Philip897

Over the years, when I've said that I don't believe in God, people have usually said that it "can be anything I want it to be" or "of my understanding".

To my way of thinking this just doesn't make sense. What do people here think?

I can't say a "chicken of my understanding” is an "airplane". That is because "chicken" has a meaning and a definition. If I look up "chicken" in a dictionary, there is no way that I can twist the definition to mean an "airplane". If I said, "Look at the chicken of my understanding, in the sky, flying to China with 500 people in it", that would be nonsense.

If I look up "God" in a dictionary, it will say something like, "Creator of the universe, Supreme Being, usually worshiped". So, a "God of my understanding" could be a Christian God, a Hindu God, an Islamic God, an ancient Egyptian God, etc.

However, it couldn't be "good, orderly direction" because that doesn't fit in with the dictionary definition.

Just putting "of my understanding" at the end of a word, doesn't mean we can change the word into something else completely.

If language means anything it is that we have shared definitions and grammar. Otherwise we would never understand each other.

I can work the Third Step by changing the wording, (for example, using Higher Power instead of God). That's not what I'm asking. I'm asking how can "God of my understanding" be anything else than some type of God?

awuh1

Yes, this reasoning works with things you can hear, see and feel like chickens and airplanes.

Lets take an example of something that cannot be seen, and let me start off by asking; what is your understanding of a neutrino?

Not much of an understanding you say? Well then, you’re just like me. In fact before about 1930 nobody had any conception of what this sub atomic particle was. Wolfgang Pauli proposed it’s existence in order to predict certain phenomenon that physicists of that time were observing. No prominent physicist had ever been bold enough to predict the existence of a new particle, but twenty six years later neutrinos were detected in the laboratory. They turned out to be essential to our understanding of the structure of matter.

My only point is to suggest that it can make sense to talk about some things that cannot (yet) be proven to exist.

So now you have a neutrino of your own understanding.

Boleo

My latest understanding of "Higher Power" is any power/tool/perspective that helps me grow spiritually. That includes many things - some of which are things not explainable in the material world.

Philip897

Dear awuh1 and Boleo,

Thank you very much for your contributions. However, they don't quite address my seeking to find out if it is possible to have a "God on my understanding" which isn't "God" and still makes sense.

Sure, a Higher Power is easy. Anything that is more powerful than me and higher spiritually fits. But the third step specifically says, "God", not "Higher Power".

I don't quite see how the example of a neutrino helps. Are you trying to say that there is a God being but I just can't see it? Unfortunately, I'm an unbeliever in Gods (I wish I wasn't, it would make life so much easier).

I can't see a neutrino but I have an understanding of it because physics theory uses it successfully to explain stuff in the real world.

I can't see God and I don't have an understanding of it because it appears to be a purely human invention.

So, I'm still trying to find out if anyone has a "God of their understanding", which isn't a "God".

awuh1

The question does not make sense. You want to know if someone has something they do not have? You are looking for something that exists and does not exist at the same time?
I'm afraid I need to quote (and agree with) that portion of your IP below



It seems you cannot accept a dictionary definition of God. Personally, neither do I. I don't hold Merriam Webster to be an authority on the meaning of that particular word, just a reporter on its common usage.

Johnston

A chicken of your understanding can in fact be an airplane if it provides you what you need, i.e. airborne transport from one place to another. An airplane will likely do the job better, albeit without the bonus eggs.

