|
Date: Tue, October 11, 2011 10:22 pm (answered 13 October 2011) Stumbled across this, thought you might be able to put it to use.
Big Book names:
Oh yes, thank you Ray. That is a treasure-trove of trivia. That's a keeper.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters268.html#Steve_S ]
Date: Wed, October 12, 2011 1:53 am (answered 13 September 2011) Re your message : http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters266.html#Steve_S Hi Orange
Hi again, Steve,
I only have to comment on a few of those lines:
1. So it was a fight over who got to own and chant to the oldest scroll? Incredible. No, we didn't fight for it. The priesthood effectively took the Dai Gohonzon hostage. They told SGI members that unless they left the SGI and destroyed their SGI Gohonzon that they would not have access to the Dai Gohonzon.
Still, there was an implication that one scroll was more magical than another.
That is not Buddhism. That is some kind of occult belief.
And that kind of magical thinking easily extends itself to having holy relics
like "pieces of the True Cross" and "dried Virgin Mother's milk"
and "The Shroud", and things like that.
One thing that I think we agree on is the fact that the magic is within you, not in inanimate objects.
2.) I can just see a Zen Buddhist master burning the scroll while asking, "What were you idiots thinking?" A Zen Buddhist master may well do something like that. Zen buddhism is not based on any of Shakyamuni's transmissions, but that's another argument. I don't think that chanting to a scroll is part of Buddha's teachings, either. 3.) I can't help but notice the parallels to what happened to Christianity. After existing for several hundred years, Christianity had turned into an organization that excommunicated people, had heresy trials, and burned girls at the stake as witches, and burned astronomers as heretics. Unfortunately, this is what happens when priests and egos get involved — which is why we don't have any! Good luck with that one. 4.) I can see some sense in the belief that to improve oneself is to improve the world. Still, I find chanting for the happiness of others a stretch, and perhaps a bit of ego: "I'm so good that I chant for the happiness of others." If I made you happy in some way, then you have to accept that gives me great pleasure. I desire no recognition — only that you consider what I have said. Some people enjoy the idea of having others dependant upon them. Again, this is incorrect thinking. 5.) My group leader thought I was nuts when I talked about getting enlightenment. Why do that when you can get the good stuff? That is truly misguided. Yes. 6.) Ah, but does chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo "activate your Buddha nature?" That is a huge assumption. It's a japanese translation of chinese, based on original sanskrit... I guess we could be chanting "rice krispies"... It is the intention behind and understanding of the full theoretical and essential meaning of the daimoku that allows it to have greater effect. Of course, the reason I previously said that I believe simply chanting it without knowing all this will still help, is because it is rare for people to come across the mantra without having it first explained to them even in the most simple terms. But yes, there is a faith element there (back to the tooth fairy argument) 7.) Alas, I remain skeptical. There was a lot more going on at the meetings that I attended. Like subtle pressure to conform and believe in their superstitions. They were constantly selling the practice: "Just try it. Just chant for 30 days, and if it doesn't work for you, we will all quit." They didn't quit when I did. I can understand your doubt — It would appear you were exposed to the most despicable slander of Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism. Well, that's what it was in the USA in 1971. 8.) Ah yes, that is the key question, isn't it? Does it actually work? And work to do what, exactly? Phrases like "activate your Buddha-nature" are so vague and high-falutin' that they could mean anything. It is the essential question! It works for me (and I'm the greatest of doubting Thomas's) and for millions of other people. It is the most comprehensive method for connecting on a fundamental level with humanity.
"It works"? What works? And what does it do?
You know that I am extremely skeptical about this one. My web site constantly gets letters
from A.A. members who insist that practicing an old pro-Nazi cult religion from the nineteen-thirties
and praying to the Big Dictator in the Sky "really works".
It's so easy for people to delude themselves, and see whatever they wish to see.
And of course
observational selection kicks in.
It works — it really does.
Whether chanting or praying "works" is entirely subjective.
And what it is supposed to do is undefined.
