Letters CCLXVII
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[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters267.html#Meatbag ]
Date: Sun, October 9, 2011 11:44 am (answered 10 October 2011) Aw, poor goslings. If I knew you then, I'd have offered to keep them on a farm I lived on at the time (let's ignore the fact I live on the opposite side of the country), with grass tall enough to hide a child or a short adult. Not really ideal, since they would have needed to stay in a pen to protect them from dogs and coyotes, and there's no nearby wetlands (except for an underground lake, which is why the grass grew so tall), but still better than what they got. Still, at least you made their lives better for a while, and I'm glad Carmen got a happy ending. Yes, all I can do is hope that the month of growing that I gave them enabled them to survive. They had zero chance of survival when they were little 3-day-old fluff-balls. At a month of age, they are much larger and better able to survive the cold nights. Still, goslings normally stay with their parents for two years. They don't leave the family until they marry. Much like human teenagers. So emotionally, it wasn't good for them. Wow, Hyderman was that deceptive? I doubt he's even that good of a chiropractor. Even if he did have actual credentials, credentials in and of themselves are not a valid argument. Illogical assertions from a Ph.D. or MD are still illogical assertions. Indeed. But they were illogical assertions from a fake doctor. I was looking over your excellent Propaganda and Debating Techniques page, and I did notice a couple of inaccuracies in a few of the examples you used. Under "Everybody's Doing It", the leading university professors and Church authorities didn't think Columbus was crazy for believing the Earth was round. Educated Westerners and mariners at the time knew that the Earth was round. Rather, the issue was that Columbus miscalculated the route to India as being shorter than it actually was. Were it not for the existence of the Americas, he would have run out of supplies long before reaching India. Good points. In fact, a Greek correctly established the diameter of the Earth many centuries before by measuring the angle of the sun at two different places at high noon, and measuring the distance between them. There was a peculiar very deep well in Arabia that was located on the equator, and there were only two days of the year when the sun shone straight down to the bottom of the well at high noon. The Greek figured out that at this day and time, the sun was exactly above that well. On that day, at high noon, the smart Greek mathematician measured the angle of the sun where he was located, as far north of the well as he could get (without being in the Mediterranean). And he paid "pacers" to walk to the well, carefully measuring the distance to the well. Those numbers enabled him to calculate the diameter of the Earth by using simple trigonometry. (Okay, trigonometry was very "high tech" in those days.) He got an answer that was very close to 25,000 miles. Too bad Columbus didn't read that Greek guy's paper. Alas, there was no Internet or Wikipedia then, so Columbus didn't know about that. The key thing about the "Everybody Knows, and Everybody Says, and Everybody's Doing It" propaganda trick is that the statement isn't true. The assertion that the opinion is unanimous is false. The propagandist just points at a bunch of people and declares that "Everybody says..." And he ignores those people who disagree with him. Of course there were some people who thought the Earth was round. But a speaker who didn't want to believe that just ignored them and made a sweeping generalization:
Also, under False Analysis of History, it's questionable whether Nero
really did fiddle while Rome burned. According to Tacitus Interesting. I'll take your word for it.
And on an extremely minor note, if Nessie is a dinosaur, it wouldn't
necessarily follow that she would be cold-blooded, since it's still up
for debate whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded, like birds, or
cold-blooded, like reptiles Yes. The latest evidence that I saw on PBS, just recently, was that dinosaurs were in fact warm-blooded. Cold-blooded reptiles have growth rings in their bones just like trees do. Rapid growth in the summer, and no growth in the winter, leaves rings. Well, the dinosaur bones that they studied had no rings. Ergo, warm-blooded dinosaurs that don't slow down in the winter. But that of course means that "Nessie dinosaurs" need to eat even more fish to feed their warmth engine. They will have high energy needs. And they will quickly eat all of the fish in a small lake. So "Nessie" would have starved to death a long time ago. Poor Nessie. Oh well, maybe there is still a Bigfoot. E.T. phone home. Have a good day now. == Orange
* orange@orange-papers.info * * AA and Recovery Cult Debunking * * http://www.Orange-Papers.org/ * ** ** "You are doing a great disservice to those seeking sobriety ** (by telling the truth). Everybody knows that those disgusting ** feeble-minded alcoholics cannot handle the truth." ** "Oh, and we are working real hard to remove the stigma of alcoholism."
