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Date: Fri, February 10, 2012 11:45 am (answered 21 February 2012) Hi Terrance, I just read this paper by the World Health Organization in Europe which states that both 12 Step facilitation and Alcoholics Anonymous are ineffective! I've extracted the relevant parts and added it as a pdf. The link to the original paper is: http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/43319/E92823.pdf
Regards,
*Attachments:*
Hello again, iamnotastatistic,
Thanks for the information.
I found these lines interesting:
109. Miller WR, Wilbourne PD, Hetema JE. What works? A summary of
alcohol treatment outcome research. In: Hester RK, Miller WR, eds.
Handbook of alcoholism treatment approaches: effective alternatives,
3rd ed. Boston, MA, Allyn and Bacon, 2003:13 — 63.
132. Babor TF, Del Boca F K, eds. Treatment matching in alcoholism.
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003.
133. Ferri M, Amato L, Davoli M. Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-
steps programmes for alcohol dependence. Cochrane Database of
Systematic Reviews, 2006, (3):CD005032.
The most successful treatment is "Brief Intervention".
Notice how "Twelve-step facilitation" is so far down the list
that you have to look for it. It's number 37 out of 48.
And A.A. is just below that.
Also notice how 12-Step treatment has a negative success rating
— the "Cumulative Evidence Score" is a minus 82, while
the best treatments are rated positive 390 and 189.
"Brief Intervention" consists of a real doctor talking to the
patient for usually less than one hour, questioning him about all of the
ugly details of his drinking and telling him that he will die if he doesn't
quit drinking. One time.
That's it. No long counseling sessions, no great guidance, no on-going
advice, no shoulder to cry on. And no 28-day treatment program.
Just one "Dutch Uncle" session and it's over.
And that's the most effective thing going.
That kind of puts the whole expensive "drug-and-alcohol treatment
industry" to shame, doesn't it?
Spiritual direction in addiction treatment: Two clinical trials,
Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, Volume 35, Issue 4, Pages 434-442.
W. Miller, A. Forcehimes, M. O'Leary, M. LaNoue
Of course, the 12-Step proselytizers ignore all such evidence and continue to chant,
"A.A. is the best way. A.A. is the only way. Work the Steps or Die!"
And that is why it's a cult, not a cure.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Sat, February 11, 2012 10:01 pm (answered 22 February 2012) Dear Orange- I've been sober 6 years via A.A. but have many reservations about if, how and why it works. Although I am completely agnostic in spiritual matters, I seem to cling to this fear that if I leave A.A. I will drink one day. Now, this fear isn't totally irrational given my track record. I have been in and out of A.A. for years before finally sticking to it and staying sober. There seemed to be a direct correlation between attending meetings and staying sober. Believe me, I never wanted to go to meetings (and still don't) but I am convinced they help. I first got sober for five years through A.A. I stopped going to meetings and within 9 months I drank. Then I stayed sober a year while going to A.A. I stopped going to meetings and was drunk within 6 months. And a third time I stayed sober a year through meetings, stopped again and was drunk within 3 months. I consider myself a reasonable guy. I believe in modern science. But his correlation from my own real world testing has convinced me to keep going to meetings. I sometimes even strike it up to superstition. I am not above admitting this. I am part of a home group that has seen and experienced the low success rate. It seems over the past 6 years only about 20 — 30% of us are still sober. I am not refuting your 5% rate but am simply providing my observation from one meeting that averages about 40 in size in the past year. I don't believe in a higher power but I do believe the companionship and sharing with like-minded people suffering from the same issue is helpful and has played a major role in my recovery. Of course I happened to find a group of cynical, sarcastic and profane alcoholics like myself who like to poke fun at the "put the plug in the jug" true believers. One other interesting facet is that I also suffer form bipolar disorder II. So I do take meds and my sponsor has told me go for it and he's on anti-depressants anyway. I think alcoholism and BPD are natural companions (the booze quieting the screaming madness if you will). But the AA pals I hang with are also manic-depressive, neurotic and "deep" (depraved). So I think the AA group I hang with helps address both of my disorders in one fell swoop. So, at the end of the day, it might be the placebo effect but I think in my unique situation I have found a formula that is truly therapeutic. For the first time in my life I actually enjoy the meetings too (okay, mostly the fellowship afterwards). My overall point is that I don't disagree with the facts you have presented (how could one). Yet there are also some of us that may have benefited from the program. I am not sure if I would stay sober without it. There is something to that feeling of anticipation that heals as well. Something to look forward to. (Or as my sponsor says the "shit, i can't relapse I gotta make the coffee on Tuesday). Just some random thoughts from a cynical bastard who thinks A.A. works if you find the right mix — which is NOT easy. Mike
Hello Mike,
Thanks for the letter, and congratulations on your years of sobriety.
