more

How Does An Atheist Navigate Alcoholics Anonymous?

Part II Working Within the A.A. Idea
Continued From Atheist Survival and Recovery in God-driven Alcoholics Anonymous

(All phrases you will read that are between " " are phrases written in approved A.A. literature. Any phrase you see in italics are phrases used in A.A. but are not necessarily part of any A.A. approved literature--like One Day At A Time, Easy Does It, or Keep Coming Back 'Till You Want to Come Back. I will supplement the official phrases with references, or with live web links from the Big Book, so you will be able to read it for yourself. The Big Book is online free, by the way, and you can--and should--look at it, either online or in a book. http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/
However, as authors will do, some of what you see in italics are my own writing of things I wish to set apart from the rest of the text.)

In AA we have "12 Traditions" as well as "12 Steps". Tradition One is "Our Common Welfare should come first; personal recovery depends on AA unity."

http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/en_appendicei.cfm

Entering an AA group, knowing people in that group are going to talk about God, higher powers, and spirituality, is for most atheists an unsettling experience. It was not unsettling for me--not in the beginning. I was familiar with A.A. through AlAnon, which is for people who have friends or family who are alcoholics.

Just being with that group helped keep me sober day by day, so that I did not drink in front of the person I was trying to understand and to help.

How do you become a member of a group? Tradition Three states: "The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking." That is important to remember for the atheist. It says nothing about membership requiring a "belief in God." It does not say membership requires a belief in a "higher power." But as I explain later, a "higher power" does not have to be supernatural, and having one actually does assist in staying sober.

http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/en_appendicei.cfm

I have heard many people say they came to their first A.A. meetings with a closed coffee mug full of booze; or that they went to a meeting every day without fail, then left the meeting to go get drunk with their friends.

But they had a desire to stop drinking. They simply didn't know the way, which is to listen, to learn, and to act on what you learn. If you get sober at an in-house clinic somewhere, they will probably use parts of the A.A. program, initiate you in it, and then on your way out the door tell you that the only way to remain sober is to keep going to A.A. meetings!

I was not unsettled by the religious people, at the first A.A. meeting that I went to for my own alcoholism, because I have no problem with religious people who don't try to preach. A.A., when done right, does not preach, but the moral messages it tries to inculcate can have many different personal applications.

At A.A., we take those parts of the messages we hear, the parts we need, and we leave the rest without concerning ourselves with it. That is why the "common welfare" of the group is so democratic that no one person can dominate it, no one person's idea(s) can dominate it, and all members' ideas must be tolerated, even ours, the atheists.

But I realized that I had to work the "12 Steps," and that they were steeped in "god." I had to work them or I would be in danger of slipping back into my old ways, feeling the old fears, the old dependencies for alcohol or drugs, whenever I might find myself in a familiar old situation that triggered the desire.

I knew I had to do the Steps because for five years I was in AlAnon. I saw my friend and many other people I met there become sober, civil, productive people again. I had no trouble accepting that A.A. does work.

How does it happen that we atheists can get away from this danger of feeling overwhelmed by god-driven fanatics who we think want us to believe in a higher power? We do it the same way everyone does--by listening to all the things said by other members, and then from those things we hear, by taking what we need and leaving the rest.

The AA Bible is called the "Big Book." That is not its name. Its name is "Alcoholics Anonymous." It has this to say about the change that we can effect in ourselves to prevent slipping back into the old needs, desires, habits and "character defects":

"The terms 'spiritual experience' and 'spiritual awakening' are used many times in this book which, upon careful reading, shows the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism has manifested itself among us in many different forms."
[italics added] Appendix II, Spiritual Experience

http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/en_appendiceii.cfm

So how do we atheists get past god and the spiritual stuff? Well, that's the heart of the matter. It has many answers, because we are individuals, and for each of us there is a different set of criteria preventing us from a belief in god. A.A. knows that each of its religious believers is an individual, different in his or her beliefs, and no denomination is favored over another. Yes, there are Jewish A.A. groups, Islamic groups, Buddhist groups, and organized agnostic and atheist groups (very few and far between.)

But the majority of the groups are Christian-based. Yet, the Babtists don't force themselves on the Methodists who don't force themselves on anyone because no denomination in a general group can take precedence over another. A Catholic may speak from his or her experience as a Catholic and even state he/she is Catholic. This is good. It gives you something to reference within that speaker's words.