P.S.: Eratosthenes — that was the name of the Greek guy. Except that he
wasn't Greek, he was Egyptian/Libyan, with a Greek-sounding name. See: [The next letter from Meatbag is here.] 
Date: Sun, October 9, 2011 5:06 pm (answered 11 October 2011)
Dr. Peter Ferentzy wrote a new post Tough Love is a Joke — Let's Start Enabling Drug Addicts Everywhere
Dr. Peter Ferentzy On September 26, I posted a piece on tough love. It generated many remarks along with some discussion of enabling, to which tough love is apparently the remedy. The tough love...
To comment on this post, follow the link below: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-peter-ferentzy/drug-addiction-tough-love_b_1000184.html
Okay Peter, Thanks for the tip. Got it. Have a good day now. == Orange
* orange@orange-papers.info * * AA and Recovery Cult Debunking * * http://www.Orange-Papers.org/ * ** Nor deem the irrevocable Past ** As wholly wasted, wholly vain, ** If, rising on its wrecks, at last ** To something nobler we attain. ** == Longfellow, The Ladder of St. Augustine
Date: Sun, October 9, 2011 8:24 pm (answered 11 October 2011) Hello Orange. Thank you for opening my eyes to AA. I have 7 years sobriety. Over the last 6 months have I started reading up on Alternatives to AA. AVRT and rational recovery makes a lot more sense to me then the 12 steps. The problem is that after going for 7 years I have met some good people (although brainwashed), and I find it hard to stop going to meetings altogether. I have cut down to only 2 meetings a week, although I was guilt-ed into going on a speaking Commitment today. When I spoke I actually brought up a few of the things that I learned from rational recovery, such as the behavior model as opposed to the disease model, and the psycho babel of discussion meetings. A couple of people actually gave me some positive feedback but I could just tell that I pissed of a few people. The bottom line is that even though I know that AA is nonsense, after 7 years I have unwittingly turned it into my primarily source of socializing. Just wanted your opinion as to what is the best way out. Should I just immediately stop attending Meetings, or pursue a gradual release. What makes it difficult for me is the fact that, even though the program is a lot of bull, I have met a lot of good people as well, that I know I will never see if I stop attending meetings.
Thank you. Hello, Rational S, Thanks for the thanks. I think that you have already started to solve your problem. You have cut down on the number of A.A. meetings that you attend, and are slowly detaching from A.A. That is the way to do it. Just burning all of your bridges suddenly will leave you in a lonely state, and that is no good. You don't have to sever all connections with the people that you like. Can't you meet them someplace else, like for coffee or lunch, now and then? Or go to a show or something together? If you can't, if you can only see them at an A.A. meeting, then they aren't really your friends. Likewise, those people who objected to you talking about any kind of rational recovery are not your friends. They just want to hear everybody repeating their favorite superstitions. They are not sincerely interested in the welfare of the people that they claim to want to help, or they would be interested in anything that might help. Personally, I know some people whose religion I don't wish to share, or whose politics I don't agree with, but I don't have to totally cut them off. We just avoid those subjects. The best solution for you that I can think of is to actively develop other social relationships. Really work on it. Devote one or two evenings a week to it. Or all of Saturday or Sunday. Instead of going to an A.A. meeting, you go to a non-A.A. meeting. Not only can you go to other recovery meetings like SMART or SOS or Lifering or whatever (list here), but you can go to lots of other things that have nothing to do with A.A. or recovery. Bingo, bowling, tiddly-winks, hang-gliding, wilderness treks, whatever. Pick up a dating guide at the used book store, or get one from the library. Like "Dating For Dummies". Not so much for chasing girls (although that doesn't hurt), but for the lists of suggestions of things to do, and places to go. Art museum, concert, movies, whatever. The idea is just to go to non-drinking places and events and meet other people, and gradually get a new circle of friends. You will also find it a nice breath of fresh air to be in groups of people who have other interests in life than just recovery. We also discussed the process of detaching from A.A. in some previous letters:
Have a good day now, and a good life. == Orange
* orange@orange-papers.info * * AA and Recovery Cult Debunking * * http://www.Orange-Papers.org/ * ** ** We are social beings. We are absolutely hard-wired to fit in. ** We don't want to be outsiders. It causes neurological stress. ** == M. Heffernin, "Willful Blindness"
Date: Sun, October 9, 2011 6:07 pm (answered 11 October 2011) Hello Orange, I have been in a cultish frame of mind for a while and its been anguishing. Its the Evolutionary Enlightenement process that Wilber and Cohen and others are teaching. Tonight I finally got it: Andrew Cohen writes in his new book that "if you fail, the creative process itself loses a precious opportunity to evolve." " I don't believe it's possible to to live a passionate and engaged spiritual life and contribute significantly to the evolution of consciousness and culture without this kind of profound commitment." "It is essential to avoid self betrayal. If you betray that aspiration, which is your Authentic Self, you will lose your bearings. And if you betray yourself too many times, you will soon come to a point where you won't care anymore" So I am at the point where I don't care anymore, but the emotional luggage that goes with this failure to evolve is rather messy and I am not feeling real well. Worse, I have felt like this before and been unable to pull myself away from still trying to "evolve." I need to get away from this.
