y ago

I'm not saying whether this is a good or a bad thing, but religion has done a lot over the millenia to teach people how to be productive in society. Religion is first and foremost a tool to keep people in line. The fact that part of it happens to incorporate a belief in the afterlife is an implementation detail. Sure, it might be obsolete now, but if someone is in bad enough shape (such as an alcoholic), even an obsolete religion may still be a better tool for the job than something like psychotherapy. Psychotherapy doesn't directly add any sort of community to a person's life. I had a drinking problem for some time and a big reason for that is I hated the people I was surrounded by (who were often not much different from myself at the time) and needed to tune out somehow.

Nuzzerino 7y ago
Feel free to downvote, but the results of this meta-analysis of 145 scientists and 10,080 participants speaks for itself. Sometimes the outcome doesn't match your worldview and that should be okay.

jlangemeier 7y ago

The problem with invoking that part of the solution that helps is the surrender to a higher power, is that there isn't a lot of group therapy solutions that don't have that involved. We can't effectively say for certain whether there's a correlation with throwing in a higher power or just group therapy on its own in this circumstance, and I know for a fact there are many that will not join an "* Anonymous" group because of the more religious overtones. This creates a dichotomy that is hard to separate when talking about groups like AA, as it reinforces the thought that their process is important over the comradarie and support of a shared experience.

peatfreak 7y ago
> We can't effectively say for certain whether there's a correlation with throwing in a higher power or just group therapy on its own in this circumstance The higher power is not "thrown in" to AA, it is the critical foundation. Also the people who are most critical of this concept or most aggressively reject AA based on a perceived religious foundation also tend to be the ones who have the poorest understanding of what the higher power means. I'll admit it's not an easy concept to grasp. For many/most fellows AA the principles of AA take a good amount of time to begin to understand, and alcoholics sometimes bumble their way in and out for years before this happens. It's a learning process. Pushing back on these principles, especially the existence of one's higher power, correlates highly with continued active drinking. Acceptance of this is the whole point of the program.
- jlangemeier 7y ago
  If it helps people, I'm glad; but to say that the people that it doesn't help "just don't get it" is pretty disingenuous. And since this was in response to my interest in correlation between the higher power and improved outcomes, I'm sure you've got a study lying around that I could take a look at; anecdata is nice, but group therapy on its own has also been shown to be helpful, and none of the studies that I've seen so far use general group therapy as a control group over an Anonymous group (Gaming, Marijuana, Alcoholics, Gamblers, etc).

gadders 7y ago

>> Anecdotally, I've known someone who used to be stressed out and controlling. Last time I saw him he was not so stressed. He said his life changed once he surrendered and accepted his destiny. He didn't go religious or anything, just 'accepted' his fate. The stoics called this "Amor Fati" - Love of Fate (which admittedly is a maybe a step beyond your friend): https://dailystoic.com/amor-fati-love-of-fate/ https://dailystoic.com/amor-fati-love-of-fate/

AndrewKemendo 7y ago

Explaining away the majority of life's existential questions (surrender to higher power) and then surrounding yourself with a community that supports you (weekly groups), is a pretty tried and true method for happiness. That assumes happiness/contentment/stability is the goal.

blablabla123 7y ago

Societies have been driven by religion and spirituality for ages. Of course we have now been enlightened by science buts it's probably one of the challenges of culture to come up with an effective replacement. One that not only not contradicts scientific commonsense but that is also not considered as mumbo jumbo. There's definitely a void left by the demise of religion. Also this leaves the question open whether that is not the reason have actually turned alcoholics ;)

alharith 7y ago
The fallacy I can't help but point out here is that thinking because of our science we are better off and have somehow been "enlightened" when all evidence points to the contrary, at least not to the things that truly matter: the human condition, life, love, family, relationships: can't say our science and techology has made these things better on a whole, but at least we can binge watch Netflix and play Minecraft together I guess. Sure, we can crunch numbers and test hypotheses faster, but they were doing that with far more primitive instruments, in most cases even without writing and simply using their minds, for centuries well before the so called Enlightenment period. It seems the more "enlightened" we become the worse off the condition of the human soul becomes, and the more we favor vices and all the things our fathers and mothers tried to warn us against for centuries. Our Science, which in of itself has become a religion, in my view has lead us all to cultures of indulgence, where utilitarianism is the only value to be regarded. I wish you could say at least we aren't slaughtering ourselves anymore in the name of Religion, but sure enough, human slaughtering has increased by entire factors these past two centuries, than the previous 100 combined, "Enlightenment" or not. The notion of man gaining reason and "growing out of" religion during this period is in of itself such a hilariously cliche, Western-centric viewpoint of history but this is another issue of itself.
- throwaway47699 7y ago
  Sorry if it's a little glib, but the first thing that came to my mind after reading this post was: "But apart from medicine, effective sanitation, drastically higher chances of living a long life, material welfare, peace and declining violence, and a near end to famines and legal slavery, what has the Enlightenment ever done for us?" Sure, WWII claimed 3% of the world population, but Tamerlane got 5% and Genghis Khan 10%.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