I have seen people in my home group accept what I have to say about some things, because I can see their eyes light up, or a smile come across their face, or I see them nodding in affirmation and sometimes I even hear someone say "Amen!" to my comments! If that is not acceptance, if that is not acceptance for the "common welfare" to let me speak in a god-based meeting, and if that is not acceptance I see and hear and feel from my fellow members, then I don't know what is.

Without describing each of the categories, there are "weak" atheists and "strong" atheists--so say many atheists. I don't say that. To me an atheist is an atheist, someone who thinks, believes, or knows there is no god.

But the differences exist between us apparently because some atheists can actually believe god exists, but have no belief in it/him. These kinds of atheists can actually have beliefs in other supernatural things like ghosts, card and tea-leaf readings, and astrology.

Then there are those atheists who believe god does not exist, but don't know and don't care. Do you see the quicksand we could get into trying to figure it all out? It isn't important in this context. If you want to know more there are books, and websites devoted to the subject. But the cause of the quicksand is the cause of the problem of how each individual atheist gets over the "god thing," he/she finds in A.A. I'll tell you what I've discovered: A.A. says it only has to be a "god of your understanding." [Steps 3 and 11]
http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/en_bigbook_chapt5.pdf

Notwithstanding the use of the word god, you and any other atheist who wants to get sober can find something that is a "power greater than himself." [Step 2]

So it turns out it is really up to you to figure that out for yourself. I've been a die-hard "there is no god" atheist all my life, yet I can now easily talk about my realtionship to a higher power when I am in the group, and I can even reference the god that everyone else believes in. I know that because of my willingness to sit in a meeting and discuss how I stay sober using A.A. while at the same time remaining atheist, at least one other atheist, possible more, have joined my group.

This is because my group is comfortable with me, and I am comfortable with them. One of the other atheists said her former home group made her feel uncomfortable. When ever any group makes you feel uncomfortable for any reason, not just religious reasons, it is probably better to find yourself another regular group, which is what a home group is. Your home group is the one you attend most often, but not necessarily all the time. You attend it because it feels like home, in a way.

Unless you believe the soul absolutely does not exist, [see Part I for a more complete description of this phenomenon] not even as something that dies with you, then you will come to discover the reason that group feels like home is a spiritual reason.

By using the group, not god, as your "higher power," you will begin to make "conscious contact" with "God as you understand him." My own such understanding is simply that within my understanding, god is just the power we call the laws of nature. But one of my sponsors told me that if I can have a spiritual experience while contemplating nature, such as during the stereotype of laying on the ground staring into space, then I have conscious contact with the "god of my understanding." Since he is a very religious man, I accepted his advice to use that as my understanding.That might have been the best advise I ever got from a sponsor.

But it's a good thing while trying to understand A.A. to ask a lot of questions from someone you trust who is already in A.A., rather than trying to figure out by yourself what the statements in the books mean. This is because taken at face value they often mean something other than when another chapter, paragraph, sentence, phrase, or Step is taken into consideration. Everything in life has "contextual meaning," and the words of the Big Book are no exception. It took a religious man to tell me that as an atheist I already had my own "conscious contact with the god of my understanding."

Whether you like the idea of being in a "god" group or not doesn't matter. One of the truths of being in a group is stated in an informal A.A. slogan. It says, I get drunk; We stay sober. In other words, there is power in belonging to a group.

When we don't have a reason not to not get drunk, we won't. You may think you can't help it, that you try to drink just one beer, wine, or mixed drink, but then you find yourself unable to stop.

You're right. You can't help it--alone. The second part of that phrase, We stay sober, means that when you have a support group made of people who are just like you because they can't stop getting drunk when they only want one drink, then as part of a group, "we" stay sober.
There is another informal saying in A.A. that is very appropriate for the atheist. It begins in the form of a question that millions of people have actually asked when they start going to meetings. The informal saying is the answer.

Q: How long do I have to keep going (coming) to A.A.?
A: Until you have the desire to want to come to A.A.

I am not the first atheist who accepts that A.A. can work for him/her. I am not the first atheist who had to negotiate the tricky propostions of the god problem. I will not be the last, and I hope you will not let the god problem stop you from seeking help.

