Really?
I don't think so. Here's my opinion about this; Tell the 3-strikes-you're-out-convicted-meth-head to go start his own secular drug program and quit blaming the courts, POs, cops, DOC, the treatment center, etc. for your sore brown starfish.
You're a druggie punk and you and your lawyer found a little loophole in the system thanks to the 1st Amendment. Good for you.
Conclusion; if you're an atheist, don't use A.A. or N.A., C.A., etc.
Request; please go out and start a secular alternative and take your atheists with you. If your secular program can be the least bit altruistic, maybe you'll encourage going to the jails, hospitals, courts, treatment centers, etc. and finding your own kind and offering up a place for them to get clean/sober/etc. without the use of God or Higher Power or whatever it is you find offensive and get on with NOT BREAKING THE FUCKING LAWS OF OUR FINE NATION UNDER GOD YOU FUCKING HEATHENS!
So you win! A.A. is a religion and A.A. is about God. Now go fuck yourselves, but don't expect tax exemption for your newly created religion, Atheism. Well actually, I could care less.
What I care about is the untreated meth-head who is looking to rape your daughter and snatch the purse from your wife at the local 7-11 and drag her 30 feet while she tries to steal her own purse back but you're in an 8 day spun-out meth binge as you drive off.
Now maybe, just maybe, A.A., N.A., C.A., and other God-based 12 Step programs can stop bending over backwards to fill the needs of the misbehaving world. Go ahead. Start your own programs and leave A.A. alone. Go now and find an empty building in your local strip mall, get a few tables, a few chairs, a coffee pot or a tea pot, a few slogans, a few secular druggies and/or drunks, and a hat, and start a meeting. Run your Godless program anyway you want, make mistakes, come up with traditions to tighten things down, and maybe you'll soon surpass A.A. and sway the courts and hospitals to send some clients your way.
You ought to have a decent base already to go now; Agent Orange followers, Stinkin' Thinkin' followers, the Blame Guys, about 90% of the folks over at Sober Roverery...
[s]elf Bless you all and have a wonderful day.
Donald Quinn says Hooray! Another victory!
ReplyDeleteI can’t possibly express how happy this makes me.
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DeConstructor says Now if we could get emplyees to go after companies that force and coerce employees to these fundamentalist, evangelical rooms, holding a persons employment as ransom for failing to convert to this religion.
This should also send a message to organ transplant teams that withhold organs of people that do not wish to participate and convert to this religion.
friendthegirl says ...
ReplyDeleteCould you elaborate on this, DeC?
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DeConstructor says From http://www.orange-papers.org:
http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-cult_a9.html (Item 96)
In extreme cases, like when A.A. members run organ transplant centers, the threat is death. Dr. Clifton Kirton reports that when he needed a liver transplant, and resisted A.A. indoctrination, and said that he felt that A.A. was a coercive religious cult with medically incorrect dogma, he was told:
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friendthegirl says “You are not being coerced. Your participation in A.A. is entirely voluntary.I must caution you, however, that your failure to internalize recovery concepts will place your transplant candidacy status in great jeopardy.”
This just gives me chills. It’s so damn creepy.
...
Thanks for following up with that.
massiveattack says everyone who is sentenced to AA needs to know that AA is way too close to a religion and it is a spiritual program. If they don’t want to go they should fight it. AA is for those that want it. If they will all fight it they will win. It has been taken all the way to the Supreme Court by some and they are winning as they should!
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Mikeblamedenial says Too bad it has fallen largely to the atheists to be the ones who have had to carry this fight to the courts. It gives the false air of acceptability of the 12-step religion to other religions. Theists, pagans, animists and others could plead equal offense at being compelled to participate as a condition for much of anything at all. Steppism is certainly offensive to my personal religious and moral mores, and I am as far from an atheist (and Christian) as it gets.
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Murray says I agree Mike
Although I believe in forces operating at a higher level than we can comprehend. I subscribe to the view that there isnt a micro managing god keeping me sober and dishing out little bonuses from time to time.
What gets me is people in the rooms clinging to the notion that god has a special plan for them and that everything happens for a reason.
If anything the 12 steps creates a belief in a belief. I did my best with the steps and came to my current views through its lack of producing said promises in my life.
This prompted me to leave rather than foster a growing resentment to the program and become trapped in that awful loop I see so many struggling souls currently in.
Mikeblamedenial says Kirkton is worthy of a further read. Check him out at Ken Ragge’s site here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.morerevealed.com/articles/kirton.jsp
true believer says AA’s deny being defined as anything while they claim to be everything. Now it’s up to the courts to define AA. Next, someone needs to sue for medical malpractice to further the definition to “AA, a medical religious treatment”.
Perhaps AA can adopt some new truth in disclosure slogans…
“AA, the coercive psychiatric program that works”… or
“AA, better than shock therapy”… or
“AA, the other heresy”. how’bout
“If it works, why sue us”???
This lawsuit is great news.
I am ready for full disclosure.
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Donald Quinn says Let me know when the class action suit is filed.
I’ll be one of the first to sign on.
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speedy0314 says d.q.,
...(yes, i’m talking about you dr. mark willenbring & you dr. nora volkow) who pay it a mealy-mouthed lip service are more often than not actually putting vulnerable people in harms’ way....
personally speaking, it’s very near the time to call the emperor on his pastey, fat, ugly nakedness & to do it transparently as a citizen who’s got plenty of skin in the game. for now, i’ll settle for this:
thanks for the kick in the ass,pete
Too bad! You've given up your constitutional rights. So be it.