any insight on this new kind of self induced cult? Kelly B Hello Kelly, Thank you for the question. It sounds like you are suffering from depression. You have not failed in life, or blown all of your chances, or reached a state where you don't care any more. The fact that you are writing to me shows that you do still care, and you are still trying. I totally agree with the old saying, "Unto thine own self be true." If you aren't true to yourself, then you are wasting your life being an extra in somebody else's movie. I think that's part of what Andrew Cohen was getting at there. So, the first thing I recommend is something to cheer you up.
The situation isn't hopeless. You haven't failed and wasted your life. And life is really worth living. Have a good day now. == Orange
* orange@orange-papers.info * * AA and Recovery Cult Debunking * * http://www.Orange-Papers.org/ * ** "Sitting around talking about being depressed with depressed ** people does not make you better." ** == NPR (National Public Radio), 1:23PM, 23 November 2009
Date: Thu, October 13, 2011 2:29 pm Thank you Orange. I suppope i will look and see who is in the area. Blessed I am with health care. Have a good day yourself. Kelly B Good, and have another good day. == Orange
* orange@orange-papers.info * * AA and Recovery Cult Debunking * * http://www.Orange-Papers.org/ * ** "Now I know what it's like to be high on life. ** It isn't as good, but my driving has improved." ** == Nina, on "Just Shoot Me", 13 Jan 2006.
Date: Mon, October 10, 2011 5:36 am (answered 12 October 2011) Hi Orange, I sent you a rather lengthy message a few years ago, and though promised, never got a reply. I understand being busy, and just thought of it again today to send it to you and hopefully this time begin a discourse with you. Hello Morgan, Thanks for this letter, and I'm sorry about the previous one. I don't know what happened, or remember. Perhaps I set the letter aside for special handling, and it got forgotten and lost. Sometimes I have to go look things up in order to be able to answer something, so that delays answering a letter. The incoming email is a river, and if I don't keep ahold of something, it can get washed downstream and lost. I have been sober in AA for over 16 years, and pretty happily I might add. I agree (like any human institution) AA has many problems in it's fellowship. There are definitely some pretty sick people I have met in AA over the years... as there have been in other institutions I have been in contact with (including public schools, university, corporations, local, national and state government etc, ad nauseum). I hear your complaints, and as I stated in my earlier letter (attached) I really feel that if more of AA's membership practiced AA's 12 steps, and also practiced AA's 12 traditions, not dogmatically but practically, there wouldn't be a need for your site. Congratulations on keeping yourself sober for 16 years. Nobody but you holds your hand every Saturday night. I agree that if more people were more moral and spiritual that things would be better. If everybody would really practice Christianity or any other good religion, we would have Heaven on Earth. Alas, there is zero evidence that Frank Buchman's cult religion practices (not principles) that make up the 12 Steps actually do anything good. All of the evidence says that Buchmanism was one bad cult. I'm sure you are aware that there are many failures in Smart Recovery, and Moderation Management as well, most notably the founder of Moderation Management, Audrey Kishline, who in March 2000 drove her truck the wrong way down a highway, and hit another vehicle head-on killing its two passengers (a father and his 12 year old daughter). You do know, don't you, that Audrey Kishline quit her own organization, Moderation Management, and went back to Alcoholics Anonymous three months before she relapsed and drove drunk and killed two people? Funny how not a single Stepper has ever mentioned that fact when criticizing Moderation Management or Audrey Kishline. Not one, in the 10 years that I've been doing this web site. Not one Stepper has admitted that Audrey Kishline was actually doing the A.A. program when she relapsed. They always try to claim that Audrey's relapse shows that MM doesn't work. I am a member of an AA group that really encourages members to not listen to those in the fellowship who just suggest going to meeting as if that is somehow a cure for alcoholism. Our group instead encourages practicing AA's 12 steps as a way of life. Over the past 7 years the group has grown to 200+ recovered members and is regularly attended by members of other fellowships (NA, CA, GA, SLAA, ALANON, OA, etc) because they see the recovery rate in our group, and want to take it back into their own fellowships. All we do is AA, as it's program is outlines in the book, Alcoholics Anoymous. The problem remains that the 12 Steps are just Bill Wilson's copy of Frank Buchman's cult recruiting and indoctrination practices. They are not "spiritual", or even moral. They are occult and superstitious. They are also very damaging. They resemble Chinese Communist brainwashing techniques far more than they resemble any Christian practices. The 12 Steps also resemble occult practices like channeling and necromancy more than Christianity. The idea that you can conduct a séance and hear the Voice Of God telling you what to do, and giving you the power to carry out His Secret Mission is insane. It's easy (again as in any human institution) to find fault, but it's quite one-sided just showing the bad. That is an attempt at both minimalization and denial and escape via relativism.