I also think you sound like a reasonable guy. You seem
to be happy with your support group, so enjoy. Have a good time. That's okay.
Especially when you aren't drinking the koolaid. You don't have to leave.
In fact, you sound like a good candidate for membership in
the Newcomer Rescue League.
About your fear of leaving: That is normal. A.A. induces a lot of fears and phobias, all intended
to make people stay in the group and obey the commandments ("Work the Steps"), and
believe what they are saying. Of course they want you to believe that you are sober because of
A.A. (rather than by your own efforts and self-reliance and determination), and that you will die if you leave A.A.
That is just standard cult practice. Here are the Cult Test items for that:
By the way, the fact that you relapsed when you quit going to A.A. meetings is
probably not a coincidence. You probably quit going to A.A. meetings at about
the same time as your resolve to stay sober wavered. Quite possibly, you started
to feel depressed and you thought that the whole routine wasn't worth the bother
any more, and you just wanted to feel good and have some fun, so you quit going
to A.A. meetings and started drinking again at about the same time, for the same
reason. Thus both the relapse and quitting A.A. were caused by a common underlying
reason. It wasn't a matter of not going to A.A. meetings causes people to drink.
(And my evidence for that is that I now have 11 years sober, and haven't been to an
A.A. meeting in 10 years.)
By the way, giving the credit to A.A. sounds like the logical fallacy of
False Attribution, and also
Confusion of Correlation and Causation
— giving the credit for a good thing to something that actually had little
or nothing to do with it. Like A.A. promoters are quite happy to talk about how
A.A. members are much healthier and more clear-headed now that they aren't drinking,
and they can keep a job now and they have money in their pockets, and they don't
get arrested as often, and on and on, and then they conclude that A.A. has really
benefited the members immensely. Actually, no. Quitting drinking alcohol caused
all of those good things, not A.A. The A.A. meetings and theology didn't do any
of it.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Sun, February 12, 2012 5:55 am Yeah, I know. Shocking ain't it.
Gee, haven't I heard something like that before? Somewhere...?
Oh well, have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Tue, February 28, 2012 8:17 pm (answered 5 March 2012) Even funnier is the discussion. http://neighbors.denverpost.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=19938423&p=2368048#p2368048 Ah, thanks for the link.
Date: Sun, February 12, 2012 9:47 am (answered 22 February 2012) I just stumbled across your "Orange Papers." Wow. What has made you so angry and bitter at AA? And at the idea of God, for that matter? I've been a member of AA for 29 years, and I can assure you it is not a cult. No one lured me to AA, I went (and stayed) of my own choosing. I still have contact with my family and am a productive member of society. I don't live in a commune, sleep with the leader (or as a leader, sleep with new members), break the law in the name of AA, or give all my money to it. People in AA do not control me — some misguided members may try, but they soon find out it doesn't work. In fact, it is because of AA that I have better relationships with my family members, am a law-abiding citizen, can hold down a good job and am responsible and accountable for my actions. I'd be willing to have a reasonable discourse with you at any time on this subject. Jackie
Hello Jackie,
Thanks for the letter, and I'd also be happy to have a reasonable discord, any time.
You are suffering from one big misimpression: I am not angry at God. I have no quarrel with God.
I know full well that God and Alcoholics Anonymous have very little to do with each other.
God did not have a hand in writing the crazy theology of Alcoholics Anonymous,
Dr. Frank Nathan Daniel Buchman did.
Now then, let's start our reasonable discourse with the single most important fact:
What is the actual A.A. cure rate?