ReplyDeleteLet's talk about amendment #2 for a minute.
You have the absolute "Right" guaranteed by the Constitution to Keep and Bear Arms.
Is it a "Right" or is it a "Priveledge".
Well the Constitution says it's a "Right" and a "Right" can't be taken away.
Don't believe me? Go slap your wife and tell me what happens to that "Right" guaranteed by the Constitution.
It's gone! You've lost that "Right" because it wasn't a "Right" to begin with regardless of what The Constitution says.
So what about Amendment #1 which most people can't recite. If they do they are usually ill informed. Very few understand "The Establishment Clause" which prohibits the establishment of a national religion by the Congress or the preference of one religion over another.
So The Courts may not command you to become a Lutheran for any reason.
But remember. You are now a Criminal in theeyes of the Law and your "Rights" are now surrendered until you are out of the system.
Here's the deal. Go to AA or go to Jail.
If you have a problem with AA and deem it a "Religion" go the fuck to jail, do not pass Go and do not collect $200.00
With that being known there are worse things that could happen.
I was never ordered to AA but I was ordered to take antabuse on more than one occasion.
Actually I wasn't ordered. I was given a choice. Take antabuse or go to jail.
Nobody, repeat, Nobody is ordered to Alcoholics Anonymous. Ever! The choice is always presented to the scumbag that surrendered his rights when he/she showed a blatant and deliberate disregard for the rights of society.
No sympathy. None!
Call the ACLU, Call your Congressman or Contact the Courts with your opinion.
Or sit on the internet and grind your axe with the rest of the unsuspecting fools.
When confronted by folks who call youon your bullshit, Ban Them and carry on.
While we're at it maybe we should see if we can begin to understand why The Judge ruled the way he did.
ReplyDeleteHopefully it's because The Judge is an AA member and doesn't want Court Orders in the program. Maybe The Judge is smart enough to realize that Alcoholics Anonymous is for Alcoholics. Not Drug Users.
I'm willing to bet the loser just didn't comply with his conditions. Most Parolees don't. This dipwad decided to pull the "Athiest Card" and it worked this time.
Thank You Your Honor. I don't want these losers in AA either.
It contaminates the purity and spreads like a fungus.
Good points on the use/misuse of the 1st Amendment and how the system works and all. But I took the same tact as you; screw y'all then. If you don't want A.A. then you shouldn't have to go.
ReplyDeleteIn another forum, Dennis pointed out the fact that our pamphlets don't go far enough to say that A.A. is a spiritual program. We need to be honest up front about it is and then the courts/treatment centers/friends of A.A. can act accordingly. Same for N.A., fillintheblank. A. etc. This story doesn't even relate directly to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous proper, that I'm aware of. So it would seem prudent to just say, "Well, not our business, let's not get involved."
Well there ya go. That's the real answer, but its our detractors that likes to drag A.A. through the mud anyway.
It is said that "my problems are of my own making", so it would stand to reason that "our problems are of our own making" as well, right?
So how do we solve this? Shun all atheists? Well, if they want to give A.A. an honest try, then as long as they are alcoholics looking to recover, they shouldn't have to pay the price for some bozo who wants to play the "atheist card."
Atheists honestly do confuse me. Why? Because I ain't got not experience in that. Do you? Can you help the atheist? What are they doing in A.A. in the first place? How religious do you really thing an A.A. oriented treatment center is? Never mind. Don't answer that. Someone with their nuts in a vice will get some lawyer to overturn every stone. Ain't nothing A.A. could do with that.
"our problems are of our own making" as well, right?"
ReplyDeleteI'm going to take it that when you say "our" you mean the collective conscience of the whole fellowship, and if so, I'm behind that 100%
When I started that thread over on RF about apologizing for God, it wasn't necessarily the atheists that I was referring to. The atheists aren't the ones who are wanting to produce this piece of literature. Wait, that is not entirely true, I'm sure there are some atheists that are behind it.
The people who are behind this are what the MOTR crowd would call "good A.A.'s" the ones who go to meetings and to the G.S.R. meetings and to the areas assemblies and the area delegates who carry that to the G.S.C. in April. These people really aren't concerned about the integrity of our program nor are they really concerned about the chances of the alcoholic who happens to be an atheist having a chance of getting sober in Alcoholics Anonymous. What is driving this whole deal about producing literature aimed at the atheist/agnostic is profit motive. Falling membership. Proceeds from book sales are down and contributions from groups are down. This is a thinly veiled membership drive.
Dennis is right. It really isn't about God. It is about problems of money & property.
Yessir. You are correct. Thanks for the backstory and I agree.
ReplyDeleteI just wish that one time... just once, some atheist that loves A.A. would come in here and plead his/her case and say, "Don't lump ME in with those antiAA bastards!"
Well thank you. Guess I could use a blessing... wife is convinced I've got a bag of weasels in me.
ReplyDelete"..wife is convinced I've got a bag of weasels in me."
ReplyDeleteAhh, so that explains it. LOL!
Yup. Contrary as a bag of weasels, my mom told me while we were playing cards, so my wife took that thought a step further and assumed that this is what I'm made of.
ReplyDeleteMy mother told me something along similar lines one time.
ReplyDeleteA teacher in the second grade sent this comment home on a report card:
"James is a rugged individualist."
I think she meant that James is a self-centered little prick.
My ex-wife told me that numerous times. I don't think she was joking though.