Boleo

The Tao that can be talked about is not the true “Tao”. Tao cannot be represented as a particular entity, thing or image. The Tao can be transmitted but it cannot be received. Tao is not directly translatable to “God”. Any word which we can define is not “the” Tao. The concept of a personified deity is foreign to a Taoist, as is the concept of the creation of the universe. Time is cyclical, not linear as in Western thinking. Tao is unknowable in “essence” but observable in “manifestations”. The Tao belongs neither to knowing or not knowing. It is paradoxically “nothing”, yet it is “in everything”. It is the “NoThing” that surrounds everything and gives “Things” form.
How can it be described? "Thirty spokes on a cart wheel go towards the hub that is the center — but look, there is nothing at the center, and that is precisely how it works!" Tao is explained as being the “nothing” within all things. The Tao does nothing — yet nothing is left undone.
Translated literally Tao means "stillness and movement". However this is just the virtual Tao which is itself a paradox. Everything is explained as being full of contradiction — for life there is death, for happiness there is sorrow; when one exists its opposite also exists — the Tao encompasses the contradictions and at the same time supersedes them. Opposite and contradictory aspects (yin/yang) are present in all things.
The Tao, in the broadest sense, is the “way” the universe functions, or the “path” taken by natural events. Tao is the first-cause of the universe as opposed to the creator of it. It is characterized by spontaneous creativity and by repetitious cyclical alternations of phenomena (such as day following night) that proceed without effort. Effortless action (wu wei) may be illustrated by the conduct of water, which unresistingly accepts the lowest level and yet wears away the hardest substance. As the Tao operates without prejudice in the universe, so should mankind disavow assertive, biased or purposive action. The Taoist life is not, however, a life of total inactivity. It is rather a life of unbiased action (wu-wei).
Much of the essence of Tao is in the art of “wu wei” (action through inaction). Non-forceful, going with the grain or flexing with the wind. This does not mean, "sit on your ass and wait for everything to fall into your lap." What it really means is a practice of minimal harmonious action. It is the practice of going against the stream not by struggling but by standing still and letting the stream carry you forward. Water nourishes everything yet strives at nothing.
Taoism is based on the recognition that the reality as perceived is included within but not comprehensive of the Tao (a tree is not made of wood, a tree is wood). So long as there is a notion of ourselves as something different from the Tao, all kinds of tensions build up between “self” on the one hand and real world “experiences” on the other. Cultures which limit the definition of self to the facility of consciousness, attribute unconscious workings to an external God. To label the Tao as an unconscious energy is as much off the point as to conceive of it as a personal ruler, such as God. Tao often goes unnoticed because the true Tao wishes to remain anonymous.

bigsombrero

I hear what you're saying. You'll try and explain that the analogy doesn't work, and then people will inevitably say:

No, no no! It's a god of your understaaannnding. Then again, with raised eyebrows: yooouuuur understanding. They say it just like that, for effect. And then, of course, you are expected to say "ooooh" and "ahhhaa" because that's what everyone else does, and it's the whole Emperor Is Wearing No Clothes thing all over again.

In short, I agree with what you're saying. There is no "God of my understanding" just like there is no "Raisin-eared shower scarf of my understanding". Believers can't or won't understand why it doesn't make sense, and for one reason or another aren't interested in grasping the concept. Or can't. Or have tried, and for one reason or another it's not a philosophy that they like.

Getting frustrated with them, alas, doesn't help things.

But if it helps you, I get it. And I'm sober, and doing just fine. Hope you are too.

mfanch

Maybe that dictionary is the problem.

By that I mean that Bill W., in many talks that he gave, talked about this very issue. Yes, the 3rd step states "God as you understand HIM". (a MALE god, no less!!!) However, a Higher Power is perfectly suited to the purposes of step 3. Bill also says that "every AA has the privilege of interpreting the program as he likes". (Letter ,1949 and also in ABSI, page 16)

This non-theist has had a spiritual awakening as the result of the steps. When I was on 3, it said "as I understand..." and I did not understand AT ALL. BUT, step 3 was a decision to work the rest of the steps, not do it all right then. It was later in the steps that I learned how to take step 3 (and I actually took it at the end of 6....see last sentence of that step in the 12+12...") So at the time, god was the infinite universe, so that is what I went with. Supreme God and Deity is/was irrelevant. It was just my brain over-analyzing.