By the way, it's very fortunate for you that you found a good group. Have you never attended any meetings of Clancy I.'s Pacific Group, or any of its clones? — Midtown Group, Road to Recovery, Foxhall Group, etc.? Have a good day now. == Orange
[The next letter from Jackie_P is here.]
Date: Mon, February 13, 2012 12:16 am (answered 23 February 2012) I enjoyed the information but .... will be guarded in sharing it .... cause I dont know to what degree it may be contaminated ........
Hello Virgorich,
I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed the information. But "contaminated"? I go out of my way to
make sure that every stated fact is correct. I mean really. And I try to have every fact supported by
good documentation. Check out
the bibliography.
Now I agree that I am not a neutral, disinterested, observer. I feel a lot of contempt for the criminals and con
artists who sell cult religion quackery to sick people and lie to them about how well it works.
Those sick people are my friends and acquaintances, and I care. But I don't allow my emotions to get the best of
me. I won't falsify data or fabricate lies to support my position, the way that the 12-Step racket does.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[The next letter from Virgorich is here.]
Date: Mon, February 13, 2012 8:14 am (answered 23 February 2012) An Honest and Ethical Approach to Debt Freedom Kindest Regards, Matt D. Financial Consultant
Hello Matt,
I criticize A.A. because it has not "saved thousands of lives". A.A. is a fraud that just lies about
its success rate in sobering up alcoholics. A.A.'s claims of having saved thousands or saved millions are bogus
and completely untrue. We have discussed this so many times before that I'll just
point you to a few of the discussions:
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Mon, February 13, 2012 10:28 pm (answered 24 February 2012) http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-intro.html Dear A. Orange,
I have some real problems about your cynical treatise on AA in the
introduction page.
I did my 12 step work in the Boston, Massachusetts area. The meetings were
no nonsense, no bullshit noise pollution. People at Big Book step study meetings are not allowed to talk unless they had completed at least the 5th step. The steps are done according to the way they are laid out in the big book. If people do not recover it is not because of AA. It says clearly in the big book MOST CHRONIC ALCOHOLICS ARE DOOMED. That is telling the truth. In large part it is because people will not get honest with themselves. The book recounts an experience of Dr. Carl Jung who told a patient he was an alcoholic of the hopeless variety. But Dr. Jung also told him that once in a while alcoholics of the hopeless variety have a "religious" experience that leads them to recovery. Bill Wilson even solicited money from the Rockefeller Foundation. After thinking about it, Rockefeller turned him down because he thought money would corrupt the good that AA was doing. Just like anything else, you get out of AA what you put in to it. *** MOST IMPORTANT *** AA is not a place you GO but a thing you DO. It works, it really does. It gave me peace and solace. I finally got humble enough to do the 12 steps as they're laid out in the Big Book after an incident where I was charged by the police for trying to take out revenge on someone (nonviolently but with telecommunications). It had been 8 years since I had taken a drink. But I was still suffering from mental delusion. The 12 steps expelled that delusion from me. I speak in prisons to men trying to find an answer. They always appreciate it. That's the giving it away part. Write back if you want. I hope you found peace and solace in whatever way you chose to get sober. The 12 steps is not the only way. But it has been the right path for a lot of people.
Best Regards,
Hello Dave,
Thank you for the letter.
Well, you really drank the koolaid, didn't you?
All of these statements are blatantly untrue:
That is only true if they were insane before they started drinking, or if they suffered from major brain
damage from drugs and alcohol. There is no mental illness that is cured by the A.A. religion.
Practicing Frank Buchman's old cult religion does not save people's souls. Sorry.
A.A. is most assuredly a cult. A.A. is obviously, screamingly, blatantly a cult.
Read the Cult Test, both the questions and the answers:
The Cult Test, and Alcoholics Anonymous as a Cult
Get real. That is more evidence that A.A. is a crazy cult, just like your claim that A.A. saved your soul.
The Big Book is
the evil teachings of Dr. Frank Nathan Daniel Buchman,
as regurgitated by
a mentally-ill man with delusions of grandeur and a narcissistic personality disorder.