Phrases like "activate your Buddha-nature" only sound vague and high-falutin' when taken out of context, and without the necessary study to understand what they really imply. However, they are not euphemisms for the negative aspects of life — unlike other high-falutin' terms we hear every day. 9.) Sounds good. But will that glorious day ever come? Most of Buddha's teachings said "no". Buddha said that suffering would never end, and this world would never become Paradise. The original Buddha, Shakyamuni often describes this "saha" world in the Pre Lotus teachings. Saha meaning suffering, enduring etc... However, the Lotus Sutra, which the Buddha revealed towards the end of his life after delivering more than 40 years of provisional (or expedient) teachings, reveals that it is this very world that is also the realm of tranquil light in which the Buddha's (us) dwell. If you remember your meetings you may recall part of gongyo as reciting part of the Life Span chapter. It is this very passage where Shakyamuni establishes that in fact, it is this world, not some other ghostly realm, where we achieve Buddhahood, and thus turn into the Land of Tranquil Light. This is clearly documented in the Lotus, and covered by T'ien T'ai, Dengyo and later propagated by the Daishonin in Japan.
About "the realm of tranquil light":
At least, I don't expect this planet to become Heaven for at least 10 or 15 billion more years.
After that, all bets are off, because the Sun might super-nova.
Orange — You clearly have a seeking spirit, and you clearly feel great doubt and suspicion towards the SGI. All this is understandable given your experience. The people you encountered have destroyed your faith in Buddhism, and this is a most awful cause in their lives. I urge you to maintain a connection with the Lotus Sutra. If you want find out more, and have time to listen, try abuddhistpodcast.com — it's down to earth and gives you some idea of how the SGI really fosters happiness and potential in it's members.
The "Nichiren Shoshu" guys that I was involved with in Colorado
did not "destroy my faith in Buddhism".
I do not consider them to be Buddhists. They didn't practice anything like Buddhism. I couldn't even
get a straight answer to the simplest questions like,
"Where are Buddha's teachings? What about the 8-Fold Path?". Nothing.
It was all, "Just chant. Chant more. And more. Chant for what you want."
That isn't Buddhism. That is a strange cult
that just chants all of the time, and believes that they can make a scroll give them things if they
chant to it enough.
It's just like the crazy "Christian" cults that you find in
the USA who don't practice anything like Christianity. Here in Portland we have
the Followers of Christ Church people who
kill their children by refusing to take them to a doctor and get medical care when the kids are sick.
They only believe in faith healing. Every few years they kill another kid.
Those nutcases do not diminish the teachings of Jesus. They just show how crazy some people can be.
Have a great week — I have to go to work now!
You have a good day too.
== Orange
From: "John McC" For those of you being victimized by AA in New York state, here is an e-mail from someone REQUESTING COMPLAINTS to be sent to the NY Attorney General's office! She only wants 10-20, but I think a few more can be had then that. Download, complete the form, and "snail-mail" to NY AG! It will be worth the .44 cent stamp!
From: "John McC" Hi Orange, Can you please post the attached to the "OP-Forum" (I made reference to these "unedited" "Anti-Coercion, 12-Steps" in an earlier posting (now buried DEEP somewhere within it, since your forum has EXPLODED in postings, and members, etc!), and now have them to "post accordingly! Also, nauseating as it is-I would like to send you my copy of the AAWS produced "Hope" DVD (16:22-produced in 2009). I figured you could put it on either or both of the web-sites (with appropriate commentary of course! ;). I have shown the damn thing so many times in my DUI groups, its "skipping" now! (I am no longer going to show it, as I have a better DVD from Secular Organizations for Sobriety ("The Sobriety Priority") to show the clients. They already get enough 12-Step indoctrination by not having NON-local meetings to go to! Have a great day! John
Scan_112850002.jpg
 (Click on the image for a larger version.)
Hi John,
I'm not sure about posting pictures to the forum either. I have to figure that one out.
I don't know if I have to install a photo gallery or what.
In the mean time, I'll post it in the letters section.
Good article, by the way.
Yes, I'd like to see the DVD.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters268.html#Graham_B ]
Date: Tue, October 11, 2011 10:40 am (answered 14 October 2011) Very interesting, You would be welcome in AA. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. You don't have to pay anything, say anything, believe anything, do anything. In fact you can come to AA and disagree with everything there and you're still a member if you say so.
Hello again, Graham,
No, actually there are other requirements. You have to be gullible, and open to indoctrination,
and ready to accept A.A. as your new master. We just discussed the prerequisites in
a previous letter, here.
And here is what Bill Wilson had to say on the subject:
By the way,
there was no such thing as the "American Atheist Society" in existence at that time.
Bill Wilson was just making up lies again.
(Click on that link.)
I live in South Africa and have never been to a meeting other than here. Maybe one day the truth will out. I have never heard religion preached in any meeting I've been to.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just because you have not seen something does not
prove that it does not exist.
Besides, you have seen it. You are in denial.
Don't your meeting groups read the 12 Steps out loud at the
start of every meeting? Six of the 12 Steps talk about God. That is a cult religion.
