Secret of AA: After 75 Years, We Don't Know How It Works

[progree]

22. Well, why can't you turn your will and life over to the care of a tree? (Step 3)

Why can't you pray for knowledge of a tree's will for you, and for the power to carry it out? (Step 11).

Why can't you get ready to have a tree remove all your defects of character? And why can't you humbly ask Him (generic male tree of course) to remove your shortcomings? (Steps 6 and 7).

(Steps with "tree" or whatever thing or concept you wish substituted for the word "God" )

What some people who conflate spirituality with religion find objectionable about AA/NA is the "proselytization" about a prayer-answering favor-dispensing deity -- the word "God" appears 136 times in the first 11 chapters of the Big Book, not counting Him, His, He, Maker, Creator, Employer, Principal, Father, assigner or our roles, giver of our sex powers, provider of our needs, something other than our well-loved A.A. group, no human power, nor any other human being, accomplisher of the humanly impossible, divine, Providence, has all knowledge and power).

And how the Big Book demeans anything human as a higher power .. e.g. to take two of many quotes:

"we simply do not stop drinking so long as we place dependence upon other people ahead of dependence on God. Burn the idea into the consciousness of every man that he can get well regardless of anyone. The only condition is that he trust in God and clean house." - BB p. 98

"This Power has in each case accomplished the miraculous, the humanly impossible." - BB p. 50

And how the Big Book demeans non-believers (agnostics) with these characterizations: "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),

It's not just a handful of people who conflate spirituality with religion. Six out of six of the highest courts -- all just one level below the U.S. Supreme Court -- have found A.A. to be religious in nature -- religious enough that coerced attendance by government constitutes a violation of the establishment clause of the first amendment. The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of one of the U.S. Court of Appeals cases, thus letting the ruling stand.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1144174#post32

It's sad that nobody explained to the courts that since people are free to substitute "tree" or "door knob" or whatever they wish (just so it's not something human), that it suddenly becomes spiritual but not religious.