Your life may depend on it; you may have been sentenced by a court to attend; your family may have begged you to go; you may be losing your home, your job, everything that is valuable to you. Don't let a little thing like an idea you don't like stop you from selfishly using an A.A. group to lean on. They won't mind it if you don't bash their god-ideas. And if they bash your no-god ideas, find another group, or talk to someone in that group you trust.

Look for Part III late next week.

For some outside perspectives, read the Comments on the link below.
http://atheism.about.com/b/2006/04/10/discussion-atheists-in-alcoholics-anonymous.htm

more

Excerpt from Anthony Horvath’s

Christian Apologetics Ministry

http://sntjohnny.com/front/one-atheist-admits-im-right-another-responds-to-big-bang-post/364.html

And the Reclassification of Theism

as the Skeptical Position of Naturalism

"It is not very often that you get an admission as clear as the one that was posted on my forum today. I asserted in this post on my blog that at the bottom, most atheistic arguments against the existence of God are based on the ‘presumption of naturalism’ with [missing info in original post.] The atheist on my forum said:

'At the conclusion, you argue that the evidence will show God’s existence if only we give up our assumption that all explanations must be natural. What you fail to give us is any compelling reason why we must abandon that assumption.'"

Unfortunately, Rev. Horvath's critic undercuts his own position by saying he would, in effect, be willing to accept giving up reason. Horvath responds--quite logically--by saying, "The atheist in question says that this assumption can only be abandoned in the face of extremely good reasons, but it should be evident that anyone who believes ‘all explanations must be natural’ is really just throwing up a smokescreen if he now demands ‘reasons’ for thinking otherwise."

Oh, if only we would listen to what we say before we say it. In light of what Horvath said regarding the abandonment of reason for "compelling" reasons, I think the critic would have thought out his words more carefully.

But my favorite atheist philosopher said we must take men at their word. If they say it, then they said it, and we cannot presume to judge that they meant something else. This does not mean we cannot amend our statement when our contradiction becomes evident.

But unless Horvath's critic writes back, we must assume he does not understand the difference between:

1. A principled deduction of logic that tells him that naturalism is natural, while supernaturalism is---not, by definition, natural; and

2. The decision that it makes no difference whether a thing is "natural" or "not-natural" if one is willing to suspend his rational judgment to decide that the "not-natural" can somehow become the "natural," or at least the "acceptable."

Horvath tells him--and others like him--"If you’re just starting to examine the merits of Christianity and are evaluating skeptical objections, the key here is to understand that all the later objections to things like the resurrection and miracles stem from this prior assumption."

What Horvath himself fails to explain is that naturalism was the prevailing world-view for nearly 1000 years, until Augustine.

There are four goals for the informed naturalist, says physicist and cosmologist Dr. Quentin Smith. "i) retrieve naturalism from its de facto reclassification by medieval philosophers. This is a reclassification (which may have been a result of some other deliberately chosen goal) from its original, accurate, classification in Greco-Roman naturalism, and this reclassification was effected by the medieval philosophers. This reclassification still prevails today." Philo Online http://www.philoonline.org/library/smith_4_2.htm

"Some of these pre-Socratics sometimes used the word “god” (theos), but insofar as the existence of a so-called god or gods was embraced, they meant by “god” a non-human intelligent organism that was a part of and governed by (rather than governing) natural processes. The first task is based on the fact that naturalism began as a distinct, holistic world-view, was in effect subsumed as a skeptical subfield of natural theology by the medievals..."

This means that Christianity was once the "skeptical" position relative to naturalism. Therefore, Horvath's call to critics who may be "evaluating skeptical objections" are not really the skeptics. They are the former progenitors of the original world-view. The problem with modern naturalists assuming this role and attempting to put the Christian back on the skeptical position is that the modern naturalist does not have the proper epistemic tools to do so.

"This retrieval is also a reversal," writes Smith. The aim is that theism be justifiably reclassified as a subfield of naturalism, namely, as a skepticism about the basic principles of naturalism whose refutation serves to stimulate and further develop the naturalist program. 'Philosophy of religion' disappears, to be replaced by a new subfield of naturalism, namely, 'skepticism about naturalism,' with skeptical arguments being put forth and argued against, with the aim in mind of further developing the argumentative foundations of the naturalist world-view."

