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Comment on Save me from going down a dark path

To a certain extent you are correct and that is the point. For those leaders not so engrossed in the dogma abstracting away the idea of god acts as a bridge. Someone showing up to AA must believe in something outside of themselves as being more important than themselves otherwise why would you improve yourself? For leaders religious leaders who operate in institutions, the ways of the institutions must be upheld, but it is also obvious that the institutional ways are bullshit and change is slow, so compromise is made to enable those who see through the bullshit to participate without drawing the ire of the “true believers”

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prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

Someone showing up to AA must believe in something outside of themselves as being more important than themselves otherwise why would you improve yourself?

Because I don’t want to be an addict anymore?

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- petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  
  It’s like when people need the threat of eternal damnation in order to not be a complete piece of shit.
  
  Outside of the obvious religious propaganda, this is just an external motivation. It could just as easily be somebody’s family: an ailing mother for whom they need to be ready to take care of, or a spouse and children for whom throwing their life away would be tragic.
  
  I could say the reason I’m a humanitarian now is because I have a firm belief in happiness. If I lost that today, I probably wouldn’t change, but if I never had it, I have no idea if I ever would have gotten here.
  
  If someone is in a bad place now and does not have an external motivation, I’m not saying it should be this or that, but it would make sense to give them one.
  
  I mean, I do think AA is being coercive. I would prefer that they helped their… patients(?) find a motivation that was already meaningful to them instead of just imposing Christianity onto them. I have a lot of other problems with religion besides.
  
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