It is
Dr. Frank Nathan Daniel Buchman's cult religion,
in fact.
Not even hard-core Christian churches start every church service by reading the 10 Commandments
out loud. But A.A. does — their 12 Commandments, that is.
A religious cult is definitely something I would not belong to. However I accept your right to judge me and all AA members. However, there is a God and it's not you, thank God. Cult members never say that they are in a cult. They do not recognize that they are in a cult. They just think that those other people are in cults. If they do realize that they are in a cult, it's over — their eyes have opened and the little light bulb went on in their heads, and they will soon quit the cult. You will go on your merry way crusading in the name of your religious cult and I will happily go on my way telling people about my sobriety. In all fairness to the sick people, also remember to tell them about all of the people whom A.A. did not help, or made worse. Or killed. Bill Wilson and Dr Bob are not AA. They were two alcoholics. AA is and has always been one alcoholic talking to another in order to reduce their feelings of being different in a world that has always left us feeling frightened and alone. Of course Saint Bill and Saint Bob are A.A. Whose pictures are on the wall in the meeting rooms? Whose words are read out loud at the start of every A.A. meeting? Whose books are read at meetings? You know, the "council-approved literature"? Whose insane rants and ravings are the official A.A. "program"?  (click on image for larger version)
Yes, Saint Bill and Saint Bob sure do get their pictures on the wall a lot.
There are more such pictures, and another discussion of how "Bill Wilson isn't worshipped with reverence", here. By the way, the claim that A.A. isn't really about Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob is another standard A.A. bait-and-switch trick:
Baloney. It's all really A.A. I have had fun corresponding with you and just as you have the right to continue your crusade, I have the right to laugh at myself because the more I can laugh at myself, the more I can find my worth. So laugh at yourself. Or pretend to. That still doesn't help alcoholics. I could say you're arrogant, self-righteous, self justifying etc. In fact you are. But never mind, you remind me of a TV evangelist. Whenever I need a comedy show, I watch them in action. You make me laugh, not angry or resentful. A TV evangelist? Do I tell you that you must believe what I say, and send me your money, or else God won't like you and you will go to Hell? Do I tell you to ignore the facts and just believe? You live in your shoes, I live in mine and surely if I tell you that I am happy, you should be happy for me instead of telling me why I can't be happy if I'm a member of AA. If you concentrate on the human beings like Bill, Bob, Buchman and so on, you will only find human failings. Well A.A. and 12-Step-promoting counselors say that A.A. works great, not that it is a catalogue of human failings. As always, I genuinely wish you well. I have no fight with you. You cannot insult me however hard you may try and I am free. I am not trying to insult you. I'm interested in telling the truth about A.A. so that desperate, sick, people know what their choices are.
Be well,
You have a good day too.
== Orange
Remember Harold Camping? The guy who said that the world was going to end earlier this year?
Well, he's at it again. Now he says that he has recalculated Doomsday, and it's next Friday,
October 21.
But this time he says that the end will come quietly. No big volcanic explosions or any of that
dramatic stuff.
The End might actually be so quiet and nonviolent that you don't even notice it happening.
Date: Fri, October 14, 2011 8:09 am (answered 18 October 2011) Now, this one was hard to write: Addiction, Heartbreaks and Nightmares http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-peter-ferentzy/addiction-heartbreaks-and_b_1010400.html
Peter Ferentzy, PhD
Hello again, Peter,
Thanks for your work. You sure are getting a lot of articles published fast.
That article is particularly touching. I've also seen alcoholics and addicts trying so hard
to do the right thing.
It's doubly and triply hard when you are sick and broke, but some try anyway.
That isn't what A.A. teaches. Bill Wilson just constantly
attacked what he called
"practicing alcoholics",
and raved about how bad they were, and selfish and stupid and willful.
(Doesn't "practicing alcoholic" sound just like "practicing homosexual"?)
See
The "Us Stupid Drunks" Conspiracy
for much more on that.
And have a good day.
== Orange
Date: Sat, October 15, 2011 4:57 am (answered 18 October 2011) Who are you and just what is your motive for writing such a critical and unsubstantiated paper regarding AA's beginning? I noticed two very distinct patterns in your writing, first, it is dripping with venom that appears to be more a personal prejudice rather than a reporting of facts. The second isn't really a pattern in your writing but rather a pattern established by scoffers and that is that you make no reference to who you are or by what authority your supposed expertise is derived from. While the facts may indeed be near to what you write, because of the two facts mentioned above your writing must be discounted as mere tripe intended to harm and discredit an organization that has in fact helped many thousands, possibly millions of otherwise hopelessly addicted people including myself, lead useful happy lives. (I am recovered for nearly 32 years without so much as one relapse). Les
Please check out the book I wrote.Click Here.
