AA Is a Religion: Atheists Kicked Out

The core mission of Alcoholics Anonymous is to help addicts stay sober, right?

Wrong. Atheist alcoholics aren't welcome. Even agnostics are personae non gratae.

Everyone knows that the core twelve-step program of AA rests on a belief in a higher power. Its core tenets came from the evangelical religious beliefs of founders Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith and were based on Biblical principles.

But in spite of this Christian foundation, I always thought that AA was supposed to be nondenominational. I thought AA put the welfare of its members above proselytizing. Even though its founders were Christian, AA's "higher power" is very generic, something that could appeal to Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, Jains and even Native American spiritual beliefs. AA tries to help everyone ... except atheists.

On Tuesday of last week, Toronto's two atheists AA groups were

Is Christianity Dying? Interesting New Data...

Is Christianity dying?  Are all religions losing adherents?  Here is something new I'd never considered before.

As a percentage of the whole population, the Christian population is losing, but the trend is slow.  The last time I wrote about this, Christians looking at the data could argue that the loss wasn't very important.  So what if Christianity is down a few percent?  A little proselytizing, a few revival meetings, and they'd be right back on top.

But it turns out it's much worse for the Christians than they thought.

Beware of Oprah!

Wow, it seems Oprah is dangerous to true Christians! She's one of those sneaky types who uses Christian terminology and ideas, and makes seductive claims that lure innocent Christians into paganism! Pantheism!

Worse, Oprah teaches a "hodgepodge of personalized faith," emphasizing the spirit within us all, urging us to listen to our conscience. And (*gasp*) there are many paths to God, not just the Christian path!

Can you imagine? What's Oprah thinking? We all know that thinking for ourselves leads to sin. And the Christians' God is the only god who has this Absolute Truth.

This would be funny if it were from the 1950s, but sadly, it was from a lecture given to 1,500 people at McLean Bible Church near Washington, D.C. last week. Christian apologists Josh McDowell and Dave Sterrett gave a lecture blasting Oprah's teachings, and "correcting" any incorrect theology she might have taught her listeners.

To an outsider, one of the most fascinating things about various religions is how you have to do things exactly their way, or you're out, going to Hell, damned forever. The sheer arrogance is stunning, and would be funny, except that these people aren't kidding, and they're not a minority.

I admire Oprah's philosophy even though I'm not a religious person. Many of my close friends and family share her views on spirituality and religion, and strange though it might sound, I think Oprah's view is very close to what atheists, agnostics and deists think, too. We all need to look inside to find the truth, to find our moral/ethical core, and to do what we know is right. Some look to a core essence that's larger than their physical existence, and some don't, but we all know that morality comes from within.

The arrogance, the sheer hubris, of these ultra-religious people, is offensive on the face of it. They are hugely and glaringly wrong, yet not only can they not see it, but they don't even know how foolish their claims look to most people. The idea that their particular brand of religion, among all the many thousands that people have invented around the world and down through the ages, is the only correct one, is so silly. How can they take themselves seriously?

Religion: Can't Stand the Heat?

A couple years ago some good friends were visiting, and in the middle of a conversation about health, the wife injected her religious beliefs about medical procedures into the conversation ... and the conversation stopped. Nobody knew what to say. As a scientific-type guy, I knew her assertion was simply wrong, and had been proved wrong by scientific experiments. But as a polite host, I couldn't exactly say, "No, your religion is mistaken about that, your beliefs are false."

When religion comes up in social situations, it's as though you're in a boxing ring, and just before the first round, the ref tells you, "Oh, by the way, you can't hit your opponent, you might hurt him!" And just as you are replying that a good honest boxing match is pretty much why you're here, the bell rings and the fight starts...

That's the position many agnostics and atheists face any time they try to have an open, fair and honest debate with theists. For some reason, it's considered a huge faux pas to challenge them outright, to tell someone that you believe their religion is simply wrong. It's like being in a boxing match where you're prohibited from landing a punch.

Why is this? Why is it OK to tell someone their political beliefs are misguided, or that their sports team is a bunch of losers, or that your town is better than their town, but you're not allowed to say anything bad about their religion?

Most of our beliefs are fair game for a good argument. Intelligent people like to debate, and among friends it's not considered bad manners to challenge one another, even sometimes vigorously. It's part of what makes modern democracies work so well, and of what makes life interesting.

But not religions. They're off limits. You'd have no problem telling a good friend, "Your Republican President started a cruel war," or, "Your Democratic President was immoral!" But tell a Christian, "Your God started a cruel war," or "You Catholics have immoral priests," and suddenly you are the pariah. Not God, or the Catholic priests, but you.

It's really an unfortunate and inappropriate "get out of jail free" card for religions. Legally, they can hide behind "separation of church and state." (See my recent blogs about scientology and Catholic priests.) Financially, they're non-profit corporations, but they're trying to change the law that bans non-profits from politics. And socially, they have this "special protection" that holds them to a different standard of criticism than any other topic.

We shouldn't fall for this. Your religious beliefs and mine should be just as valid a topic for dinnertime debate as the next election or the Superbowl.

Anti-Atheist Bias at the Supreme Court

Could a US Supreme Court Justice actually believe that religious people have more rights than non-religious people? In an interview with Harmodia ("The Daily Newspaper of Torah Jewry"),
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia virtually confesses to bias against non-religious people.

Justice Scalia, who is sworn to uphold our Constitution, writes:

My court has a series of opinions that say that the Constitution requires neutrality on the part of the government, not just between denominations, not just between Protestants, Jews and Catholics, but neutrality between religion and non-religion. I do not believe that. That is not the American tradition.

Huh? Did I get that right? It seems like he's saying atheists and agnostics don't have the same rights as religious people. The Constitution "requires neutrality," but "I do not believe that." No matter how many times I read this quote, I can't find any other interpretation.

This is shameful. I can find no other words for it. At the start of the interview, Justice Scalia purports to be neutral, claiming that, "my religious views do not affect my opinions at all." But this falls flat once you read the rest of the interview.

The interview ends with these chilling words:

"G-d protects," [Charles de Gaulle] said, "little children, drunkards and the United States of America." I think it may be true. And the reason may be because we honor Him as a nation. We invoke Him in our country, our Presidents invoke Him, my court open its sessions with "G-d save the United States." Those things are not insignificant.

In other words a Supreme Court Justice of the United States actually believes that God personally intervenes, and monkeys with the laws of physics, in order to change the course of history itself, to favor the United States above all other nations on this Earth, because a few dozen men and women happen to invoke his name each day.

Of course, those millions of Muslims in the Middle East who invoke God's name much more fervently, five times per day, certainly don't deserve God's attention. They're not Christians like Justice Scalia, are they?

This is such egotistical arrogance it would be funny, if not for the fact that people like Justice Scalia run our country. This is the stuff that wars and genocide are made of. This is how, for example, the American People get infuriated when 3,000 citizens were murdered by terrorists on 9/11, but have no trouble with the fact that 150,000 Iraqi civilians were killed by American bombs.

It's sad that a man can hold such un-American, unconstitutional views, and still become a United States Supreme Court justice.