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From: wrs@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (Walter Smith)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Alcoholism, Christianity, and Effective Treatment
Message-ID: <225@cmu-cs-k.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 30-Dec-84 00:43:34 EST
Article-I.D.: cmu-cs-k.225
Posted: Sun Dec 30 00:43:34 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 1-Jan-85 00:17:05 EST
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 30

> This is AA in a nutshell:
> After admitting that you are powerless over alcohol, and
> have the desire to stop drinking you must turn you life over to
> a power higher than yourself WHAT YOU CHOOSE TO CALL THAT POWER
> IS UP TO *YOU*.
> It is not necessarily religious, unless of course you choose
> to call that power God. They don't *ever* preach
> or refer to anything remotely religious. You turn your
> life and everything in it over to YOUR higher power.

Maybe you just didn't express yourself very well, but that doesn't make any
sense.  Are they assuming you have some higher power in mind ready to take
over your life?  Do they have a particular higher power in mind that you can
call whatever you want?  What do they do with a fanatic humanist?  He can't
turn his life over to human nature; that's already controlling it.  Perhaps
he can just leave it all to quantum mechanics.

The very concept of turning "your life and everything in it" over to
"a power higher than yourself" sounds pretty religious to me.  It also
sounds pretty meaningless.  Do you call this higher power on the phone daily
for instructions?  I suppose this depends on which higher power you choose.

Perhaps someone should post something a little more detailed, or else I
shall think AA is a pretty muddled organization.  IMPORTANT NOTE TO
POTENTIAL FLAMERS: IT WORKS!  I KNOW!  GREAT!  MORE POWER TO THEM!
-- 
      Walter Smith, CS undergraduate, Carnegie-Mellon University
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