If any "higher power" inspired the Big Book, it was Satan, not God.
See the file
The Heresy of the Twelve Steps for more about that.
Wrong. A.A. has a huge resemblance, like the charismatic cult leader Bill Wilson
selling Dr. Frank Buchman's cult religion as a cure for alcohol abuse, and deceiving millions of people.
Just yesterday, there was
a discussion
of someone wanting to make "Stepping Stones" — Bill Wilson's house
in Bedford Hills — into a national historic site.
I had to comment:
And I could have continued with, both men founded cults that pretended to have a cure for a medical problem,
and both caused people to waste a lot of time and money on quackery, and both men were heartless monsters who
gleefully decieved and exploited sick people.
You are once again broadcasting the standard A.A. stereotype of "the alcoholic":
According to Alcoholics Anonymous, alcoholics are all "selfish and sinful and dishonest
and in denial and manipulative and childish and on and on and on..."
Nope. Alcoholics are not all carbon copies of William Griffith Wilson.
See this file for much more on that:
The "Us Stupid Drunks" Conspiracy
You do not know whether people would be dead if they didn't do the practices of a cult religion.
Now I agree that many people would be dead if they had not quit drinking (including me), but there
is zero evidence that participation in a cult religion saves people's lives. In fact,
the evidence is that cult religion makes them die more, and commit suicide more too.
And binge drink more, and get rearrested more, and get more expensive hospitalization.
Look here:
Results of doctors' clinical tests of A.A..
Lastly, people who leave A.A. have not "turned their backs on God".
The arrogance of Alcoholics Anonymous, to equate A.A. and God, is just collosal.
So much for the much-bragged-about A.A. "humility".
Well the Big Book is wrong. Approximately 50% of all drug addicts and alcoholics quit their self-destructive habits,
and the vast majority of those successful people do it without joining A.A. or any other cult religion.
They just quit. Look here:
Then the put-down that people will not get honest with themselves is just more cultish denigration of
people and instilling guilt, doubts, and powerlessness. And of course you are also pushing the cult teaching
that "The Program is perfect, it's just the people who are imperfect." And, "The Program doesn't fail
people; people fail the Program."
That entire story is probably apocryphal. There is no documentation or reliable
evidence to support the fable.
Dr. Carl Jung was not in the habit of scaring his patients with
death threats. That wasn't his style. It was Bill's doctor, Dr. William D. Silkworth,
who did that. We just discussed that before, just recently, here:
Wrong. Again, that is just Bill Wilson rewriting history.
Rockefeller did put money into it. He supported both Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob
with stipends ("outside contributions"), and he contributed his employees for the original Alcoholic Foundation
Board of Trustees. The one thing that Rockefeller did not do was trust Bill Wilson
with a large sum of money. For good reason. When Charlie Towns trusted Bill Wilson
with a lot of money to publish the Big Book,
Bill Wilson stole the money.
All that you are doing is demanding that people do the practices of
an old pro-Nazi cult religion from the nineteen-thirties.
The fact that you enjoy the cult religion routine does not mean that it works to
save the lives of alcoholics. In fact, A.A. is a total
failure that just raises the death rate. Even A.A. Trustee Dr. George E. Vaillant said so.
We have discussed this many, many times before, so I'll just point you to the discussions:
That is just an escape. Blame the alcoholic if he doesn't quit drinking by practicing an old cult religion.
Don't blame the cult religion. Never admit that the cult religion routine doesn't work to save alcoholics' lives.
Actually, the numbers of people who have recovered because of doing the A.A. practices is vanishingly small.
The claim that A.A. has saved or "helped" or sobered up thousands or millions of alcoholics is a lie and
a fraud, pure and simple. Look here:
Now you did make a few true statements, but even they need some explanation:
Only properly-indoctrinated cadre are allowed to speak, so that the brainwashing is not impeded.
The 12 Steps are still just Bill Wilson's rewrite of Dr. Frank Buchman's old Oxford Group cult practices.
Look here:
I'm sorry to hear about your mental illness. You do realize, don't you, that A.A. is not qualified to
practice medicine and treat mental illnesses? That would be a felony, practicing medicine without a license.
