An atheistic guide to Steps 3-9

The iron is getting hot.

Worked some Step 4 action over the weekend on a flury of nagging issues that have been bussing in my head for the last while. They became too much for me and I pursued a solution to the suffering by doing some written work on it. Amazing the difference. Profound clarity attained through simply getting those buzzing issues down on paper and having an objective look at them. The resentment, the anger, the hurt, the fear. Write. The cause of said emotions. Write. The instincts in me affected – self-esteem, personal relationships, material security, emotional security, sexual instinct, ambitions. Write. My reaction and defects – jealousy, fear, selfishness, inconsideration, self-seeking, pride. Write.
Then, tonight, I had a chance to read it all through with another person. Read it to him. As a witness, to make it tangible. To make my faults and defects and wrongs in those situations known to another human. It’s simple. It’s therapeutic. It ables me to breakdown the intricacies of my mind and not get wrapped up in it. To observe where I am at error, where I need acceptance, and what solutions I can pursue to solve the problems.

Step 6 suggests, “I am entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.” God. God. God. entirely ready. To have. God. remove. REMOVE. To have God remove. all these defects of character.

How do you do a 6th step if you don’t believe in God?

I’m alright with the becoming willing part. I don’t like these issues. These fears. These resentments. I don’t like them. They cause me pain. Emotional, physical, and spiritual blockages to my wellbeing. I don’t want them and I am very willing and entirely ready to have them go away. That’s the whole reason I pursued this course of action in the first place. Cause I couldn’t deal with the pain. But here’s the kicker: “to have God remove…”

• But first I need to backup to step 3 which suggested I “made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understood him.” I can’t deal with the literal Christian colloquialisms in that phraseology, so I interpret that as saying I “made a decision to take the action necessary to bring about change.” The action necessary is the rest of the steps. Okay, on we go…

I did step 4. I did step 5, naturally skipping the part where it says “admitting to God our defects” cause there is no God, and to admit through prayer to God would be to admit to myself which I’ve already done by admitting to another human. No problem. Feel great. So, I’ve ommitted God from the equation until I hit step 6 when it mentions God again. Maybe I need to make something clear. I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe in an eternal, intelligent creator of the universe, or an omnipresent ‘being’ and especially not the dogma of the Christian God referred to in these steps. I don’t believe in God. I believe in personal responsibilty for all actions, thoughts and emotions and it is our responsibilty as members of a godless world to get our own shit straight and stop praying to a God that isn’t listening cause her or it doesn’t exist. Sure, I have defects. Sure, I’m entirely ready to have them go away. But there ain’t no God who’s gonna just come and do the dirty work for me and fix everything just cause I ask him to. I think what step 6 should say is “We became willing to remove our defects.”

The crux of the step 6 is to become willing to not be suffering anymore from our affected instincts. And to do that I don’t need God. I need to take action. And action is what Steps 7-9 are about.

Step 7, again is again a reference to God: “Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.” It’s no wonder people such as myself who are not the least bit fond of the idea of God have a hard time with these steps. They are so dogmatic it’s hard to see what the point is. Like I already said, God is not going to remove our shortcomings. That is our responsibilty, to take action to remove them: In instances where my suffering is caused by be hurting others, through rectifying my actions. In cases where I am inconsiderate and selfish, having compassion for those people. In cases where I am jealous, have gratitude. In cases where I am fearful, free myself from the bondage of fear which in the moment does not exist but only exists in thought of the future and memories of the past. And that is my course of action to bring about change.

So then what about the aftermath of my defects? What about the people I harmed through my unweildy actions and attitudes? I need to make amends, and that is what Step 8 and 9 are about. Step 8 is just a list of people we harmed and how we harmed them. This list is derived directly from those people on the step 4 list. Once the list is made, it’s on to Step 9 where the amends are actually made. Amends come in two varieties: Ones that need to be made externally and ones that need to be made internally. External amends are things like financial amends, verbal amends made to others for our harsh behaviours which we are now amending internally. Internal amends are living amends – changes in the way we live. I used to steal people’s money, it caused be suffering in the end and I made internal amends by ceasing to steal people’s money. An external amend will also need to follow – repaying that which I took. It’s important to right the wrongs of the past, but more important to ensure we don’t keep repeating those wrongs.

Here’s my summary, the original steps 3-9 and my altered steps to accomodate my godless condition:

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all people 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.