Comment by mock-possum
1 day ago
What’s interesting to me about all this is it sounds like people are defending appropriating religious practices but de-mystifying them. Even though belief in god is explicitly mentioned in the 12 steps, people claim to have had success by just ignoring the god parts -
But at that point, why is The Twelve Steps as an institution still pedaling belief in the supernatural, when it’s ostensibly just as effective with the Christian mythology removed?
Why not make the atheist version the baseline, and allow members to mix in religion if they find it to be useful - as opposed to making religious belief the default, and allowing users to substitute other things for religion if they find that to be useful?
I think the thing that most atheists are objecting to, with ‘religion as default’ situations like this, is the way religious belief is treated as the norm. I remember growing up and going to church, hearing about how “everyone had a god-shaped hole in their heart” - and each person would inevitably find a way to fill that hole, but nothing would ever quite fit, because that hole was god-shaped and could only properly be filled by god.
So when you run up against this kind of language in a system that’s supposed to be helping people free themselves from addiction, it’s off-putting to run into language that coerces them into making themselves beholden to magical thinking and supernatural beliefs, in gods and higher powers. “It can be whatever you want” feels like a cop out - it’s merely a softened stance on what I described above - “everyone has a god-shaped hole in their heart, and it’s okay if you fill that hole with love for your daughter or pride in your work.”
It’s still a turn-off for people like me, for better or for worse - maybe it’s a filter, maybe I’m not the kind of person who would need or would do well in that kind of program.
Yes exactly that "religion by default" is what bothers me too. Good way of putting it. It's like seeing atheists as a bit disabled, and the praying as something necessary in life that atheists can do with a workaround.
All that groveling, the idea of putting your life in the hands of this entity, humbly improving my connection with them etc. There's no way I will do that.
I'm more than atheist, I'm anti-religious. I don't care what other people do, if it makes them happy that's cool for them, but I don't want any of that stuff in my life.
> It's like seeing atheists as a bit disabled
They are seen as disabled, i.e., lacking the moral core. An atheist, the thinking goes, can't be a moral person. The US political (if not cultural) mainstream has been anti-secular for quite some time. Remember George Bush Sr? He had a memorable exchange with a reporter during his presidential campaign, where he made his views clear[1]. He was only mildly exceptional in being very direct, not in the way of thinking.
[1] https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/George_H.W._Bush_and_t...
> This is one nation under God.
This is especially egregious because "under god" was only added to the pledge of allegiance in 1954, when H.W. was 30 years old.