God deserves credit for all that he has done....

Which is nothing, because the chump aint real.

2 years here!

Statistically the whole religious indoctrination aspect of AA is less effective than other combined methods, but that's unfair because some of those methods include well funded treatment by actual professionals like doctors and therapists.

He allegedly killed everything on the planet except for two of each creature, amongst a slew of other murders.

When my religious friends get a little too intense I tell em to go visit a terminal children's hospital ward. Don't give me any of that "works in mysterious ways" rubbish either. I'm not saying there isn't a higher intelligence than us somewhere, because that's unknowable in an infinite universe, but to then somehow pivot to thinking that intelligence would care about every little thing we do is beyond insane.

Later he became his own dad* and had exceptionally buoyant feet, though, so swings and roundabouts as the Brits say 🤷🏻

*through his spirit raping a 12-16yo virgin

GOD is good! He made you an alcoholic so you would struggle through life and fight so, so hard to maintain a form of normalcy his favorite creations obtain with ease.

Again, GOD is good!

I'll never forget the disappointment I felt the day I found out that Alcoholics Anonymous is a christian group. The fact that one of the few institutions that exists independently to help people to get free of the crippling addiction to alcohol does so by shoving god down your throat is such an amazing let down. I had a friend who was a terrible alcoholic and also an atheist and the trouble he had finding organizations the could help him was so devastating. In the end the alcoholism eventually led to his death and I often wonder if he could have been saved if there had been a more robust network of non-religious substance abuse groups.

I'm intellgent, and I'm high.

I put up with it for long enough to get the help I needed, but I can't stand it either. At least there were enough supportive people with actual advice kicking around. I can't attest to every community, but if you want it bad enough, it's probably worth the price of admission for the few months it takes to break the habit.

I got three years a couple months ago, and I'm not sure I would have made it without the support, but I also regret that the program teaches that you don't have the power to do it without god, just a fun reminder of how these people prey on the vulnerable.

I'm sorry about your friend, I know my life could have ended the same way pretty easily the way I was going.

"I'm intellgent, and I'm high."

No disrespect, but the irony of misspelling that word is chef's kiss 🤣

https://aaforagnostics.com/

If you need help there are hundreds of agnostic and atheist AA meetings live and online.

To paraphrase Robert Downey Jr. If you aren't an alcoholic, religion is a choice. If you are an addict, you've already surrendered to a Higher Power. My addiction told me when to get up, who to talk to, where to go, how much to spend, who to hurt, and who to flatter.

He made them alcoholic!

But not higher!

Didn't Jesus literally turn water into wine? So God literally produced the original alcohol. So it's all his fault.

I know that the wine back then typically had the alcohol content of seawater and was mostly drunk because water purification wasn't really possible, but it's their belief system so I'm going to hit them over the head with it.

I'm surprised there isn't some NHS thing. They have support groups for dieting so I would have thought there would have been one for alcoholism given how much damage it does to people and how much it must cost the NHS every year.

My partner utilized SMART Recovery when he was getting sober. It's science based and completely free of religion

I always disliked that arguement because it suggests that you wouldn't have such a good life had you not had to struggle first. A claim for which there is no evidence.

The fact that one of the few institutions that exists independently to help people to get free of the crippling addiction to alcohol does so by shoving god down your throat is such an amazing let down.

Dunno if it helps at all, but the success rate for people who go through AA is the same rate as people who do it by themselves.

If you are an addict, you've already surrendered to a Higher Power

This is defeatist bullshit. And yes, before anyone says it, I know from personal experience.

Don't overlook all of the death and suffering caused in his name!

I think it's entirely possible that there are entities more intelligent than humans (let's face it the bar isn't very high) but I think that's different to "higher intelligence" an entity of God like capability, I don't think that high IQ necessarily grants you access to alter the fundamental laws of reality.

Don't ask about the fish, birds, and sea creatures though. They did just fine, but they don't count for some reason.

Is that how young Mary canonically was. Yeah the people who wrote the Bible were definitely something weren't they.

Pretty sure we were guzzling hooch since those first monkeys discovered a pile of half rotten fruit, ate it, vomited, then ate the rest and woke up with a prehistoric hangover. JC was just a garden variety bootlegger

Saying God did 'x' is equal to thanking Obama for falling off your dining chair in rural Romania

Bartender: Enough drinking, mate, I'm cutting you off, just water for you from now on.

