Alcoholics Anonymous has an official party line that says you have complete freedom of religion, and you can belong to any religion you wish, or you can have no religion at all. But the truth is that AA members will make every effort to convert you to their religious views. And the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, says so.

In The Big Book, chapter 4 is titled "We Agnostics". It's a highly revealing chapter. That chapter explains how all of the former agnostics and atheists in AA got converted into true believers, and how all of the new skeptics must also be converted.

As soon as a man can say that he does believe, or is willing to believe, we emphatically assure him that he is on his way.
(Page 47.)

We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which is God.
(Page 46.)

We commenced to get what results? The book doesn't say. Such vague terminology and grandiose hand-waving is typical of AA literature. And that line about getting results, despite being unable to fully define or comprehend God, is really ridiculous: theologians, mystics, and priests of all of the great religions of the world have been saying for thousands of years that God is far too big and complex for any human to fully define or comprehend, so it isn't surprising that the AA members were unable to do it. And notice how the anonymous author (Bill Wilson?) neatly segues from a vague Higher Power in the middle of that sentence to just plain old God at the end of the sentence. Freedom of Religion lasts just about that long in AA circles.

The author repeatedly uses the word "prejudice" for resistance to things like fuzzy thinking, undefined spiritual terminology, superstition, blind faith, and bombastic religiosity. Check out this description of their original skeptical thinking for more examples:

Besides a seeming inability to accept much on faith, we found ourselves handicapped by obstinacy, sensitiveness, and unreasoning prejudice. Many of us have been so touchy that even casual reference to spiritual things made us bristle with antagonism. This sort of thinking had to be abandoned. Though some of us resisted, we found no great difficulty in casting aside such feelings. Faced with alcoholic destruction, we soon became as open minded on spiritual matters as we tried to be on other questions. In this respect alcohol was a great persuader. It finally beat us into a state of reasonableness. Sometimes this was a tedious process; we hope no one else will be prejudiced for as long as some of us were.
(Pages 47 and 48.)

Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated. If you drink enough alcohol, and cause enough brain damage, you can believe anything. And if you don't become a superstitious true believer, then the Big Bad Booze Bogeyman will get you.

What strikes me as one of the most outrageous features of the chapter is the author's reversal of reality: Rational thinking, reason, skepticism, and agnosticism are labeled illogical, perverse, cynical, vain, biased, mushy, and unreasoningly prejudiced, while blind faith is described as logical, intelligent, reasonable, sane, honest, and open-minded:

People of faith have a logical idea of what life is all about.
(Page 49.)

Imagine life without faith! Were nothing left but pure reason, it wouldn't be life.
(Page 55.)

Hence we are at pains to tell why we think our present faith is reasonable, why we think it more sane and logical to believe than not to believe, why we say our former thinking was soft and mushy when we threw up our hands in doubt and said, 'We don't know.'
(Page 53.)

If our testimony helps sweep away prejudice, enables you to think honestly, encourages you to search diligently within yourself, then, if you wish, you can join us on the Broad Highway.
(Page 55.)

The "Broad Highway"? What broad highway? AA writings are just loaded with such bombastic and grandiose terminology. A few more jewels from the same chapter: "The Realm of Spirit" on page 46. "The Spirit of the Universe", on pages 46 and 52. The "Great Reality" on page 55. The "Presence of God" on page 56. Just watch for all of the capitalized words.

I would love to satirize such speech in jokes. I can just imagine that bombastic little duck, Daffy Duck, wildly waving his arms in the air and screaming about "The Spirit of the Universe," "The Broad Highway," and "The Ultimate Reality." The problem is, Bill Wilson is himself so extremely bombastic, that it is almost impossible to parody him by being terribly more extreme than he already is. Daffy is definitely going to have his hands full, trying to outdo Bill.

Here, the author actually invokes the evils of faith and superstition in Europe during the Middle Ages as the reason why we should now have more faith and superstition:

This world of ours has made more material progress in the last century than in all the milleniums which went before. Almost everyone knows the reason. Students of ancient history tell us that the intellect of men in those days was equal to the best of today. Yet in ancient times material progress was painfully slow. The spirit of modern scientific inquiry, research and invention was almost unknown. In the realm of the material, men's minds were fettered by superstition, tradition, and all sorts of fixed ideas. Some of the contemporaries of Columbus thought a round earth preposterous. Others came near putting Galileo to death for his astronomical heresies.

"We asked ourselves this: Are not some of us just as biased and unreasonable about the realm of the spirit as were the ancients about the realm of the material?
(Page 51.)

The simple answer to the author's question is "No. We are not biased and unreasonable. We just don't like brain-damaged religious fanatics, or their crazy dogma."

Another good answer is, "The Realm of the Spirit: blind faith, superstition, heresy trials, witch burnings... Been there. Done that. We gave that one a really good try, for over a thousand years. We don't need to do that one again."

Notice how Bill pulls yet another bait and switch stunt there: First, he seems to be scientific, logical, and reasonable, and then, just when he has you agreeing with him, he switches the intent of his words to the exact opposite, and asks you to embrace blind faith and superstition. He starts with a statement that is unquestionably true for Western civilization: "This world of ours has made more material progress in the last century than in all the milleniums which went before." Then he talks about the evils of superstition, tradition, and all sorts of fixed ideas, and of heresy trials. Then, just when he has you going along with him, he suddenly reverses the logic and tries to sell you superstition, "the realm of the spirit." All of the talk about "modern scientific inquiry, research and invention" was just bait to fool your logical mind, to get you to start accepting his words.

And then, beginning with the very next line in that chapter, he does it all again, first offering the bait, a nice morsel of science and technology, and then pulling the switch, asking you to accept his religious beliefs:

Even in the present century, American newspapers were afraid to print an account of the Wright brothers' first successful flight at Kittyhawk. Had not all efforts at flight failed before? Did not Professor Langley's flying machine go to the bottom of the Potomac River? Was it not true that the best mathematical minds had proved man could never fly? Had not people said God had reserved this privilege to the birds? Only thirty years later the conquest of the air was almost an old story and airplane travel was in full swing.

But in most fields our generation has witnessed complete liberation in thinking. Show any longshoreman a Sunday supplement describing a proposal to explore the moon by means of a rocket and he will say, "I bet they do it maybe not so long either." Is not our age characterized by the ease with which we discard old ideas for new, by the complete readiness with which we throw away the theory or gadget which does not work for something new which does?

We had to ask ourselves why we shouldn't apply to our human problems this same readiness to change our point of view.

And "readiness to change our point of view" really means readiness to accept Bill Wilson's religious tenets:

When we saw others solve their problems by a simple reliance upon the Spirit of the Universe, we had to stop doubting the power of God. Our ideas did not work. But the God idea did.

So much for the AA statements that you can have any religious beliefs you wish.

Last updated 29 May 2001.

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