Gods of Advertising

It’s one of several lines in the Big Book you balked at. There aren’t many mind you. But this one feels religious, not spiritual. God didn’t make this claim. He, She or It wouldn’t. A person did. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Almost every idea, if not word, in Step 2 belies the absolutism of God is or He isn’t.

God, like truth and love, are big ideas – the biggest. But they are still only concepts and therefore open to interpretation and gradation. We must tell people the truth “unless it would injure them or others.” Truth could be parsed. Contradictory statements may both be true. Homicide might be murder or manslaughter, voluntary or involuntary. Which is truer becomes a matter of opinion. Conditional love is still love, is it not? Maybe not pure love but better than no love at all.

The ultimate leap of faith, God remains unprovable. “Coming to believe in a power greater than yourself” is a process, not an outcome. Many people have gotten sober without subscribing to an all or nothing God, including you. Scores have achieved long-term sobriety without God at all.

There is a devout atheist at your gym. You know this because he always wears tee shirts proclaiming his atheism. You’ve counted three different shirts so far. It’s weird. Unsettling. You would feel the same way about someone wearing a worshipful tee shirt. Promoting such a personal belief strikes you as, if not wrong, off putting. That said, one of the atheist’s tee shirts makes you laugh: In the beginning man created God and then all the problems started. Is it funny because it’s true? Maybe. Yet wearing the joke on his sleeve seems inappropriate. Even to you.