I came across Michelle, a mother of 4 and regular blogger, when doing research on Alcoholics Anonymous. At first I thought she was going about exposing certain non-secular leanings of AA administrators, but I soon learned that she thought AA was a cult.
Okay. I think all of these are cults. The Jim Jones Massacre was bad, right? Yes. So was the Branch-Davidian atrocity. Unbelievably horrible. These were, by our common understanding of cults, violent outcomes resultant of cult alienism and unregulation.
The inquisition? Worse. The Holocaust? Worse. 9-11? Worse. Why worse? Because I’m not so annoying as to say: they’re all bad. I’m willing to go ahead and say that there were a lot more innocent deaths in some than others. And I’m okay with that. Liberals, I hope you’re okay with that. All of these atrocities with religion at their base (yes, that includes Hitler’s holocaust, by the way, stop saying he was an atheist dictator who killed Jews solely on race-reasons…just not gonna stand trial here or in any rational person’s world) were horrible, too.
But Michelle kind of tread on some of the territory I’ve been eking out on this blog, with help of the giants like Stick Dawkins and Harris. Why is one a cult and the other not? The Scientologists have their “Fair Game” policy, where they strip people who would expose them their belief in aliens of all of their credentials, sometimes their lives. This “Fair Game” policy was implemented by Hubbard himself- even worse. But what off the Fatwas that clerics have issues on thousands of sinners and blasphemers in Islam? The declarations of hellfire and damnation that the Christians use when indicting homosexuals? Amy Lawless, a talented poet and herself an atheist, once asked me why I’ve “gone easy” on Scientology. I’m not trying to go easy on Scientology, I just don’t think it’s any more idiotic than any of the other belief systems out their, nor do I think it responsible in its history for the amount of deaths as, say a single terrorist attack on US soil (I’m talking, of course, of the Trade Center here). In fact, Scientology was one of those first religions where I was, like, “What is this really about?” And learned of how sophisticated and disgusting inculcation and dominance rituals could be. But all it did, when I looked back on these learnings five years later, was kind of turn a well-cleaned mirror onto everything else. Mitt Romney, I’m on to you…
Back to Michelle, the blogger responsible for the blog AA Is a Cult Blog (click here for a look see). Michelle was attacking AA as a cult. Now, I know a thing or two about AA. I’ve attended some meetings. I’ve engaged in some of their rituals. AA is certainly modeled similarly to a religion. This makes it problematic for those not looking for supernatural deities but guidance and support but finding, instead something that inculdes the supernatural in its twelve dogmatic codices, the steps. I’m conflicted about AA, because it is filled with atheists, agnostic, believers, and those in-between. And yet the doctrine still stands: higher powers are higher powers. As a result, as we go further into this new age of enlightenment, these intelligent people are beginning to cherry-pick from the AA doctrine in order to “fix it”, instead of scrapping and starting again- it’s okay to do this sometimes. Some of the so-called “Big Book” remains secular. Some is filled with a paternal vision of god. Some people don’t need god to solve their problems (well–no one needs a ghost to solve their problems, but that’s for another post).
But here’s where I took issue with Michelle’s attack on AA. She was coming from a christian standpoint– her site rife with the idiotic ramblings of seriously traumatized, indoctrinated, and brainwashed believers: Harry Potter is blasphemous paganism, the founders of AA are demon-worshippers. This kind of tragic garbage. I really empathize with her plight: vulnerable people searching for guidance finding AA (or so she intimates), realizing that it’s religionistic, and finding it conflicts with their other beliefs– then plunging deeper into their previous ideology, feeling burned by an outside source and looking for safety in piety, devotion, and blind faith.
This has been a long set-up for a debate that I had with Michelle in the comment section of her blog. I leave it to you, dear readers, to decide who is right and who is wrong (because there is a right and wrong on some of these issues–and I’m right). I will be posting our debate in the next couple of days. But I’ll start with my initial response and hers.
Mob Legend said…
So Michelle, correct me if I’m wrong. Do you believe that AA is problematic because it appropriates certain Judeo-Christian teachings into its doctrine- therefore making it blasphemous?
I applaud your no-nonsense picking-apart of AA, but I must say that you will find just as many problems and contradictions on the soapbox from which you stand: Christianity.
Yet it seems you clearly support some version of Christianity that seems to have done its own spiritual readings of the texts, creating a sect of its own.
I do not deny, from my knowledge of AA, that it appropriates certain Judeo-Christian doctrine for its own purpose but guess what, Michelle- your Church does exactly the same thing: It has the same problematic idols, the same misappropriation of texts, and, finally is based on a similar idea: wish-thinking, irrational garbage written by a desert tribe around 2,000 years ago. I would urge you to direct your “bullshit detector” in the direction of your own cult before directing it at others, with all due respect.
Michelle said…
First of all you have no idea what youre talking about.I can assure you.The god of AA is not the god of the bible. Bill Wilson was a pagan.Now.Prove to me that God doesnt exist!!!
Lets see, I have archeaology
I have a bible that decribes the water cycle several thousand years before it was supposedly “discovered”.Please PROVE the theory of evolution.
Where are the billions of transitional fossils that should be there if evolution is right? Billions! Not a handful of questionable transitions. Why don’t we see a reasonably smooth continuum among all living creatures, or in the fossil record, or both?
How do evolutionists explain the opposite sex evolving at the same time to procreate in the same short life?
If you really were educated and not a complete idiot you would know that there are multiple religions with multiple beliefs.
Saying that all christians are bad is like saying that all atheists are pedophiles and criminals because people who dont believe in God dont have morals.Do you like that.???
Now.WHAT IF WE’RE RIGHT.???
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO THEN.IF WE’RE RIGHT WE GO TO HEAVEN,AND YOU GO TO HELL.
IF YOURE RIGHT NOTHING HAPPENS AND WE HAVENT LOST ANYTHING.IF WERE RIGHT YOU LOSE YOUR SOUL AND SPEND ETERNITY IN HELL.IF YOU HAD ANY BALLS WHATSOEVER YOU WOULDNT HAVE ANY TROUBLE ASKING GOD TO PROVE HIMSELF TO YOU.I DARE YOU.WHAT HAVE YOU GO TO LOSE.
Get RR In An Email