Jesus (the fairytale one): Aw, man, come on...

Is that how young Mary canonically was

It's never explicitly specified but:

While the Bible does not state Mary’s exact age, most historians and biblical scholars agree on a likely range based on cultural context.

Mary was most likely between 12 and 16 years old when Jesus was born.

This estimate comes from:

• Jewish marriage customs of the first century
• The typical age of betrothal for girls
• The timeline between engagement and childbirth

In that culture, girls were often engaged shortly after puberty and married soon after. Since Mary was already betrothed when the angel Gabriel appeared, it strongly supports the idea that she was in her early teens.

Source

That's such an interesting point. I believe that historically any intelligence that was much higher than the norm has tended to be perceived as "Godlike". That means this misconception potentially applies to us today as well (he walked on water therefore he is God etc.) or that the "God" that people believe in today is somehow above relativistic misconception. Personally I lean towards the former.

Not the original by any stretch. The story is that he made the wine because they ran out of wine while the party was still going. He just didn't want his friend's wedding reception to flop. But the host was still somewhat embarrassed because everybody liked the new wine so much more and said "hey dummy, don't you know you're supposed to serve the quality wine first, and the shit wine after we're too drunk to care?"

Fuck you Jobu ... I do it myself!

https://smartrecovery.org/

The higher power is the substance, be it booze, heroin, coke, meth or dopamine (for gamblers and others)

Accepting that that chemical will always be there, always call to you, always be there to make you feel good when everything else isn't working is the point

Surrendering to the fact that it's forever in your life, no matter what you do is the point, not surrendering control over your actions

I know what I am. I know how the things that I do shape my life in every possible way

It's about how I manage it, not ignore it or pass the buck

With kindness, I think you may have misinterpreted the comment you were replying to

The NHS does have things, but not everyone lives in Britain.

This is a misunderstanding. They are a fan of Good Old Days beer and are disappointed that OP won’t drink it now.

Edit: I was the one who misunderstood. They were simply suggesting a non-alcoholic beer.

What makes you think that the universe is infinite?

That's okay, many old languages use their word for "animal" only for terrestrial vertebrates or even only for terrestrial mammals. Fish, birds and sea creatures wouldn't register as animals in most of them.

You're right. I should have said "because that's unknowable in a really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, big universe" but I thought "infinite" wouldn't take up as much (drumroll) space! 🤭

Yeah I don't think they knew how to make grape juice not alcoholic back then. Grape juice just does that unless you pasteurize it, which was discovered in the 1800s by an American Methodist. It certainly wasn't low enough alcohol to be consumed by people on the wagon unless it was very fresh.

Yeah, looking at Wikipedia, the old testament says to give the dying wine so they forget their pain, you ain't getting that from kombucha. It looks like the Sumerian goddess of beer was said to be the result of a drunken hookup between a king and Ishtar, and like the Egyptians were culturally celebrating with beer, wine, and drunkenness using beers of comparable alcohol content to modern day (5% ABV).

Meanwhile here there's an estimate of Romans drinking about half a liter of undiluted wine a day. They mixed it 50/50 with water typically, which in a modern wine would put it around a modern beer in potency. We can assume it's reasonably potent wine specifically because those drinking undiluted wine in Rome faced social stigma associated with alcoholism.

I'm specifically avoiding sources speaking on Jewish history here because when I looked the Christians outnumbered the academics by a lot, which makes sense as teetotaling Protestants have issues with the amount of wine in Christianity.

That's cope.

There's video of animals getting blasted on fermented natural fruit... it really does happen on its own.

"You blew an 9.99 on the breathalyzer, you've had enough"

"Oh you just think you did that on your own, but your personal achievement should actually be credited to God."

I've long complained that Christians push the queer community to the bottle then sell us their god as the solution.

But it says its alcohol free beer on the bottle?

In my experience AA tries to exchange ones addiction to alcohol to an addiction to religion. I've noted the most feverously religious people I know became that way after AA. Religion preys on the most susceptible.

If God was so good, they would not have to repeat it, every damn time.

Good catch. I missed that