No man, we saw, could believe in God and defy him, too. Belief meant reliance, not defiance.
Defiance is an outstanding characteristic of alcoholics. (Editor's Note: I love the use of the word "outstanding." It almost sounds like we're praising our defiance. "Good job, Seaweed. Outstanding defiance.")
Much to our relief, we discovered we did not need to consider another’s conception of God.
Reliance: Confident or trustful dependence.
Defiance: Bold disobedience; open defiance.
We do talk a lot about God. We do allow everyone to come up with a Higher Power in whatever shape, guise, or form that makes sense to them. We do make it hard to argue about why it's impossible to come up with a working Higher Power. We are irritating as hell a lot of the time.
In belaboring the sins of some religious people, we could feel superior to all of them. Moreover, we could avoid looking at some of our own shortcomings. This, of course, is the process by which instinct and logic always seek to bolster egotism, and so frustrate spiritual development.
We saw them meet and transcend their other pains and trials. We saw them calmly accept impossible situations, seeking neither to run or recriminate.
There are many, many references in the literature to our tendency to lump people into overly broad categories, to stereotype them. In any group you're going to find people in the middle and people lurking on the dark edges. If you want to find a reason to reject something you'll find a reason. The task is to find the good and set aside the bad, whatever your definitions of those categories might be. Quit focusing on the negative and start accentuating the positive. Which is a song, I think.
Knowledge was all-powerful. Intellect could conquer nature. Since we were brighter than most folks (so we thought) we could float above other people on our intellect alone.
The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success.
How persistently we claim the right to decide all by ourselves just what we shall think and just how we shall act. We are certain that our intelligence, backed by willpower, can rightly control our inner lives and guarantee success in the world we live in. This philosophy of self-sufficiency is not paying off. Plainly enough, it is a bone-crushing juggernaut whose final achievement is ruin.
Bone-crushing: Powerful or constricting enough to crush one's bones; extremely painful, troublesome, or costly.
Juggernaut: A massive inexorable force that crushes anything in it's path; a force considered to be merciless, destructive, and unstoppable.
Ruin: The state of disintigrating or being destroyed.
Lots of very smart people never get sober. Lots of people who have achieved a lot in the physical, material sense by working hard and applying their will in a fearsome boa constrictor death grip never get sober. Lots of people who are too smart and too willful die of their disease. No one too dumb to get it.
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