beepboopbeep 7y ago

I wonder if maybe the externalization of will helps to ...reset? the perception of ones self. I'm not sure if I'm wording that the best way. Example: Sometimes I'll tell people "I'll have this done by X time" in order to externalize the goal. Now, it's not on my own willpower to finish this, it's now an externalized obligation that I need to do or <insert negative consequences here>. That externalization makes me push harder to complete things. Interesting thought

keiferski 7y ago

People often get hung up on the contemporary Western conception of a higher power, not realizing that the personal, anthropomorphic God is but one flavor of the concept. Scientific laws or forces are in some sense, a "higher power" - clearly we all surrender to the power of gravity every day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_god https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_god

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
sgift 7y ago
The various results for "atheists removed from AA" or "atheists kicked out of AA" on Google tell me AA works with the personal god version, not the others ones.
- keiferski 7y ago
  A study found an association between an increase in attendance to AA meetings with increased spirituality and a decrease in the frequency and intensity of alcohol use. The research also found that AA was effective at helping agnostics and atheists become sober. The authors concluded that though spirituality was an important mechanism of behavioral change for some alcoholics, it was not the only effective mechanism.[54] Since the mid-1970s, a number of 'agnostic' or 'no-prayer' AA groups have begun across the U.S., Canada, and other parts of the world, which hold meetings that adhere to a tradition allowing alcoholics to freely express their doubts or disbelief that spirituality will help their recovery, and these meetings forgo use of opening or closing prayers.[55][56] There are online resources listing AA meetings for atheists and agnostics. That doesn’t seem to be the case.
- par 7y ago
  Google results can drum up anything you like. I've never personally or through second hand seen or heard of any AA group that would kick out an atheist.
- 7y ago

matwood 7y ago

> The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable man adapts the world to himself, therefore all progress is due to the unreasonable man. Yes and no. There is value in recognizing the things that can't be changed (at least at the time). From Musashi: "What a fool I’ve been,” he exclaimed aloud. “I tried to make the water flow where I thought it should and force the dirt to stay where I thought it ought to be. But it didn’t work. How could it? Water’s water, dirt’s dirt. I can’t change their nature. What I’ve got to do is learn to be a servant to the water and a protector of the land."

ArnoVW 7y ago
The Dutch would like to have a word with him.

thrownaway954 7y ago

if all the God and higher power stuff bothers you can always go to a secular meeting. the best thing about aa is that there is a group that fits you :) https://secularaa.org/ https://secularaa.org/

ajross 7y ago

> But rather highlighting that maybe people who accept 'surrender' of their own will are more likely to get better. There's a correlation/causation trap here. It can be very reasonably hypothesized in the opposite direction: people comfortable with surrender to higher power are more likely to respond to AA as a treatment.

golover721 7y ago

I have been going to AA for a while now, mostly because it is the only type of group meeting regularly available. The part that I cannot come to grips with is not so much the recognition of a higher power, but the fact that you have to believe that you are "powerless" to your addiction. This whole notion of pushing off fault and that you cannot change your behavior without the higher powers intervention is not something I will ever agree with. But group meetings are awesome and effective, and in most areas AA is the only choice, so no wonder AA works.

daseiner1 7y ago
Sure, but I’ve always interpreted it in the sense that you have to surrender to the fact that you are powerless under the influence of alcohol, that you are incapable of doing something that it seems everyone else can (drink)
Mikhail_Edoshin 7y ago
The idea of admitting you're powerless is to admit that the worldview you've been holding so far doesn't seem to work against addiction. Which means it's not entirely correct. Which means some things you think you know are not so.