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barabara
upside down:

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If you like, we can start using the word, "Intelligent design" or "Matrix".

How about we just use the word "troll"?

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barabara
[b:d9b17dd07d]colter:[/b:d9b17dd07d]
You keep talking, repeatedly, about how "[b:d9b17dd07d]AA can't help it[/b:d9b17dd07d] " if the courts coerce people into going to meetings, saying that AA does not promote itself.

I keep pointing out that [b:d9b17dd07d]AA does promote itself[/b:d9b17dd07d] to those courts.
You can't disprove this, so you try to discredit me by claiming I am making a mountain out of a molehill.

You are engaging in circular reasoning, (if you want to call it reasoning; I call it[b:d9b17dd07d] obfuscation[/b:d9b17dd07d]).
You have followed us from one thread to the next in an attempt to silence us and promote your romanticized version of AA.

[b:d9b17dd07d]Either AA tries to get the courts to send alkies to meetings, or it doesn't.[/b:d9b17dd07d]
It's very simple.
[b:d9b17dd07d]I posted proof, written by AA, that AA deliberately approaches the courts and offers their services as a rehabilitation program to send reprobates to.[/b:d9b17dd07d]

AA [b:d9b17dd07d]is[/b:d9b17dd07d] in charge of whether or not it recieves and accepts [b:d9b17dd07d]involuntary[/b:d9b17dd07d] attendees at meetings.

[b:d9b17dd07d]AA promotes itself to the courts, after all.[/b:d9b17dd07d]
Call it what you like.

Mountains and molehills?

One man's mole hill is another man's reason to start a revolution.

Our forefathers obviously felt that freedom from government-imposed religion was important; hence, it was amended to the constitution.
Our country has chosen to retain it as a right.

Perhaps you are of the opinion that these rights aren't in fact[b:d9b17dd07d] inalienable[/b:d9b17dd07d], but [b:d9b17dd07d]revokable[/b:d9b17dd07d] depending on the circumstances.
After all, how can it possibly hurt to cram religion down the throats of those whom society finds "difficult" to deal with.
What will be next?
Scientology offered by the courts as a cure for mental illness?
Krishna consciousness perhaps?
(Just in case you think I'm being ridiculous, there is a "Krishna farm" mentioned on one of the other threads that has begun to promote itself, in advertisements on the internet, as a "detoxification" program for drug users.)
[b:d9b17dd07d]Fortunately, so far, the courts have upheld 1st amendment rights.[/b:d9b17dd07d]

Perhaps in the future, the religious fanatics will prevail, and we'll all be forced to pledge allegiance to the religious principles you claim to hold so dear.
Your purpose here, "colter", is self-evident; you want everyone to stop saying "negative" things about AA.
You seem to want this forum to be "your way or the highway".
Because you don't have the skill at debate to do so, you have resorted to using every trick in the book to discredit your opponents or [b:d9b17dd07d]drive them off.[/b:d9b17dd07d]
Didn't they teach you in AA that you're not "in control"?
Around here, if you try this at meetings, they ask you "Who do you think [b:d9b17dd07d]you[/b:d9b17dd07d] are, Mr. Sobriety?"

You can try to trivialize our discussion, if you like, because you think it inconsequential, or because you want everyone to agree with you that AA is a sacred program and the salvation of millions, but I assure you that the [b:d9b17dd07d]lawmakers are at present and will be in the future concerned with the issues we have been discussing.

[/b:d9b17dd07d]Language [b:d9b17dd07d]does[/b:d9b17dd07d] matter.

Your flaw, semantically speaking, is gross oversimplication in the service of hubris.

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ughaibu
Upsidedownnewspaper: This isn't about language, it's about the underlying concepts. These are concepts which are group-specific, they are not general, and, as such, adoption of these concepts causes dependence on the organisation (AA) and reduces the member's integration in general society. The question is whether or not it is acceptable for the courts to offer Hobson's choice in the matter, there is no implication that people be prevented from voluntarily joining AA.

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ughaibu
Colter: You appear to be overlooking the fact that membership of AA is not a prerequisite of sobriety.

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It isn't about language...

Language is important...

It's about the courts...

It's about my experience...

It's about predatorial people in society..

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There is a solution
When, therefore, we were approached by
those in whom the problem had been solved, there was nothing left
for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet.
[b:2e894c3b5c]We have found much of Heaven and we have been rocketed into a
fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed[/b:2e894c3b5c].

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A Reading On
"The Reality of Spiritual Experience"

Perhaps you raise the question of hallucination versus the divine imagery of a genuine spiritual experience. I doubt if anyone has authoritatively defined what an hallucination really is.

--From 'As Bill Sees It' page 182

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he Washintonians evolved into a political/temperance movement and collapsed, the Oxford Group was the springboard for AA and is now known as "Moral Rerearament"

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1. I. Group Profile
2.
1. Name:[b:4c201f8304] Moral Re-Armament[/b:4c201f8304]
2.
3. Founder: Frank Nathan Daniel Buchman 1
[b:4c201f8304]The Oxford Group's aims are a new social order under the dictatorship[/color:4c201f8304] of the spirit of God[/b:4c201f8304], making for better human relationships, for unselfish-cooperation, cleaner business and politics, and elimination of political, industrial, and racial antagonisms;27 and that all men in their ordinary professions and in their home should learn to live a life of perfect purity, honesty, and love and that many should join the ministry of the Church.
1. "Buchman's program consisted of personal evangelism with emphasis upon:
2.
1. Both public and private confession of sin, with an emphasis upon sexual sin
2. Reception of divine guidance during quiet time
3. Complete surrender to this guidance
4. The living of a guided life in which every aspect of one's actions, down to the choice of dinner entree, was controlled by God
5. Practice of the Buchmanite four absolutes - purity, honesty, love, and unselfishness
6. Making restitution to those one has harmed
7. Carrying the message to those still defeated"28

IV. Issues and Controversies

Another incident involved Buchman being banned from Princeton University in 1924,32 because[b:4c201f8304] the young Buchmanites were persistently crude in invasions of physical and spiritual privacy, had high-pressured attempts at life-changing, an obsessive and often impertinent harping on sin, especially sexual sin[/color:4c201f8304][/b:4c201f8304], and experiments in Guidance which have sometimes led students to neglect work and cut exams. His obsession with sexual sin is apparent here especially when he told the president of Princeton that 85% of the undergraduates were either sexually perverted or self-abusive.

This problem surfaced once again in the 1950's and 1960's when a book written by Peter Howard, successor to Buchman, said "264 homosexuals were reported to have been purged from the American State Department. Many of them moved to New York and took jobs in the United Nations". Another occasion is when MRA in a 1963 advertisement in the New York Times [b:4c201f8304]attacked sexual deviants in high places who protect potential spies.[/b:4c201f8304] With its obsession, MRA brought more criticism to itself than what it needed.

[b:4c201f8304]One of the biggest issues with MRA was the fabled "Thank heaven for Hitler" remark by Buchman.33 In this interview published in August 26, 1936, Buchman said "I thank heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler[/color:4c201f8304], who built a front line of defense against the anti-Christ of Communism[/b:4c201f8304]...Of course I don't condone everything the Nazis do." [b:4c201f8304]This statement brought criticism to Buchman as a Nazi lover and his statement of Himmler being a great lad got him the label of a pro-Nazi.[/b:4c201f8304] This was the beginning of fall of MRA, due to a slip with the media and MRA inability to participate in an open debate.

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It's a psychotic statement when taken seriously.
Kind of like Urantia's aliens; rocket ships, divine protection only if your motives are pure..........