"It's so easy to find fault with the Nazi Party. Why don't you look at the good work that they have done? Lots of organizations have some little problems." I have looked at the good that A.A. does. Here is the file: What's Good About A.A.? Unfortunately, the amount of good done is very small, and it is totally outweighed by the bad that A.A. does, like raising the death rate in alcoholics, and raising the rates of binge drinking, and arrests, and cost of hospitalization, and divorce, and suicide... That is not good. The stories about A.A. saving millions are lies. Period. They are not misunderstandings, or mere interpretations of the facts. The A.A. claim that it has saved millions is a barefaced lie. Bill Wilson started the A.A. tradition of exaggerating A.A. success rates, and A.A. has never stopped doing it. I'd love to get your feedback on my previous letter, and also if you could read "A Member's Eye View of Alcoholic's Anonymous." I would love to discuss that with you too. Do you have a link for that "View"? I see that you included your previous letter below, so I'll answer it there. Hope to (finally) hear back form you.
Best,
Okay Morgan, you have my response. Have a good day now. == Orange
* orange@orange-papers.info * * AA and Recovery Cult Debunking * * http://www.Orange-Papers.org/ * ** A flawed idea that AA is built upon: The idea that a deeply flawed person ** will cure another deeply flawed person. A dynamic fraught with peril. ** == Anonymous
Date: Wed, October 12, 2011 2:58 pm (answered 13 September 2011) A Funny Thing Happened on The Way to The Forum..... I stopped myself before I even logged on. What used to be a very informative place to interact with people who have had similar experiences with AA, has turned into a shit slinging match between certain subscribers. I don't necessarily feel that anyone should NOT be allowed to participate in any discussion... as long as they are civil. When they contribute nothing of substance and only contribute nasty vile remarks and become distruptive, I'm thinking maybe they SHOULD be blocked. I'm guessing you don't want to have to babysit and monitor everything that goes on there.... but the overall experience in the forum has degraded due to just a few (obvious) individuals. It's NOT a place that I will frequent any longer as damn near anything I post is met with insulting replies and remarks. PEACE Orange! Hello John, Thanks for the letter, and sorry to hear that you find the forum unpleasant or unbearable. I suppose I am an idealist when it comes to freedom of speech. The real test of freedom of speech is not whether you let your friends speak, or allow others with whom you agree to speak, rather it is whether you allow those whom you despise to speak. Do we allow opposing viewpoints? Do we allow the obnoxious and stupid and dishonest and deluded people to have their say, too? I am reminded of what I think was an old Gary Cooper movie, where some guys were tempted to take some money that they found in an airplane crash. No one would know, and the people losing the money were dead, so there was a good argument for taking the money and sharing it around, and enriching a bunch of poor guys who found the crashed plane. But the Gary Cooper character said, "You can't dig half of a hole. No matter how small of a hole you dig, it is still a hole. The same goes for being dishonest." Well, suppressing freedom of speech is like that too. The way that I see it, either you have freedom of speech or you don't. If people can get banned for saying things that others don't like, then we don't really have freedom of speech. Speakers must be careful of what they say, or they may get censored or silenced. I speak from personal experience there. I've been banned from forums because the moderator didn't like what I was saying. I seem to recall that Rick Ross and his "anti-cult" web site was the first one. And my posts were censored by the "Digital Journal" because somebody didn't like what I wrote. And Yahoo Geocities erased my entire web site one Sunday morning because — apparently — somebody complained that they were "offended" by something that I wrote. I don't have anything to do with them any more. And I don't want to be like them. Where do we stop on that slippery slope? First we ban those who are obnoxious and who sarcastically attack the other