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Comment by keiferski | Hacker News Reader

People often get hung up on the contemporary Western conception of a higher power, not realizing that the personal, anthropomorphic God is but one flavor of the concept. Scientific laws or forces are in some sense, a "higher power" - clearly we all surrender to the power of gravity every day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_god

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I've definitely heard this several times that "a higher power in AA can be anything, it can be the fire extinguisher on the wall!".

But if that were really the intent of the program then why do they have a prayer where they ask capital-G-God for help every meeting?

There is no shortage of meetings where you're expected to submit to the Christian God, where the people will be hostile to someone they find out is an atheist.

They'll still use the "your higher power can be the door knob!" bit, too.

and there’s no shortage of other meetings to go to

It’s an easy reference for a lot of people to understand what spirituality means.

Remember, many people who come to meetings can lack any formal education, be homeless, completely cut off from the internet/society etc etc etc.

If I were to start talking about chakras, spiritual energy or Soto zen, they’d think I was fucking mental!

That seems like a fairly unconvincing suggestion. I'm fairly convinced that if I was to show up at the psychologist saying that I thought a fire extinguisher was a higher power that controls the world over which I have no control they would be concerned. What would it even mean if the fire extinguisher was a higher power?

The various results for "atheists removed from AA" or "atheists kicked out of AA" on Google tell me AA works with the personal god version, not the others ones.

A study found an association between an increase in attendance to AA meetings with increased spirituality and a decrease in the frequency and intensity of alcohol use. The research also found that AA was effective at helping agnostics and atheists become sober. The authors concluded that though spirituality was an important mechanism of behavioral change for some alcoholics, it was not the only effective mechanism.[54] Since the mid-1970s, a number of 'agnostic' or 'no-prayer' AA groups have begun across the U.S., Canada, and other parts of the world, which hold meetings that adhere to a tradition allowing alcoholics to freely express their doubts or disbelief that spirituality will help their recovery, and these meetings forgo use of opening or closing prayers.[55][56] There are online resources listing AA meetings for atheists and agnostics.

That doesn’t seem to be the case.

Google results can drum up anything you like. I've never personally or through second hand seen or heard of any AA group that would kick out an atheist.

This has happened to me. I'm an atheist, and experienced verbal abuse when others found out.

Well I’m sorry that happened. Hopefully one terrible experience won’t prevent you from getting sober.

That there are results to validate that this happens on some occasions, doesn't mean it's universal or even common. I suggest trying another 'google search' and you'll find there are plenty of AA meetings for which the 'higher power' element is more agnostic, and plenty for which is almost not relevant.

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