A.A. members are not licensed doctors or psychiatrists.
So, did A.A. members treat your mental illness?
(Please give names and dates and places so that I can forward the information to your district attorney.)
True, but that is hiding the other arms of the Alcoholics Anonymous octopus.
They only ask for a few bucks in the basket at the A.A. meetings,
but down the street is a 12-Step treatment center that is staffed by A.A. members, and they demand
$10,000 or $20,000 or $30,000, or even $40,000 for 28 days of indoctrination in Frank Buchman's religion.
And of course they teach that A.A. is the only way.
Then they give you a "free" Big Book, and send you to A.A. meetings.
(That is a pretty expensive "free" book.)
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters289.html#Andrew_S ]
Date: Tue, February 14, 2012 12:11 am (answered 24 February 2012) I stated: "Any rational, objective survey of AA is going to find a little bad, a little good and a lot of mediocrity because that is the reality of social institutions. That's why AA can continue; if it were obviously evil and drove masses of people to suicide immediately, it couldn't survive that long. Rather, it subtly influences people and causes real harm here and there, willy-nilly, to relatively small percentages of people." You replied:
"You are doing it again, right now. The argument "a little bad, a little good" is another attempt at Escape via Antirationalism, and Escape via Relativism. In the above exchange, you misunderstood me. I wasn't exaggerating your claims or defending AA. I was demonstrating that an objective view of AA would include a great deal of mediocre results, some poor results and some good results. Thus, an unscrupulous debater could cherry pick good results from the survey as a whole to characterize the overall survey as a defense of AA (as you have with me). This would be similar to someone picking out the very few things that you admit are good about AA and characterizing you as an AA defender. You're not an AA defender — you're openly hostile to AA — but you are objective enough to give "the devil its due".
Hello again, Andrew,
Every time I find a flaw in your logic, you claim that I "misunderstood you".
I still stand by my statement that trying to use the argument of "some bad, some good" is an
attempt at
Escape via Relativism.
And it's also Confusion of Correlation and Causation.
The fact that you can find some sober people at an A.A.
meeting does not prove that A.A. has done anything good.
Of course you will find some sober, recovered alcoholics in any
randomly-selected group of alcoholics. But that is not evidence that A.A. did anything good
for them. A.A. tries to claim that credit for all instances of spontaneous remission (while never claiming
any of the blame for the sick people).
I would characterize a small percentage as an order of magnitude smaller than the primary statistic at hand. If the natural remission rate of alcoholism is 50%, then a program that increased or decreased that by less than five percent would have a "small" effect. That doesn't make a lot of sense. An order of magnitude smaller than the "primary statistic at hand"? What are you talking about? And if your debating style distorts information and uses logical fallacies, then that effects how I interpret your message and the credibility of that message. Truth and lies exist on a continuum; if you feel morally justified to twist the truth, exaggerate, drag in the Nazi party every time you have an emphatic point to make, distort the arguments of people who disagree with you and demonize a vast heterogenous group of people, then why wouldn't you feel morally justified to lie?
I don't use logical fallacies. Nor do I distort or twist the truth.
And I'm not demonizing you. I just notice that your thinking is confused and relies on
a lot of logical fallacies, like imagining that A.A. is okay because people need
"a compelling origin myth" and "the expense of providing comprehensive
health care for everyone is greater than the cost of AA meetings" —
as if A.A. meetings provided health care, which they don't.
The references to the Nazis are quite justified when somebody, like the 12-Step
cult religion for example, is selling a philosophy that is derived from an old
pro-Nazi religious group that was founded by
a guy who went to Nuremberg
Nazi Party rallies and Sieg-Heiled Adolf Hitler.
If I were just gratuitously mentioning the Nazis, that would be an obnoxious
propaganda trick. But there is nothing gratuitous about the involvement of the
Nazis in Alcoholics Anonymous history and philosophy. Bill Wilson even wrote:
So, because you goofed before, and made some mistakes, you must now choose slavery,
and let your sponsor and the other old-timers do your thinking for you
and tell you what to think and what to do. You don't even the the right to decide what
you will think.