Hello Les,
Well, let's start with your word "unsubstantiated".
My "paper", as you call it, is supported
by numerous facts. Read the file on
The Effectiveness of the Twelve-Step Treatment.
There, I quote many doctors, and reference ALL of the valid randomized longitudinal controlled
studies and tests of A.A. that I have been able to find in the last 10 years.
And I think I found them all.
I even quote a Trustee of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.,
Prof. and Dr. George E. Vaillant,
who found that A.A. treatment did not work to improve the sobriety rate in alcoholics at all, and it
produced the highest death rate of any way of treating alcoholism.
So read that file, and then you can dispute my evidence, and my facts, if you care to.
The fact that you have been happy in a cult for many years is not evidence that the cult is a
good organization. That only proves that you like the cult.
Tom Cruise says lots of good things about Scientology, too.
And he says that Scientology is the only cure for alcoholism and drug addiction.
Should we believe him? Why not?
In addition, you are assuming that A.A. has done something good for the sober people. The real
evidence is that some people just finally get sick and tired of being so sick and tired, and
decide that they aren't going to die of alcohol poisoning, so they quit drinking and keep
themselves sober. (Like how I did.)
They sometimes also go to some A.A. meetings to see if A.A. has any help to
offer. Then A.A. steals the credit for their sobriety and claims that
A.A. "helped them". That is not evidence that A.A. has
"helped many thousands, possibly millions".
Please answer this one simple question that no A.A. member has ever answered honestly:
If you want to know about my own experiences and history, look here: How did you get to where you are? By the way, my tone of voice, whether "dripping with venom" or not, doesn't change the A.A. failure rate any. Have a good day now. == Orange
[The next letter from Les_A is here.]
Date: Sun, October 16, 2011 9:13 am (answered 18 October 2011) Agent Orange, First let me say I am a big fan of your articles and refer to them often when trying to reconcile the AA "company line" with the truth. I don't think you are always correct, I don't think the company line is always correct, but I believe the truth always lies somewhere in between. Secondly let me state I am in no way a member of a cult, I go to AA for the friendships I have there, to get a few (very few) opinions or views on the spiritual/religious lifestyle I am trying to live to the best of my abilities, and that sometimes, rarely, I am of some help to someone struggling to stay sober. I am self sponsored actually I follow the step guide of Clarence Snyder who as you surely know was the first "leader" to put the Big Book on the table beside the Good Book, and claims to have documented a 93% success rate in AA. I don't know that this is even possible but it gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside lol.I find the more I research the more that I despise Bill Wilson more and more, for me AA is exactly what Bob and Clarence meant for it to be a Christ based recovery group. I think my whole life of pleasing myself and all my whims has been an example of my self-will run riot, and I always tried to find a reason to get back to the religion of my youth and AA if nothing else gave me the nudge and excuse to do the un-macho act of doing just that. I have just read Bill's story in its original format and clearly agree that it would have been completely rewritten to be of any use in the Big Book and almost agree that he was incapable of writing his name on the bathroom wall..................wait for it .............................BUT how can the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, AA Comes of Age, and Bill's many articles to the Grapevine which led to As Bill Sees It all supposedly written by him be explained? I have looked everywhere I know to including your website and can't find any explanation how a bumbling idiot who could barely put a sentence together at the beginning of the Big Book project turned into such an enlightened example of literature later in life (the sarcasm was dripping off that last statement, I hope you caught it). I hope my sentence structure, wording and such are understandable, because I really don't want to have my e-mail dissected line by line in your response, nor do I want to debate my personal, very personal beliefs on recovery with you, even though I know there is no logical explanation to what I believe (sometimes an act of faith is just that, as insane as that probably seems to most who would read this) I just do. I also don't want to waste either of our time trying to move each other from either the right wing or left wing to a blissfully unrealistic center. I think in some areas we should probably just agree to disagree (even if you have more evidence to support your argument, I'll just take my ball and go home lol), and agree not to be disagreeable in the process. Anyway keep up the great work I always find something new and thought invoking when I read your articles and then spend days trying to prove or disprove what you wrote, and I really look forward to hearing from you thanks, Brian F.
Hello Brian,
Thanks for the letter. And I won't dissect your letter line by line.
