(October 21, 2014 at 2:00 pm)alpha male Wrote: Yep, some people who find happiness in AA after the nightmare of addiction go a little overboard cheerleading for it. It's not an AA thing, it's a human thing. There are atheists here who need to think that Christians are all miserable, sexually repressed, etc. A lot of people grow out of it. Some don't.
Five percent is hardly doing well. So cheer leading for it is a disservice to alcoholics and other addicts. But you're right that celebrating what worked for oneself is human. It's just not necessarily useful to anyone else.
I suspect you are thinking of me (among others) as one of those who think all Christians are miserable and sexually repressed. I don't--though I do know Christians who are one, the other, or both of those things. Absent religion, I don't really know anyone who is very sexual repressed though not all the religious are sexually repressed.
Miserableness seems to be a common human condition with or without religion.
If religion helps some escape miserableness in the form of alcoholism or anything else, I don't see that separating them from religion makes much sense, unless they are hurting others with religion. But it's important to understand that religion is not the only escape from miserableness and proclaiming that it is, is not a healthy thing. That is what AA does with a 5% track record.
If there is a god, I want to believe that there is a god. If there is not a god, I want to believe that there is no god.