Then Bill Wilson wrote:
Just follow the orders of your superior. That is the Nazi philosophy.
I stated: I believe that contemporary science has very few meaningful things to say on how to solve sickness of the soul and spirit. It wouldn't surprise me if everything we believed about addiction was contradicted in two or three generations. That is not an appeal to irrationality ? that is a pragmatic view of contemporary science. You replied:
"Sickness of the soul and spirit"? Don't you mean mental illness, like depression or bipolar disorder, or Narcissitic Personality Disorder? And brain damage from ethanol poisoning and malnutrition? Or are you making another appeal to irrationality, and trying to claim that spirits get sick? Are there spiritual bacteria and viruses? Evil spirits that overwhelm and take possession of good spirits? How do spirits get sick? When and where has "spiritual sickness" ever been established, besides in the Oxford Group and in Bill Wilson's demented mind? Again, you are looking for a straw man to beat. When science cannot answer questions, we must use imprecise words. Was it illogical to use the word "element" before the invention of chemistry? No. Alchemy was a necessary predecessor of chemistry. We must use the words "soul" and "spirit" until there is a more precise word based on empirical facts. It would be foolish to deny that the soul and spirit exist; as foolish as denying the existence of matter before the science of a chemistry.
That is another irrational argument. You are trying to posit the existence of "spiritual medicine"
with no evidence except a straw man argument. Yes, your own counter-argument is a
straw man argument,
propping up primitive alchemy as a straw man to beat up.
And you suggest that because the medieval alchemists didn't know a lot about chemistry, that modern
doctors do not know much either. (That is exactly the same argument as an A.A. booster used
in an irrational promotion of A.A. back in the year 2000,
here.)
You are trying to imply that someday in the future, when we learn more, we will discover the world of
the spirits, and spiritual sickness. Baloney. We've already done that one for the last four or five thousand
years, at least. Shamen were shaking rattles in the faces of sick people, trying to expel evil spirits,
for at least five thousand years before Sir Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin.
Now the rattle-shaking routine is out of fashion, simply because it does not work, and antibiotics do work.
You have a reductionist view of the human body and mind. From the interior, from introspection, we feel our souls and our spirits. Indubitably, they are part of our minds and emotions; we give them special vernacular names, though, because they are so important. It is what makes great art inspiring. Its what gives religion and spiritual exercise its pull on the human heart. Love itself is a product of the spirit and soul. Our dreams and aspirations come from our souls and spirits.
There is not a single solid fact in that paragraph. You are giving me an
airy-fairy argument and trying to imply that it has something to do with medicine
— specifically, that such fluffy grandiose language has something to do with
curing alcoholics of a "spiritual disease" that is causing them to drink too much alcohol.
And you have not explained how your "spiritual disease" differs from mental illnesses
like depression or bipolar disorder.
Really these are just shorthand for everyday phenomena that we know through introspection into our emotional states rather than through medical science. It doesn't mean they must be scourged from everyday speech because they are illogical, Spock. Shorthand? No, superstition. Your emotional states are not "spirituality". You are failing to distinguish between psychology and "spirituality". You are making Bill Wilson's big mistake of claiming that emotional events are "spiritual experiences". Science does not have a model yet that shows how the physical processes of the brain results in a thought. They can show stimulation in certain areas. They can show neurons firing, but no one knows how to translate those into thoughts. Does that mean that thoughts don't exist? That's why Skinner proposed black box psychology; you could avoid having to conceptualize internal states if you postulate the brain as a black box with inputs and outputs.
Now that is an
appeal to ignorance,
another propaganda trick.
Lack of knowledge in one area does not prove the existence of something else.
Even if doctors and neurologists had no idea how neurons firing results in thought (which isn't true),
that would still not prove or even hint at the existence of a "spiritual disease" that
makes people drink too much alcohol.
By the way, we do understand how neurons firing produces thought. Maybe you don't understand it, but a lot of other
people do. We have CAT scans and MRIs now, and have mapped out a great deal of the functioning of the
human brain. And we can easily see how thought stops when certain parts of the brain die.