Apparently you enjoy A.A. membership. So be it.
I won't even knock it. I'm just glad to see that you still have a working brain.
About the question of authorship: We know that Bill had a lot of help in writing his things.
The story is that Joe Worth helped to write or rewrite Bill's Story.
Susan Smith Windows, Dr. Bob's daughter, said in a sworn affidavit that everything that
Bill wrote had to be rewritten by other people:
We know that Henry Parkhurst was the unpaid co-author of the opening chapters of
The Big Book. Henry Parkhurst wrote the chapter To Employers, and also his own autobiographical story
The Unbeliever, and "Hank" also wrote the outline for the whole book.
There is no way to know how much else "Hank" Parkhurst rewrote or contributed to.
Bill Wilson cheated Henry
out of any share of the royalties or credit for that book, and
that's why Henry quit A.A. in disgust.
We know that
Tom Powers was the unpaid co-author
of Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.
Bill Wilson cheated Tom out of any share of the royalties on that book, and
that's why Tom quit A.A. in disgust.
There were also other unrecognized co-authors of 12X12 whose names are unknown.
I have no idea who was behind the writing of Bill's other stuff.
By the time those other books and articles got written, there was enough office staff at
A.A.W.S. and The Grapevine offices to do a lot of rewriting.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Mon, October 17, 2011 8:57 am (answered 19 October 2011) There's an old sea story about a ship's Captain who inspected his sailors, and afterward told the first mate that his men smelled bad.. The Captain suggested perhaps it would help if the sailors would change underwear occasionally. The first mate responded, "Aye, aye sir, I'll see to it immediately!" The first mate went straight to the sailors berth deck and announced, "The Captain thinks you guys smell bad and wants you to change your underwear." He continued, "Pittman, you change with Jones, McCarthy, you change with Witkowski, and Brown, you change with Schultz." Scroll down THE MORAL OF THE STORY: Someone may come along and promise "Change", but don't count on things smelling any better. I THINK YOU WILL FORWARD THIS !
Hello again, Ctmjon,
Thanks for the laugh. Oh yes. That one rates right up there with "Parts is parts", and
"treatment is treatment."
"Change is change." Oh yeh.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Well, here we are again. Anniversary day. Now it's 11 years without a drink. How time flies
when you are goofing off.
This "birthday" isn't
such a big milestone as the 10th one, but it is still evidence that a lot of us are making it without
needing to have a cult religion running our lives. That is, without a "support group"
or a "program".
Have you noticed that the number of Steppers who are predicting that I will relapse real soon now has diminished?
And interestingly, the 11th anniversary is "disaster day" for Alcoholics Anonymous.
The table of sobriety coins given out
shows a huge drop between 10 and 11 years. The percentage of A.A. newcomers
finally getting a 10-year coin was really bad at only a pathetic 1.17%,
but 11 years was even worse: only 0.76% got the 11-year coin.
That looks like a loss of one third of their old-timers between 10 and 11 years.
No A.A. supporter has ever explained that oddity.
One reader suggested that the number of people getting 10-year coins was really inflated by people picking
up multiple 10-year coins. Some A.A. members are so proud of themselves for making it for 10 years that they
drive all over town, going to one meeting after another, and picking up another coin so that
they can hear the crowd cheering for them again and again. That is probably true.
But somehow, 11 years doesn't seem to have the same glitter or pizzaz,
so they don't bother doing that again.
So at 11 years, we see a really appalling lack of success stories.
Hey, guess what? It looks like I just entered the ranks of the "One Percenters".
(Just kidding.)
Have a good day now.
P.S.: My 11-year anniversary off of cigarettes is still 3 weeks away, but I was thinking about how many
cigarettes I haven't smoked in the last 11 years, so I grabbed a calculator and did some simple multiplication.
There are 4017 days in 11 years (including 2 leap year days). And since I was smoking about a pack a day,
that yields 80,340 cigarettes smoked in 11 years.
Yikes! The thought of smoking 80,000 cigarettes is nauseating.
And yet, I smoked for over 30 years, so that is a lot more cigarettes than that. It's a wonder that
any of us ever survived that. The human body is amazingly tough when you come right down to it.
Have another good day.
Date: Mon, October 17, 2011 5:53 pm (answered 20 October 2011) Tell your theory to my two dead brothers. I'm alive, why? I wasn't too much of a pussy to take a good hard look at myself. I wonder how many people died by your bullshit Dr. K. M W.
Hello Kathy,
Thank you for the letter. Unfortunately, you left a lot unsaid.