The informed naturalist must study his logic properly, not just go off on a quick run as a criticism, as Horvath's critic did. Smith outlines his epistemic proposals for creating better arguments than theists, and thus overcoming their "defeater" arguments" with better "defeater" arguments of our own.

Smith lays it out this way:

"A (a defeated justifier). A is the argument that contemporary science and naturalist philosophy are known to be probably or certainly true, even though A includes no counterarguments against contemporary arguments for theism.
DA (a defeater for the justifier A). DA is a sound argument that argument A is unsound.

"B (a defeated justifier). B is an argument that, contemporary science and naturalist philosophy, when conjoined with an evaluation of contemporary theist arguments for not-
N, (where “not-N” implies naturalism is not true) justify not-N.

"DB (a defeater for the justifier B). DB is a sound argument that argument B is unsound.

"C (an undefeated justifier for N). C is the argument that, contemporary science and naturalist philosophy, when conjoined with an evaluation of contemporary theist arguments for not-N, justify N."

Later, after explaining these positions better, he finalizes this portion of his academic paper by advising that :

"Since both A and B are defeated, most contemporary naturalists, as well as most contemporary theists, hold defeated beliefs about the truth-value of naturalism. The informed naturalist knows the complex argument C that constitutes the defeater of B and the justification of N, as well as meets other conditions explained later in this paper.

"[The] Belief State of Informed Naturalists [is]
'C.

'C justifies N.

'Therefore, N is justified.'"

Horvath's critic began with the proper positing of (C), when he said, "At the conclusion, you argue that the evidence will show God’s existence if only we give up our assumption that all explanations must be natural." After that, he provides his own defeater arguments against himself, and all Horvath had to do was properly point them out.

The modern naturalist is not used to using such logic. The modern naturalist is probably not aware that at one time naturalism had Christian logic on the run. The neo-Platonic philosophy of Augustine threw all arguments into disarray, and the naturalists of his day, not used to being put on the skeptical defensive, never recovered.

Smith seems to have discovered the method, the epistemic position, that metaphysical naturalists must take, if we are to regain, one argument by one argument, the former glory position of having not only valid logic, but soundness of logic, on our side.

Because that is what Smith's formula is about: injecting not only validity, in other words adherence to the rules of formal syllogistic logic, but using that logic to locate the soundness. "Soundness" is defined as sound "if and only if it is both valid, and all of its premises are actually true." The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://www.iep.utm.edu/v/val-snd.htm

more

And What Irony To Find This Blog

After Writing About "Existence"

"Before the scientific community came to a consensus on the Big Bang theory following the discovery of the cosmic radiation echo predicted by Big Bang theorists, many scientists believed in the Steady State theory. In short, they believed that the universe had no definite beginning and that hydrogen atoms were randomly popping into existence somewhere in the universe, supplying the material for all the physical phenomena like stars and planets. Atheists were generally rooting for this theory, understanding that a definite beginning for the physical universe implies its contingency- that it has a cause which is outside itself. As it turned out, the Big Bang has been confirmed in great measure by scientific findings...

"How the atheists managed to adopt the Big Bang theory as evidence for their position confounds me. If there is any interesting history behind this, I’d be curious to know it.

"To elaborate further on why this is a philosophical defeat for atheism: The contemporary atheist philosopher Kai Nielsen is frequently quoted by Christian apologists as saying about causation: “Suppose you suddenly hear a loud bang and you ask me, ‘What made that bang?’ and I reply ‘Nothing, it just happened.’ You would not accept that - in fact you would find my reply quite unintelligible.” Nielsen is quite right on this account. Bangs must have causes because they are finite, contingent events that have a definite beginning." W. E. Messamore [blog @] http://www.slaying-dragons.com/

A Reply

My reply is taken partially from the top article, and partially from If A Tree Falls In the Forest--the Primacy of Existence and The Loss of Secularism in Naturalism, Part 2: Unjustified True Beliefs:

"If one thing exists in existence, it becomes the proof of the existence of existence," I wrote, above.

