Atheists - prove it.

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I do not know your precise point of reference there, but no, I do not post quotes from the book in order to try to prove anything other than possibly the fact of something actually/simply having once been written/shared there.


Correct ...

=========================
>TRADITION EIGHT (Appendix I)
Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A. members) should remain forever nonprofessional ...
>TRADITION EIGHT - The Long Form (Appendix I)
... We define professionalism as the occupation of counseling alcoholics for fees or hire ...
... our usual A.A. "12th Step" work (helping our fellow alcoholics) is never to be paid for.
=========================


Something has been misunderstood somewhere. I am no-more-welcome in any online AA setting than in any real-life AA setting.



"The doctor writes:
"The subject presented in this book seems to me to be of paramount importance to those afflicted with alcoholic addiction.
"I say this after many years' experience as Medical Director of one of the oldest hospitals in the country treating alcoholic and drug addiction.
"There was, therefore, a sense of real satisfaction when I was asked to contribute a few words on a subject which is covered in such masterly detail in these pages.
"We doctors have realized for a long time that some form of moral psychology was of urgent importance to alcoholics, but its application presented difficulties beyond our conception. What with our ultra-modern standards, our scientific approach to everything, we are perhaps not well equipped to apply the powers of good that lie outside our synthetic knowledge."
(William D. Silkworth ("Silky"), MD)

At the very least, the original A.A. certainly once was at least an ad-hoc-and-yet-professionally-acknowledge "research institution", and I can elaborate more upon that, if you wish.


Nope. A.A. is but an overall fellowship of anonymous alcoholics who simply happen to have a specific program of action "to make the approach and to effect a contact with [God]". (page 46)

It is not, of course, at all inaccurate to say something like this:

"Everything we have here had been borrowed primarily from the fields of medicine and religion."
("Twelve Steps and Twelves Traditions", an A.A. book)

From the field of medicine: A two-fold perception of alcoholism;
From the field of religion: Spiritual reconciliation and transformation.


What is a "mothaf*ckin' G"?


I will gladly try to answer that if/after you might say that with words this particular old geezer can comprehend!

Proof and poof topic

I have no wish to prove my atheism, and no wish to read proofs of an omniescient god/creator. I am suspicious of that which needs to be proven beyond doubt. Doubt is healthy. (But I am not a truther. )

And as I have written elsewhere, I would not care if a so called god came to me and professed existence. I have no interest in such whinings. If this works for theists here at WP, then so be it.

We do need more Politics and Philosophy though. Lately it has been getting a bit tedious, with all the caterwalling about faith based yammerings.

And that just makes me laugh harder!! ! Yep, you're stuck in the 50's and 60's alright. Especially that last part. It reminds me so much of the kinds of thing my grandfather would say. I think that's part of the reason it's easy for me to understand you because of so many similarities to speech patterns in the rural south. It was a very distinctive dialect, not even really that common where I grew up. My family was quite odd. But they were wonderful people to know. Ef you aint far'm, you agin'm! Idnit?

I've got it!

Imagine there is a thirty-eight-headed monster named Betty.

Now, imagine that someone says, "if you think that Betty has an ugly face, explain in one sentence what is ugly about Betty's face."

Well, then you point to one of the heads and explain why that one in particular is ugly.

The person who likes the monster Betty points to another head and says, "well, that's not true at all!" and then he points out various things about the other head that are not true of the other head. "See?" the believer says, "you have totally failed to prove that Betty has an ugly face."

And the real problem is that some of the heads are actually fairly pretty in a strange and alien sort of way. The problem is that the believer sees these heads of Betty when challenged on Betty's level of prettyness, but the ugliest heads of all come into play when the believer wants a justification for being a complete ass toward a largely disliked minority, such as the queers.

So the point is, there are so many different types and varieties of religion and so many different reasons one might believe in it.

Therefore, before I answer the question, "why don't you agree with my religious beliefs?" I think that the fair and just thing to do would be to define more specifically what those beliefs are and why one holds those beliefs.

Otherwise, you're asking the atheist a very stupid question.

Thats like saying "prove there is no Loch Ness Monster".

The burden of proof is on the asserters of the existence of God, and of the Loch Ness Monster, not on the deniers.

It has been stated several times in this thread very clearly that not only do people of faith not require proof of God, they abhor it as being antagonistic to religion. They should be judged on that attitude, not in lacking proof.

That's good, actually, since there are none.

The point is that the squabbling over which face of Betty's should be judged is all the more absurd when not a shred of evidence suggests BETTY.

I do not believe in Betty because there is no Betty to believe in.

This thread is so fail. I mean, 'Atheists: Prove It'. This totally gets a rabbinic facepalm
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I'm sure someone else has pointed out that the burden of proof lies on those making the claims in the bearded sky wizard, but I can't help but feel amazed this is still going. Ah, I love the PPR

It is the law of forums, the more posts a thread has, the more posts it will have.

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus."

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, 30 July, 1816

Uh, such as the irrational, speculative hope there is no "God"?!

Welcome to WP, and especially to this f-iendly little part of it we all know and love as PPR!

Last edited by leejosepho on 12 May 2011, 7:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.

The PPR is the best. Ever get in a debate in Random (before it gets moved here, at least)?

I do not recall from exactly where, but I do remember having to scoot my chair on over to here a time or two!

But no, I try to only be "Grandpa Joe" anywhere else here on WP.

Edit: An then, of course, that reminds me of part of Clancy I.'s A.A. story where some shrink had told him he (Clancy) had a "dual personality" ... and then Clancy told him, "Hell, if I only had two I might have 'made it' (recovery) on my own!"

If you never have anything else to do, you can hear Clancy here:

http://www.aaspeakers.org/Clancy_I-from ... Perception

I actually find it ironic that topics are moved here when they 'get too heated in debate' and frequently, once the PPR contributors get involved, it actually becomes intellectually credible as, while personal attacks do occur here (obviously), people here of all persuasions tend to enjoy pointing out logical fallacies. Some other subsections the entire content of many arguments consist entirely of logical fallacies, until they get moved here, at which point their argument seems to get torn to shreds from every corner- I suppose this is why plenty of people 'avoid the PPR like the plague'