I'm sorry to hear about the deaths of your brothers. You did not say what they died of, or how.
You just implied that they died because they would not "take a
hard look at themselves" like you say you did.
"Taking a hard look at yourself" does not require joining a cult religion or foisting ineffective
quack medicine on sick people, and lying to them about how well it works.
In fact, being rigorously honest with yourself works far better if you don't join a cult religion.
Then you don't have to tell lies in defense of the cult.
I have always said that about half of the alcoholics get a grip and quit drinking and save their
own lives, and the other half don't. That is just how it is, and no "treatment" or "program"
changes that.
You have presented no evidence or facts to support your allegation that my statements about
Alcoholics Anonymous are "bullshit". Do you have any facts to contradict mine? Or do you just have a resentment?
How many people have died because of the Alcoholics Anonymous bullshit and misinformation
and fallacies about alcohol abuse and recovery? Dr. George E. Vaillant,
who went on to become a Trustee of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., reported that
A.A. caused a higher death
rate than any other way of treating alcoholism. What about that?
By the way, the accusation that telling the truth about Alcoholics Anonymous causes alcoholics to
die is a very old dodge that A.A. is forever using. I have
a list of such accusations here.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Mon, October 17, 2011 9:11 pm (answered 20 October 2011) I feel sorry for you that you have so much anger toward a program that works beautifully for so many (those willing to truly look at themselves, which is something I am assuming you would not do- too scared of what you might see).. My only question for you is, were you drinking the entire time you were writing this article? Only an angry alcoholic would spend the absurd amount of time I am certain it took to compile all of your 'evidence' that AA is a cult. I love how the majority of your quotes from AA literature and the like were taken completely out of context. I hope you hit your bottom soon and become willing to do something about your alcoholism.
Hello Amy,
Thanks for the letter. Alas, Alcoholics Anonymous does not "work beautifully for so many".
A.A. has a sky-high failure rate, and an appalling death rate.
A.A. just
raises the rate of binge drinking in alcoholics, and
raises the cost of hospitalizing alcoholics,
and
raises the death rate in alcoholics.
A.A. pretends to be a solution to the problem of alcohol abuse, but it isn't.
Doing the 12 Steps and confessing all of your sins is not a cure for alcohol addiction.
I was not drinking while I wrote any of the Orange Papers. In fact, coincidentally, today is my eleventh
"birthday" off of alcohol. Yes, 11 years of sobriety, as of today. And I did it without any
cult religion or doing
the 12 Steps to Buchmanism,
or worshipping Bill Wilson, or participating in a cult religion.
Once again, we have another A.A. true believer claiming that someone must be "angry" to tell the
truth about Alcoholics Anonymous. That is just such a common hackneyed old line that A.A.
members are forever using to dodge the important issues.
See the list of such accusations here.
You have not addressed any of the big problems with Alcoholics Anonymous, you just claim that I must be angry
and drunk to criticize A.A. That isn't much of a defense of A.A.
You claim that my quotes from Alcoholics Anonymous Council-approved
literature were "taken out of context".
Please show me even one quote that is taken out of context.
You do know what it means to
"take something out of context",
don't you?
It means that you deceptively change the meaning of the words by misquoting them, by only partially quoting them.
I don't do that. Again, please show me any quote where I changed the meaning of the words
by taking something out of context.
I don't do that.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Mon, October 17, 2011 9:13 pm (answered 20 October 2011) Who are you? Why are you so angry? Why waste so much time attacking anything. I could literally feel the hate in you. Is there anything better you could do like spread love. become conscious. This material I read brought me back to high school days. Meaningless and sad. I hope you find what you're looking for. you may want to start by looking inward rather than outreach.
a cry for help? Who are you?
Hello Zanon,
Thanks for the letter. When it rains, it pours. Yours is the second letter in a row to come
from an A.A. true believer who accuses me of being angry and having a resentment.
(Look here.)
It does not matter whether I am angry or have a resentment. That does not change the horrible
Alcoholics Anonymous failure rate. Nor does it make any of the A.A. lies and misinformation come true.
I am telling the truth about A.A., and alcoholism, and recovery, because somebody has to tell the
truth to the sick people who need to hear the truth about what might help them.
I am spreading love and consciousness. By telling the truth.
If you think I'm not telling the truth, then please answer this one simple question that no A.A.
member has ever answered honestly:
For information about who I am, look here: How did you get to where you are? Have a good day now. == Orange
Last updated 22 September 2013. |