This refutes Messamore on his contention that "hydrogen atoms were randomly popping into existence." The theory of "ex nihilo" has long since been abandoned by Christian theologians; things in existence do not just spontaneously appear. If hydrogen atoms actually were randomly popping into existence, they were caused by something else already in existence. What that is may remain unknown for a long time, if in fact "popping hydrogen atoms" turns out to be a justified theory sometime in the future.

Saying that it was God who caused the popping of hydrogen atoms begs two questions: 1) for what purpose God would cause such a thing, or admitting that no human could ever know that answer; and 2) how can this discussion continue between us if God is the automatic answer to everything?

While I suppose it is true as Messamore says, that "a definite beginning for the physical universe implies its contingency," this in no way implies that metaphysical naturalists believe in the contingency theory, nor that atheists were "rooting" for that theory. I don't remember rooting for it. I don't remember reading that any of my atheist contemporaries or those who came before us rooted for it. But I could be wrong. Maybe some did.

But 'Existence exists' rules out contingency. It is also equally true that 'Existents exist,' and neither statement can be true without the other also being true. The conclusion of the extreme end result of this logic is that existence is not a product--not of a contingency, nor of anything else; and that nothing can be antecedent to existence, because it would require "nothingness" to be the default condition of the universe.Of course every theist is going to defend "nothingness" as the default position, because without doing so there can have been no "creation."

Contingency cannot be a fallback position for creation. "'God' as traditionally defined is a systematic contradiction of every valid metaphysical principle. The point is wider than just the Judeo- Christian concept of God. No argument will get you from this world to a supernatural world. No reason will lead you to a world contradicting this one. No method of inference will enable you to leap from existence to a 'super-existence.'" Leonard Peikoff; "The Philosophy of Objectivism."

Because "nothingness" can not be antecedent to existence, there is "nothing apart from it—and no alternative to it." [Peikoff] If nothingness was antecedent, then "nothingness" is reified, i.e., it becomes an existent. "Nothingness" as an "existent" is contradictory of the terms. "Nothingness" as an antecedent existent necessarily denotes "nothingness" as "something that exists." But just the opposite is true: nothingness is the absence of existence.

To argue that "somethingness" is the absence of "nothingness" reifies absence and makes it an existent. Contradictions do not exist; therefore, reified "nothingness" cannot exist.

The Big Bang was not the beginning of existence, nor by extension of any existents in existence. This means quite simply that the material that exploded in the Bang existed prior to the known universe. But the known materials of the universe are existents, which implies existence, which implies that "nothingness" can not have been the state of existence prior to any creation and that creation cannot have occurred because "nothingness" would then be a reified existent.

When people ask me what caused the Big Bang, I never say, "Nothing." Of course something caused an event. What causes a meteor to slam into the earth? What causes solar flares? The same thing that caused the Bang--which in the most simplistic of terms can only be called the Laws of Existence. But existence did not come about because of an event. It is not a product. It is the primal existential state of all that was, is, or can be. Existence cannot be the primal existential state of "nothingness" because "nothingness" exists only as a conceptual place holder within consciousness that denotes an existential state than cannot exist.

The Law of Identity says "'Everything is what it is and not another thing', or (where 'P' is any proposition) 'If P then P'." Existence, being what it is and not another thing, cannot be not-P, where not-P is "not-existence."

The Law of Non-Contradiction says "No proposition can be both true and not true; or that nothing can be--without qualification--the case and not the case at the same time; or that nothing can--without qualification--both have and lack a given property at the same time." http://www.philosophyprofessor.com/philosophies/three-laws-of-thought.php So the proposition that "nothingness" is at the same time "somethingness" contradicts this Law.

Why would anyone ever say "nothing" caused the Big Bang? Why would anyone ever say hydrogen atoms just popped into existence from non-existence? They came from somewhere, not from no where; but that "somewhere" was a place in existence, not an "ex nihilo no-place" from which they supernaturally came into Being.

Why would anyone say that existents were created--which creation thus at the same time created existence itself--when the material to use in any creation would have to come from "nothingness?"

Existence is not a "product." Only something supernatural could cause "somethingness" from "nothingness," existence from non-existence; and because this argument relies on something supernatural, metaphysical naturalists must necessarily work from the epistemic principle that "existence exists." CEC

Many thanks to "sntjohnny" http://sntjohnny.com/front/ for turning me on to another Christian apologist. I love debating you guys!