Just because the current model of neuroscience can't explain exactly how a thought occurs, doesn't mean that they don't exist. I am certain that I have had thoughts. Just because we can't measure the soul, or weight the spirit doesn't mean that those words don't mean something. Perhaps you can paraphrase soul as "the mental seat of human empathy, faith in oneself and hope".
Again, that is more nonsense. You are trying to argue that because you are ignorant of neurology,
that "spirit" exists. Baloney. And doctors and neurologists can explain the functioning
of the brain. Your ignorance is not their ignorance. Your inability to explain something is not their
inability to explain it.
Your argument is just like somebody claiming that, because he is ignorant of meteorology
and physics and the workings of the climate, that lighting proves that the Thunder God Thor
really does exist. Nonsense.
I'd bet that you also cannot trace signals through the logic gates of a computer. I doubt that
you know how to logic your way through the circuitry, and say, "Because this gate put out a negative signal,
this following gate put out a positive signal, and that led to the computer 'deciding'
to jump to the subroutine where it prints an 'A' on the terminal."
Such a lack of knowledge of the internal workings of a computer does not prove that the computer
has a soul or a spirit, either.
(In fact, I am the only man that I personally know who has actually done that. I repaired a few computers that
were built way back before the invention of the microcomputer chip, back in the days when the CPU was
just a huge bunch of early 7400 series TTL chips. I didn't find any soul in there, just a lot of
silicon logic gates and wires.)
Now I'm not saying that there is no such thing as spirit — that is a different argument. I'm saying that
your logical fallacies and bad arguments do not prove the existence of spirit.
What you are demonstrating is that you want to believe. Your belief is not based on evidence or
logic, it is based on a deep-seated need to believe.
I have suffered a sickness of the spirit and soul. In empirical terms I would describe it as: "listlessness, lack of affect, despair, lack of pleasure, lack of self-esteem, irrational guilt, anxiety, fear etc. (even a clinical description uses vague words like despair and anxiety)" From the inside, sickness of the spirit seems like a more accurate description.
What you are describing is mental illness, not a "spiritual disease".
It sounds pretty much like a textbook case of depression and an anxiety disorder.
Have you seen a doctor, or specifically, a psychiatrist? If not, why not?
Please do not waste your life, getting quack medicine in a cult, when you could see a
real doctor and get real help and be happier.
I mean really. See a doctor. Do not trust the 12 Steps of Buchmanism to fix you. In fact,
the guilt induction routine of listing and confessing all of your sins and moral shortcomings and
wrongs will make your depression worse. Don't do it. See a doctor.
And, by the way, many respected psychologists, therapists and philosophers use terms like "mind", "identity", "soul" and "spirit" which are large general concepts that defy easy definition. If you use precise terms while talking about something you don't know about, you are still talking about something you don't know about. Similarly, a person can use vague terms to precisely describe the relationship between vague concepts.
Now you just arguing that because some people use words like "spirit"
or "soul", that such things are real. That is another logical fallacy.
It's called Reification.
We use lots of words and expressions for vague concepts. That does not make those
vague concepts and expressions into real things.
I remember Tracy Kidder's book The Soul of a New Machine, which was the
story of two teams of whiz kids creating a new computer at Data General Corporation.
That book does not prove that computers have souls.
I asked you: "Similarly, when was the last time you visited a credible science website that had a laundry list of "propaganda techniques" listed prominently? Just linking a well-reasoned argument to the propaganda technique it happens to be closest to is misleading and petty. Nearly any thesis or argument can be tainted like this." You replied: "Actually, there is a web site that is totally devoted to logical fallacies and debating tricks. I learned a few things from it. I shall have to search to find it again." If the essence of debate on empirical evidence was accusing your opponent of "propaganda tricks", then every science website would have a section like that to the neglect of the subject of study. You could be a great scientist by just refuting your opponent with a list of faulty arguments. You'd save a lot of time, too, you wouldn't have to actually study atoms or electrons or whatever, you could just memorize debate tactics. That is again nonsense. You are just objecting to my noticing that you used a lot of logical fallacies and propaganda tricks to try to push the idea that A.A. is actually okay after all. You are aware of what you know. Sometimes I don't think you are aware of what you don't know. Medical science is nowhere near to a cure for alcoholism and drug addiction. A dozen cures have passed in and out of vogue in the last fifty years and I am sure that contemporary best practices are not that far away from the Freudian talk therapy of 100 years ago i.e. sympathetic listening to another human's problems.