Oh, and I don't want to forget literal vs. contextual meaning. What does the step MEAN. Well, it means that *I* am not longer playing queen of the universe. It is about the decision to tamp down the ego.

fini

yes, if step 3 spoke of a higher power, it would be more easily accessible.
however, as to the rest of what you say: i agree that a chicken of your understanding cannot be an airplane. the reason for that is that we know what a chicken is and we know what an airplane is, and they are entirely different things though they both have wings.

God...we don't know "what" that is, dictionary notwithstanding. the dictionary's definitions you quote seem basically just like synonyms for the same unknown. 'supreme being' says nothing i couldn't argue about
a million books out there about what/who/how god is and, more significantly, what god isn't.
there is no way of knowing, regardless whether "he exists" or not.

I'm asking how can "God of my understanding" be anything else than some type of God?
good question.
and though i myself get tied up in knots about this step just thinking about it, i'll suggest you not get tied up in knots about this. i agree that 'higher power' is not synonymous with 'some type of god', but i'll have to add that i've spent years now looking at my outdated from-childhood-upbringing simplistic god-concept and have delved quite a bit into theological book-excursions in the last few years.

if you can turn your will and life over to the care of a higher power, why not just go for that? so says the person who seems to have nothing but resistance to that very suggestion!

fini

okay, so, let me add that a god of my understanding cannot exist/be.
i say that because 'God' is beyond understanding. anything i could label 'god of my understanding' would be...uh...an inkling of 'something' OTHER, non-comprehensible.

PaperDolls

The God of my understanding doesn't fit the definition in the dictionary. So yes, it's possible ..... If you want it to be.

Sent from my iPhone using SoberRecovery

Raider

Philip, I struggle with a lot if things with my addiction. God is not one of them. Since aa is supposed to be spiritual and not religious, I guess you have to come up with something. I don't know. Maybe stop struggling with the word, and move on with the step if you can. Good luck to you.

BackToSquareOne

There are many things beyond the realm of human understanding. It's kind of like telling your cat to go build you a computer, he probably would lack the understanding.

The planet and human race is like a speck of dust in the universe. Science does not suggest we are all that there is, it just does not accept as fact that which can not be proven. What does this have to do with the original post, I have no idea.

Boleo

Fini

That makes no sense. Keep up the good work and you will be a Zen master one day.

tomsteve

the simpler ya make it the easier it will be.


look at what yer questioning: believing.
its as simple as either ya do or ya don't.

Threshold

Here is the wording of Step 3 from a 12 step called "Addiction Alchemy"

I am committed to seek the Truth in all things in order to restore my connection with my center and to reconnect my Will with that of my highest purpose.

I think that wording might be more comfortable for some secular 12 steppers.

Truth as a HP...it's true that I could not use anymore. It's true that there are principles to live by that will help my life be manageable. It's true that I had "lost" connection to myself and was running around like a chicken with it's head cut off, and to restore connection to myself brought a lot of sanity with it.

anyway, just a thought that might be useful to someone

Boleo

"The Truth is something so noble that if God were to step aside from it, I would grab hold of Truth and let go of God."

(Meister Eckhart)

PaperDolls

There's also this:

Agnostic AA 12 Steps

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe and to accept that we needed strengths beyond our awareness and resources to restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to entrust our will and our lives to the care of the collective wisdom and resources of those who have searched before us.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to ourselves without reservation, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were ready to accept help in letting go of all our defects of character.
7. With humility and openness sought to eliminate our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through meditation to improve our spiritual awareness and our understanding of the AA way of life and to discover the power to carry out that way of life.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

source: AA Agnostics

Zencat

With the freedom to "understand" or as I do "interpret" the meaning of God, the sky is the limit. As a non-believer I see God and Good to be the same. I can align my will and give my life over to the care of reaching my Higher Potential (HP) by way of practicing a greater "Good" for all. The other steps can help with that as well.

What step 3 boils down to me is; Do what is helpful, Let-go of what is harmful.