posters. Call it a ban for not being polite, and not maintaining proper civility. Do we then ban those who post statements that we consider to be lies, or inaccurate information, or misleading or untrue, like the A.A. claims of great success in sobering up alcoholics? Then what? Where does it stop? And do we have a forum if only one side is allowed to speak? So far, I think that the backbiting Steppers are tolerable. Annoying, yes, but tolerable. And they should grow up and learn to be civil. (Fat chance, yes?) The only thing that I ban now is spammers. And the truth is, they aren't people anyway. The Russians run robot computer programs ("bots", or "spam-bots") that create fraudulent login accounts and post advertisements for everything from fake Viagra to call girls. I get 30 to 50 new fake accounts each day, right now. They are gone immediately. Since I stopped authorizing them, their numbers have diminished, but they keep trying. I just had to stop them. They were overrunnning the forum. Earlier, when authorization of new accounts was automatic and immediate, the spammers created literally thousands of accounts in just a few days and it was hard to find the real messages for all of the spam. So I block them. But the humans I allow. Sorry to see you go. Have a good day anyway. == Orange
* orange@orange-papers.info * * AA and Recovery Cult Debunking * * http://www.Orange-Papers.org/ * ** ** Anyone who is different today faces harassment, whether it is ** in the way he dresses, or in the position he takes on important ** issues. And when the price of being different is a cold fear, ** with good reason, then freedom as we peddle it in our international ** publicity releases is gone. If and when it disappears, it won't ** be stolen by big government, the tax collector, or the Supreme ** Court. Fascism will be the people's choice. It usually is. We've ** managed to avoid it so far only because nobody nutty enough to ** give the people what they want has come along. Yet. ** == Mike Royko, For the Love of Mike: The Best of Mike Royko ** (reprint of column "Fascism Isn't Accidental" dated May 28, 1968)
Date: Thu, October 13, 2011 4:14 pm (answered 18 October 2011) Thanks for the reply Orange..... and it's a very civil one at that. I really wasn't expecting anything less from you. (HA HA HA) Thanks. Yeah... it's not that I felt it necessary to ban an individual for having opposing views... it's the vile and abusive manner in which they're being posted. Viewpoints are not be attacked per se..... but certain individuals are. It causes more disruption than good. Actually.... it's kinda interesting to see just how nasty these "sober and serene" True Believers? act. Their behavior speaks for itself and shows off their true colors. BTW.... I'm not going anywhere.... I'll just observe from the sidelines. 8-) PEACE Yes, the behavior of the A.A. true believers is one of the biggest pieces of evidence that the 12-Step program does not work to make people spiritual, or filled with "serenity and gratitude". It seems to make them filled with anger and resentments. I am reminded of a letter that I got from an oldtimer A.A. member many years ago:
"Old timers in AA are often an angry lot: a mask of serenity with a seething cauldron underneath." So I tend to think that the best approach is to give them enough rope to hang themselves. Have a good day now. == Orange
* orange@orange-papers.info * * AA and Recovery Cult Debunking * * http://www.Orange-Papers.org/ * ** ** The common dogma [of fundamentalists] is fear of modern knowledge, ** inability to cope with the fast change in a scientific-technological ** society, and the real breakdown in apparent moral order in recent ** years.... That is why hate is the major fuel, fear is the cement of ** the movement, and superstitious ignorance is the best defense against ** the dangerous new knowledge. ... When you bring up arguments that cast ** serious doubts on their cherished beliefs you are not simply making a ** rhetorical point, you are threatening their whole Universe and their ** immortality. That provokes anger and quite frequently violence. ... ** Unfortunately you cannot reason with them and you even risk violence ** in confronting them. Their numbers will decline only when society ** stabilizes, and adapts to modernity. ** == G. Gaia
Last updated 30 October 2011. |