That is another illogical argument.
The lack of a "cure" proves nothing about alcohol abuse or alcohol addiction.
There is no "cure" for "alcoholism", because there is no such
thing as the "disease of alcoholism".
That is just like complaining that modern medicine has no cure for eating too much fattening food.
Both drinking too much alcohol and eating too much fattening food are behavior
— very unhealthy behavior, really bad behavior that can even result in death —
but it is still just behavior.
Drinking too much alcohol is not a disease, and eating too much fattening food is not a disease.
And the cure for both is actually very simple: Change your behavior. Just stop doing it.
Now quitting and staying quit is much more difficult when the drinker in question is suffering from mental illness like
depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder or bipolar disorder, or Narcissistic Personality Disorder
like Bill Wilson had. Then it is much harder for someone to change his behavior, but having a competent
psychiatrist treat the mental illness can help a lot.
I have only pointed out aspects of the human condition to you. They are tragic and crazy-making. What are they?
None of these are a justification or rationalization for the existence of AA, the Christian Scientists, the Scientologists, the UFO nuts, the Hare Khrishnas or Raelians. It's a list of the objective reasons why they exist. It's descriptive, not prescriptive. And, here's my big argument, the human condition is so fucked up that we need to accept that other people accept lies and illusions and build their lives around them. While science might encapsulate truth and reason, an individual scientist might dedicate themselves to an area of research that is completely discredited in a generation. Does that mean they lived their life in vain? No. Because it is presumptuous to assume that the values I live my life by apply perfectly to someone else. It may actually be unhealthy to try and persuade people to abandon the lies that sustain their lives (sick or healthy). I forgive people in AA for lying to themselves and others, just as I forgive religious people for the folly and anxiety they have caused with their lies. At the end of the day, the healthiest attitude toward the heaping piles of bullshit that litter our lives may be "Whatever." Allah is the only way! Whatever. Flouride is turning us communist! Whatever. Rarely have we seen... Whatever.
Ah, thank you. That is indeed the "big argument". That is the Nazi
attitude towards the human race, you know. And it's the Communist attitude too.
Both of them believe that the average human is too stupid to manage his own life
and think for himself, and he should be ordered around by a superior, either a
Nazi Führer or a Communist Commissar. That attitude is called "elitism".
Both the Bolsheviks and the Nazis thought that a small elite cadre should make
all of the important decisions, and the common rabble should just obey them.
And of course the stupid masses should not be told the truth. There is no need for that.
Sometimes the truth is even inconvenient. The ordinary people should just get a comfortable
standardized fiction or fairy tale, like a "compelling origin myth"
(Der Volkishe Beobachter or Pravda or The Grapevine).
Such an attitude is the antithesis of belief in democracy. In a democracy, we
believe that the voters should be told the truth, and they should be educated
and well-informed so that they can vote intelligently and make wise choices.
Yes, in the USA there are some cynical politicians who say, "Let the voters
have their crazy causes and their silly superstitions and their wacked-out beliefs.
That makes them easier to manipulate and control, and it is downright dangerous
to try to educate them. They don't want to know the truth. It makes them angry.
Like Jack Nicholson famously said, 'The truth? You can't handle the truth!' Let
them happily wallow in ignorance and delusion. Leave them their fairy tales."
I disagree. I think we should tell them the truth. Some of them will be unhappy
about it and will squirm and wiggle in discomfort as their favorite ox gets gored
and their favorite superstitions get challenged, but I still think we should tell
them the truth.
And we should not tailor our treatment of mental illnesses and addictions to
accomodate the superstitions of a cult from the nineteen-thirties.
There is still zero evidence that foisting fairy tales and cult religion on sick
people helps them, or makes them recover.
The evidence is that such fraud makes them sicker,
and even makes some of them die.
Have a good day.
== Orange
Last updated 18 March 2014. |
Beethoven the Great Blue Heron
